Conservationists lacking in N.C. legislature, group says

And this year's winner of the N.C. Wildlife Federation's Legislator of the Year award is: Nobody.

For the first time in the 49-year history of its conservation achievement awards program, the Charlotte-based federation found no lawmaker worth honoring.

"These awards are the highest conservation honors in North Carolina, yet in the wake of one of the most wildlife- and environmentally-hostile General Assembly sessions of the last half-century, no legislator was singled out for heroic effort," the venerable group says.

The Republican-controlled legislature rolled back or seriously weakened "decades of common-sense protections and new ideas about sustainable energy development," the federation says. "Fundamental assumptions about science and economics were dismissed during the vicious acts of gutting regulations that protect clean air, clean water and the lands used for farming, timber harvest and outdoor recreation."

Legislators this year approved the controversial drilling practice of "fracking" for natural gas, which the federation says could hurt groundwater and wildlife habitat. Lawmakers also debated, but later softened, a measure that prohibited use of scientific models that show rates of sea-level rise accelerating as oceans warm and glaciers melt due to climate change.  

The federation will honor other winners of its annual conservation awards on Sept. 8.