THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 21, 1997 TAG: 9701210211
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 41 lines
When the 1997 General Assembly convenes at the end of the month, a $75 million bill to bring natural gas to Northeastern North Carolina will be included in $7 billion worth of utilities legislation covering water and sewer improvements across the state.
``The amended natural gas legislation is now being written in Raleigh,'' said Rep. W.C. ``Bill'' Owens Jr., D-Pasquotank, who sponsored the gas provision at a Wilmington meeting last Friday of the North Carolina Economic Development Commission.
Owens, vice chairman of the state economic panel, is a veteran Pasquotank County commissioner who has been pelted with local requests for natural gas.
In recent years, several Albemarle economic development agencies have urged that natural gas be piped into the Albemarle area - one of the few sections of the state where it is not available as an industrial fuel.
The Wilmington meeting was attended by S. Davis Phillips, who resigned as secretary of commerce last week and immediately assumed the chairmanship of the State Economic Development Commission.
``When we met in Wilmington, we had that multibillion-dollar bill containing statewide water and sewer improvements and Secretary Phillips agreed that it would be logical to put the natural gas money in, too,'' Owens said Monday.
The $75 million natural gas budget item recommended by Phillips and Owens would be matching money for utilities that agree to build pipelines into the Northeast.
In recent years, natural gas for the Albemarle has been increasingly urged by planners as a needed growth factor in the area.
``There's no doubt that gas would help business and industry,'' Owenssaid, ``and this seems to be the sentiment of the legislature.''
Owens is on several key committees of the General Assembly and is known for powerful political connections in Raleigh, as well as in the Albemarle. His interest in the natural gas bill is expected to at least get it out of committee and onto the House floor soon after the legislature goes into session Jan. 29