North Carolina’s legislators are claiming to promote common sense while confronting the threat of rising ocean levels along the state’s coast. The Senate committee on Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources unanimously passed House Bill 819 to the senate floor June 7. The controversial bill stipulates that predictions of sea-level rise must reflect historic trends. For the past decade, several climate experts have predicted...

North Carolina has yet again come to national attention. In the June 4 episode of The Colbert Report, host Stephen Colbert satirically described Replacement House Bill 819, which rejects sea level rise predictions by the Coastal Resources Commission’s Science Panel.