During the race for State Senate District 7, which covers most of New Hanover County, Republican incumbent Michael Lee has faced criticism from his Democratic challenger, Jessica Bichler, as well as several outside groups, about his track record on Duke Energy and PFAS pollution. Lee’s campaign has vigorously disputed many of the claims.
An attorney for Lee’s campaign issued a cease-and-desist letter to Majority Rising NC, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization that's funded ads attacking his record on regulation, including PFAS pollution from Chemours and rate issues related to Duke Energy. In a statement, Majority Rising’s executive director Ian Shannon told WHQR they had no intention of cancelling the ad. According to reporting from The Carolina Journal, Lee’s attorney also sent ‘take down’ letters to TV stations running the ad, but it appears Majority Rising’s ads have, so far, only run on digital platforms. Lee’s attorney and Bichler’s campaign confirmed Lee hasn’t sent a cease-and-desist to Bichler.
Lee has also hired Woody White, an attorney and influential conservative, to investigate life-sized cardboard cuts and murals criticizing Lee and claiming he “backed polluters.” White claims the group claiming responsibility for the ads, Clean Politics, Clean Water NC, has broken multiple laws. The organization does not appear in state or federal databases of campaign finance or non-profit organizations. The group hired DC-based PR firm Kay Communications to serve as a spokesperson, which told WHQR it was ‘funded by a 501(c)(4)’ rather than a non-profit itself. The spokesperson has not answered WHQR’s follow-up questions about the group, but defended the legality of its actions to Port City Daily, saying the organization was recently founded.
Other criticism has come from environmental advocates, including Clean Cape Fear, which took issue with the lack of state laws setting numerical limits for PFAS discharges or holding polluters financially responsible for the cleanup costs of that pollution.
While a full accounting of what has — and hasn’t — been done to address PFAS would require more time than is left before the 2026 election, WHQR focused on some of the most frequently repeated claims that have appeared in recent campaign ads.
Claim: Michael Lee took money from major corporations.
The most pointed version of this claim came from Clean Politics, Clean Water NC, which issued a statement claiming Lee took “tens of thousands from Chemours and its backers.” The first part is demonstrably false: there’s no record of any campaign donations to Lee from Chemours (or associated companies like DuPont or Corteva).
“Backers” might be more open to interpretation. Over the years, Lee has received $13,000 from the North Carolina Chamber PAC. The state chamber of commerce is one of the most influential groups in Raleigh, and has opposed PFAS regulation, including bills sponsored by Democratic representative Deb Butler and Republican representative Ted Davis, Jr. It has pushed back against the Department of Environmental Quality’s efforts to set the numerical standards it wanted to. The Chamber lobbies for regulating at the “highest safe dose,” arguing that “the lower the level, the higher the cost of compliance.”
Lee has also received over $29,000 from Duke Energy’s PAC, and opponents have linked that to legislation he’s sponsored or voted for.
Lee told WHQR his votes concerning Duke were “on the policy,” and not influenced by Duke’s PAC.
“On contributions, they were from the employees of Duke Energy through their non-partisan committee — and they give to elected officials from both parties. Carolina Public Press found that about 60 percent of current legislators have accepted these contributions from Duke employees, and the top recipient now serving is a Senate Democrat (Senator Dan Blue),” Lee wrote ot WHQR.
Reporting from Carolina Public Press confirmed Blue was the top lifetime recipient, with over $70,000 in donations, followed closely by Republican State Senator Bill Rabon, with around $61,000.
At a candidates' forum, Lee responded to a question about the influence of lobbyists, industry groups, and the state chamber.
“It is unbelievable to think that someone could say that some lobbyist somewhere is going to influence what our standards are. It really is,” he said.
Claim: Lee voted to allow policy changes that will increase costs for Duke customers.
Opponents point to SB266, passed last year as the Power Bill Reduction Act after Republicans overrode Democratic Governor Josh Stein’s veto. The law made several changes to the regulatory policy, including shifting the cost burden for third-party energy purchased by Duke and removing an interim climate goal.
The law removes a 2030 mandate to cut carbon emissions by 70%, leaving intact a 2050 net zero goal. Republican lawmakers and supporters of the bill argued that this would allow Duke to reach its long-range goal without front-loading costs for new energy development before the steep 2030 goal, saving money. The bill also encourages the development of nuclear power.
Opponents point to other impacts of the bill that actually drive up costs.
Lee noted he was not a sponsor of the bill, but voted for it because “North Carolina needs reliable, affordable electricity.”
“The law keeps the 2050 carbon-neutrality requirement but lets the Utilities Commission time new generation to when power is actually needed, rather than rushing construction to meet an interim deadline. The Public Staff (the state's independent ratepayer advocate) at the Utilities Commission modeled about $13 billion in present-value customer savings through 2050 from that change,” Lee said.
Proponents argued those savings could actually be as high as $15 billion, according to The Carolina Journal.
Opponents argue that removing the 2030 goal will mean an increased reliance on natural gas over the next two decades, exposing customers to fuel volatility costs. Research from experts at Duke University and NC State found natural gas generation would increase by nearly 40%. If gas prices follow a high trajectory, that would increase costs by $23 billion by 2050, compared to costs with the interim goal in place; a more moderate forecast would increase costs by $13.7 billion.
Notably, both sides could be right: slowing down the pace of Duke’s carbon plan could save customers money on infrastructure and facility costs, while also exposing them to higher natural gas costs.
Another aspect of SB266 is changing who pays for energy that Duke purchases to support the power grid, including in-state solar and other out-of-state energy sources.
“On cost allocation, SB 266 assigns purchased-power costs based on each customer class's contribution to peak demand, because peak demand is what drives the cost of having enough power available,” Lee told WHQR. “The Public Staff estimated the household allocation change at about 66 cents a month (or $7.89 a year). While the Utilities Commission approves and denies utility rates in public proceedings, my job is to manage the policy that ensures that North Carolinians have access to reliable power at the least cost available.”
Reporting from WUNC cited an analysis from the Environmental Defense Fund, which found the law would shift $87 million in annual payments from commercial and industrial users to residential customers, compared to the more moderate $24.8 million annual increase estimated by the Public Staff. The EDF looked at annual data while Public Staff looked at monthly updates, according to WUNC; while their numbers diverge, they both agree residential customers will pay more.
Critics have also pointed to language in SB261, a bill supported by Lee that didn’t make it through the House, which made it through to SB266 in a modified form. The law lets Duke frontload construction costs for new power plants, with restrictions. Several Democrats have claimed that Lee supported a bill that would “let Duke charge you for power plants that haven’t been built yet.”
“I supported and voted for SB 261. It passed the Senate with bipartisan support, 31-12, but the House didn't take it up, so it never became law. The goal was to lower the total cost of new power plants. Paying financing costs during construction avoids years of interest piling up on the final bill. That's why it applied only if the Utilities Commission first found an overall cost savings for customers over the life of the plant, and only on spending the Commission had reviewed and found prudent,” Lee wrote to WHQR.
WUNC’s reporting backs that up, finding, “The Utilities Commission could only approve a rate increase in those cases if it deems ratepayers will ultimately save money from it.”
Critics have asked whether construction-cost increases could be recouped if plants are abandoned – and whether there will be sufficient transparency around proposed rate hikes.
Claim: Lee hasn’t commented on the EPA’s PFAS deal with Chemours.
Earlier this year, the EPA reached a deal with Chemours and West Virginia over PFAS pollution, which offered roughly $90 million across three states, including North Carolina. No concrete financial promises were made to North Carolina, and while some money is likely to come to the state, it’s expected to be a small amount. The proceedings excluded North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, a Democrat, who described the agreement as an “insulting” back-room deal.
Lee’s critics have tied him, as a Republican, to the Trump administration’s EPA actions, including this deal (and also proposals to roll back limits of PFAS, which is a much longer story).
Lee said he agreed with objections from Jackson – along with Governor Josh Stein and the state’s Department of Environmental Quality.
“They objected because North Carolina was left out, and I agree with them. The state then secured its own settlement, which the Attorney General announced at about $600 million, with most of the money going to local communities. Of the $75 million allocated to the state, roughly $55 million will flow into the “Emerging Contaminant Mitigation Fund” I created in the Water Safety Act. This will add to the $45 million we already appropriated in the budget for the Fund,” Lee told WHQR.
Lee noted that “New Hanover County isn't made whole yet,” pointing at the over $90 million spent by CFPUA customers to fund filtration technology to deal with PFAS pollution.
“I fully support CFPUA pursuing its lawsuit until Chemours and DuPont pay what they owe. Ratepayers should not be stuck with that bill. That's why I've written a Water Safety Act every term since GenX was discovered,” Lee wrote.
Critics have noted that, until recently, Lee’s Water Safety Act bills have not included numerical limits on PFAS discharge – and that efforts by his Republican colleague in the House, Ted Davis, Jr., to hold Chemours directly financially responsible have not been successful.
Claim: Lee voted for legislation setting a higher bar for passing regulations.
Critics point to HB402, passed last year, as the REINS Act, as potentially stalling “urgently needed responses to emerging and growing environmental and public health threats,” according to North Carolina Health News.
The law requires any new regulation with $1 million or more in projected financial impact over five years to be approved by a two-thirds majority of whatever regulatory agency or body is responsible for the issue. For issues with a projected impact over $10 million, unanimous approval by that regulatory body is required. And if the projected impact is $20 million or more, the new regulation must get General Assembly approval.
Lee provided an example: “The Building Code Council is a ‘council,’ so HB402's voting thresholds apply to it directly, and its rules flow straight into the price of every new home. A code change that adds $500 to each new house crosses the $20 million threshold once it applies to 40,000 homes over five years. That's well within a normal five-year building volume statewide. Under HB402, a change like that now needs a recorded vote by elected legislators instead of being decided by an appointed council.”
Lee noted that the REINS Act was part of a nationwide regulatory reform effort. It’s been heavily supported (and celebrated) by Americans for Prosperity, the conservative free-market group founded by the Koch brothers, which notes that at least ten states have fully enacted REINS legislation, with five more partially enacting similar laws.
Lee said HB402 was “not legislation specifically targeting PFAS or environmental regulations,” and noted that it “does not eliminate North Carolina's authority to adopt temporary or emergency rules (especially those to address threats to public health or safety).” Temporary or emergency rules ultimately require permanent rules to replace them.
The law also exempts regulations required by federal law, including the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), the EPA program for regulating wastewater discharges under the 1972 Clean Water Act; permitting authority was delegated to the state in 1975.
Critics, including Stein, the Sierra Club, and the Southern Environmental Law Center, have noted that the law would likely require 2/3rds or unanimous votes from the Environmental Management Commission, the state’s rulemaking body for air and water quality. The EMC has been increasingly opposed to industry regulation, especially since a 2023 law that gave more appointments to the 15-member body to the legislature than the governor.
The typically apolitical Cape Fear Public Utility Authority (CFPUA) also voiced frustration with the law, telling Carolina Public Press, “We are disappointed to see HB402 become law, which will now make it harder for North Carolina’s water utilities to successfully advocate for regulatory standards on contaminants like PFAS and 1,4-Dioxane.”
Claim: Early on, Lee sided with polluters and supported weakened legislation.
This claim has taken many forms, including the Majority Rising NC advertisement, which argues, "Senator Michael Lee had a chance to help. Instead, he sided with corporate polluters and their lobbyists.”
That ad, and many critics, point to the 2018 state budget, which included a legislative response to PFAS. This was one year after StarNews’s reporting, which introduced most people to GenX and the issue of PFAS in the Cape Fear region.
A little backstory: Leading up to the 2018 budget, Lee filed SB724, proposing “nontargeted” testing for PFAS, but also any other contaminants, including 1,4-dioxane, organic halogens (like solvents, dyes, vinyl chloride, etc.), pharmaceuticals, and other pollutants. This proposal faced aggressive pushback from the North Carolina Manufacturing Alliance, which includes dozens of companies, including Chemours.
Infamously, WRAL reported that the head of the alliance, Preston Howard, wrote to state legislators asking them not to “open a Pandora’s box.” Howard, the former head of DEQ’s Division of Water Quality, told lawmakers that broad tests would "almost assuredly reveal that there are many, many chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and other consumer products in those water supplies.”
Ultimately, the Alliance got the three changes it pushed for, including limited testing, less strenuous reporting, and removing references to a “health goal” for GenX.
The incident became shorthand for industrial capture and the frustrations about the influence of lobbyists and industry groups over the state’s response to GenX and PFAS.
For his part, Lee denied being influenced during his role in the process.
“I never met with, talked to, or requested input from any chemical manufacturer or their lobbyists on the Water Safety Act. That includes Chemours. I can only speak for myself, but here's what happened: I filed the bill with language I had agreed on with House leadership. I wasn't in Senate leadership at the time, and the final budget was negotiated at the leadership level. In those negotiations, House leadership at the time changed its position, and the program was narrowed to focus on PFAS (GenX and related compounds),” Lee wrote to WHQR.
The budget did create a consortium of experts working on PFAS chemicals, known first as the PFAS Testing Network (it rebranded as the PFAS Research Network this year). Lee has long argued for the importance of PFAS research, and cited the 2018 opinion piece in StarNews from Dr. Lee Ferguson at Duke University. Ferguson, a top PFAS researcher who helped lead the state-funded efforts, argued at the time that, “even as modified, the monitoring network as established is, without question, the most sophisticated and comprehensive emerging-pollutant monitoring program for water in the United States.”
Eight years later, Ferguson acknowledged the impact of the Alliance and industry pressure on the legislation, but also said it had allowed researchers to focus on PFAS specifically.
“That was a real issue at the time. I think that, while that hampered our ability to look for emerging contaminants just writ large in the drinking water, because if you recall, that was basically when we were doing the initial statewide drinking water survey, what it did allow us to do is focus very strongly on PFAS,” Ferguson told WHQR. “With hindsight, I wouldn't say it was a fortunate situation, but it certainly gave us focus, and it has led us here.”
Claim: Lee hasn’t taken meaningful action to stop pollution or hold polluters financially accountable.
This is the broadest and most general criticism of Lee, and it hinges on both the scientific and bureaucratic processes behind rulemaking and holding polluters accountable. There’s also a distinct difference between the current process of regulating Chemours and punishing the company when it breaks its agreements, and the larger challenge of regulating PFAS statewide. There’s also a deeper philosophical divide between two approaches to regulation – one which puts the onus on rulemakers (and the public) to prove specific pollutants are dangerous, and another which puts the burden on manufacturers to prove the material they’re discharging into the water or air is safe.
Critics have long called for numerical limits — or an outright ban — on PFAS. During this campaign cycle, the advocacy group Clean Cape Fear has criticized both Lee and Senator Bill Rabon, who represents Brunswick and Columbus counties (and a small ‘notch’ of downtown Wilmington which was gerrymandered out of Lee’s district), over the repeated failure of standalone PFAS regulatory bills to pass.
Lee noted that there are specific limits on Chemours, both through the NCDEQ permitting process and under the 2018-2019 consent order between Chemours’ Fayetteville Works Facility and NCDEQ and Cape Fear River Watch.
“Numeric limits are in force through permitting (NPDES permit process). In its permit, Chemours is held to drinking-water levels for its GenX discharge: under 10 ppt, the same level the Biden administration adopted for tap water. The same permit also caps two related PFAS compounds, PMPA at 10 ppt and PFMOAA at under 20 ppt, and requires 99% removal,” Lee wrote.
He added, “Most companies aren’t held to drinking-water levels for their discharge, because the water is diluted in the river and treated again downstream at a utility like the CFPUA. Chemours’s air permit caps its GenX emissions at a 99% reduction from 2017 levels, and a court-enforced consent order requires 99.99% control of PFAS at the plant. The state has fined Chemours when it broke those limits.”
Lee called creating statewide standards “a different job.”
“They have to rest on solid science that holds up in court, or they get thrown out and we lose years. So we built the research to lead directly to action,” Lee said.
“The 2018 Water Safety Act required scientists to recommend steps for regulators to take, and their testing found contamination no one knew about, like Maysville’s drinking water well,” Lee said, a reference to PFAS contamination discovered in the small Jones County town in 2019 by the PFAS Testing Network.
Lee’s critics, including Clean Cape Fear, have pointed to the significant funding Lee has dedicated to PFAS research as opposed to regulators.
Ferguson said better tools for understanding, and testing for, PFAS were crucial — especially for PFAS beyond the few that the EPA has identified for numerical limits. He said that using the EPA’s standard methods for monitoring misses many chemicals.
“In some cases we miss over 99% of the PFAS that was discharged into that waste. I mean, it's a shocking number,” Ferguson said.
That’s important, Ferguson said, because those overlooked PFAS – which he referred to as “dark matter PFAS” – serve as ‘precursors.’ Those are chemicals that degrade during water treatment and become some of the more well-known PFAS chemicals that experts have been concerned about; in essence, water treatment plants can see more of those specific chemicals going out than coming in, because of how these precursors behave.
Nine years after the wider public became aware of GenX, and then PFAS, in the Cape Fear water supply, criticism is often leveled at the slow pace of progress. After six years, the Biden Administration EPA passed standards – though critics noted they put the onus of filtration on public water utilities, not polluters. And while, at the time, the EPA said federal funding would help those utilities afford necessary filtration updates, industry advocates and utilities, including CFPUA, told WHQR they feared that ratepayers would ultimately foot the bill.
In 2025 and 2026, Lee has filed bills with explicit maximum contaminant levels for a select group of PFAS.
“This year’s Water Safety Act requires a statewide study of PFAS discharges, with recommendations for cutting PFAS at the source,” Lee added.
But, while other parts of Lee’s language have made it into law, the PFAS limits have not.
In this year’s candidate questionnaire, Lee acknowledged that the Trump EPA has proposed rescinding some limits and pushing back compliance deadlines on others.
“If Washington will not set an enforceable limit on a compound discharged into our drinking water supply, North Carolina should set its own,” Lee said.
Unlike 2018, Lee is now part of Republican leadership, currently serving as Senate Majority Leader and a top candidate to replace Phil Berger as Senate President Pro Tem. Critics have seized on that, noting that he should be able to get legislation passed.
Asked about the timeline, Ferguson said he understood the “desire for things to happen immediately in cases where there’s risk of exposure to a toxic chemical, and I agree,” though he said North Carolina was “one of the more progressive states with respect to what’s been done to understand PFAS exposure and try and mitigate it.”
In terms of calls for Lee and North Carolina Republicans to ban all PFAS, Ferguson said, “would that it were that simple.”
He described the difficulties in defining PFAS in a way that, as Lee suggested, would stand up to opposition. That’s especially true, he said, for precursors.
“What do we call PFAS? Are those precursors, for example – that are of my most concern – would those fall within the definition of PFAS by whatever regulation was instituted? From a scientific standpoint, they should,” he said. “But I’m also realistic enough to know that there would be a concerted effort to try and limit that definition by industries.”
Ferguson also pointed to the difficulty of a total statewide PFAS ban, because it's contained in so many products, many of which could be manufactured out of state. In general, he said trying to ban all PFAS at the level is “fraught,” even if it was understandable. He said he’d like to see PFAS regulated nationally as a class of chemicals.
“I think where we will eventually get to nationally is either an outright ban or at least a functional ban on the compounds that we think of as PFAS right now,” Ferguson said, adding that he also wanted to make sure that PFAS chemicals are not replaced with something even worse.
When it comes to holding Chemours and other polluters financially accountable, the General Assembly, led by a Republican majority, often with a veto-proof majority, has come up short. So far, the main financial accountability for Chemours’ actions has come through the consent agreement and the state’s recent lawsuit, which resulted in a $590-million settlement.
Advocates have called the settlement a “mixed bag,” with some arguing it falls short of total costs – for example, Brunswick County received $95 million, but has spent far more on its reverse osmosis plant – and leaves emerging issues like ultra-short-chain PFAS unresolved. Critics have also suggested the General Assembly has its own authority and responsibility to hold polluters accountable, irrespective of what the courts are doing (which can often take years).
The failure of bills like Ted Davis’ PFAS Pollution and Polluter Liability Act – iterations of which were filed and died for lack of support three times, in 2022, 2024, and 2025 – still points to industrial capture. In 2025, the bill did make it out of the House into the Senate. But, despite Lee and Rabon serving in leadership positions as Senate Majority Leader and Rules Chairman, respectively, the bill didn’t come to the floor or get heard in a committee.
Davis told WHQR that early resistance came from Republican mistrust of giving DEQ too much authority, but also from the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce, which called Davis’ bill bad for business (the Wilmington chamber declined to weigh in).
They’re also indicative of the overall approach, not just in North Carolina but in the United States, that accepts more potential and unknown risks in return for economic development. Some of Lee’s critics, including some local Democrats, have pushed for what’s known as the “precautionary principle,” where the burden of proof of safety is more often on corporate polluters, as opposed to on regulatory agencies to prove risk.
