Former Department of Environmental Quality Deputy Secretary Doug Heyl is back in the political consulting business.
You may recall Heyl was a person of interest a little more than a year ago when a General Assembly investigative committee started digging into the Cooper administration’s moves to approve the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and attach to it a $57.8-million discretionary fund Cooper would control.
Heyl, who spent three decades in Georgia running political campaigns and seemed to have few discernible duties at DEQ, was identified in a document Cooper submitted to the committee. The document suggested Heyl played some role in coordinating whatever decision the department would make about granting a permit to build the natural-gas pipeline in North Carolina.
But a DEQ spokeswoman told Carolina Journal at the time Heyl’s role was merely publicizing any deal or non-deal.
“We know [Heyl] makes almost $114,000 a year in salary,” Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabarrus, said in December 2018. “So, it appears that Mr. Heyl is now a deputy secretary in DEQ, with unknown job responsibilities, other than the fact the issuance of the ACP water quality permit had to be coordinated through him. Is this innocuous or nefarious? We don’t know, but need to know.”
Heyl presumably left state government last year. He’s now on “the team” at State Federal Strategies, a political consulting firm with clients from both major parties. He also recently created “Carolina Blue,” an independent expenditure committee which has spent more than $800,000 this month on advertising buys for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Cal Cunningham.
Carolina Blue’s address is a mailbox at a UPS Store in Garner.
