Interviewee: Bill Blancato
Interviewer: David Bu
Location: Remote interview (Columbia, SC and Winston-Salem, NC)
Date: September 29, 2020
Accession #: ELEC 006
Length of Recording: 70:16
Summary
Bill Blancato was born in New York in 1957 and grew up in a middle-class neighborhood. He attended Duke University School of Law and initially focused his practice on civil litigation cases. He later worked as an arbitrator and mediator. Bill became involved with the nonpartisan Citizens’ Climate Lobby in 2013, where he has helped start several chapters in numerous states.
Keywords
New York | Law Practice | Italy | Duke University | Winston-Salem NC | Climate Change | Carbon Fee | Citizens’ Climate Lobby
Recording
Transcript
David Bu: Ok, this is an oral history interview for the 2020 election sharing stories of civic engagement oral history project. Part of coursework for the honors college class SCHC 326, documenting the perspectives and experiences of those who are engaged in some way in the 2020 election. This is David Bu, the date is September 29th, 2020, and today I’m interviewing Bill Blancato. Remotely. I am in Columbia, South Carolina and Bill is in North Carolina, is that right?
Bill Blancato: Right, Winston-Salem North Carolina.
DB: Alright, question one. Would you start by giving me your full name and spelling it?
BB: William Blancato, B-L-A-N-C-A-T-O.
DB: When and where were you born?
BB: New York, 1957.
DB: Is that where you grew up?
BB: Yup.
DB: What was the community like at that time?
BB: My community, where I grew up?
DB: Yessir.
BB: It was, ummm, white. White, I would say middle class to upper middle-class neighborhood, um mostly Catholic and Jewish families. The school I went to was predominantly Jewish, most of the Catholic kids in the neighborhood went to Catholic school. And a mix of different European nationalities you know um several families of Italian descent, Polish descent, most of the Jewish families were Eastern European descent. It was kind of a smorgasbord of, I guess the descendants of immigrants who probably came over in the early twentieth century and, it’s a nice neighborhood.
It began to change as things do in New York. People, waves come through, move out into the more affluent areas and then the children, grandchildren spread further out into the country. I’m kind of an example of that. And I guess when I was in, high school and college, Asian families started moving in, and now, I know when my dad passed away, almost ten years ago after he passed away we sold the house that he and my mom bought in 1958. I believe to a Russian couple, based on their last name. I don’t know, I don’t recall any African American families in the neighborhood. I think there probably are some now but I haven’t been back in that particular neighborhood and walked around for almost ten years since my dad passed away. And New York is very diverse place. I still go back, we still have family there so I can keep up with what’s going on.
DB: Alright, let’s see. Talk to me about your parents and your grandparents. What were their names?
BB: On my father’s side it was Vincent and Isabella, my mom’s side I never really knew. My father’s father died when I was very young I never really- I didn’t know him. The only grandparent I knew was my dad’s mom. On my mom’s side, her mother died, seven years before I was born. My mom was still a teenager. Her father died when I was a baby, I never knew him. It was Joe- Joe and Catherine. My grandfather on my mother’s side owned a bar, in a section of Queens called Historia, right down the street from where they make Stanley pianos. My father’s father was a jeweler. And then both grandmothers were just homemakers to my knowledge.
DB: Alright, and where were they from?
BB: My mom’s parents were born, in New York. My father’s father was from a small village in Sicily called Sortino. And his mother was from a coastal city on the eastern side of Italy called Bari, B-A-R-I. Bari, it’s a port city. I got to visit the village my father’s father was from a few years ago when my wife and I did a trip to Sicily, the bicycle tour. The end of the tour we stayed in Syracuse, which is Syracuse. You know, Syracuse New York. But Syracuse. Which actually was an old Greek city. The Greeks, the Spaniards, so many people have ruled Sicily. And about forty-five minutes from Syracuse is where my grandfather was from and we hired a driver to take us there. I went to the cemetery and found the um, where my great grandparents are interred, which was really cool. There’s a photo of them on the crypt. I don’t recall ever seeing a photo of them before. And um, it was just really cool. It was a wonderful day. Looking at them, seeing the resemblance between my great, it would have been my great grandfather, and my father’s oldest brother. You could see the similarities.
DB: What was the biggest difference in terms of culture in Italy vs here in the US?
BB: Between where and the US?
DB: Between Italy and here in the US, based on your visit.
BB: They care about food more. (laughs) And they do a good job of it, and wine.
You don’t have the sprawl, so many of the villages and cities were developed before automobiles took over so the towns are much more compact, more pedestrians. People are people, they care about a lot of the same things we care about from what I can tell. Well, shoot. We were out in the countryside on a couple of these trips and every business closes from about twelve or twelve thirty to about two or two thirty. You can’t go the bank. They take a long lunch in the middle of the day. Nice meal, probably some wine. And then the businesses stay open till later in the evening. From what I saw (phone buzzes) it’s more relaxed and more of an appreciation, just, slowin’ down and taking time to stop and smell the roses.
DB: I see. What were some family traditions you experienced?
BB: Say that again?
DB: What were some family traditions you experienced?
BB: My family, was well, mostly on my father’s side because his siblings lived nearby whereas my mother’s siblings didn’t live quite nearby, but it was (unintelligible at 8:00). We had, on my dad’s side of the family we would get together whenever one of my cousins had a birthday. We got together every year at Christmas. On that side of the family but my dad’s extended family with his cousins we had a picnic every year at a park in New Jersey. My dad’s generation (an aside) — his cousins they’d get together, it was either every month or every other month they rotate among everyone’s houses, in Queens and Brooklyn, Jersey I think was where all of them lived and, god they got home late from that. My mom’s side of the family wasn’t quite as much because they were spread out a little more but we would see each other four times a year. [It] was my mom and three siblings. So we’d see each other at Christmas that would be at my parent’s house that was centrally located. And then, in the spring we would go to my aunt and uncle that lived up in West Chester county. In the summer, I had an aunt and uncle that lived up in Jersey that had a pool, so we’d go to their house to use the pool, and an in-ground pool. And then my mom’s brother lived out in Long Island and we’d go out there in usually September. We go to see each other. And as I got older and learned how to drive, I mean, I got one cousin in particular who lived about a mile from my house. My brother and I used to ride our bikes over there. When I got my driver’s license I would visit some with a different cousin that lived out in Long Island who’s about my age.
DB: Alright. Did any of these traditions carry forward with you?
BB: I mean, not really. In part because I moved away. I live in North Carolina. I know some of my cousins that still live in New York get together with some of our second cousins, some and first cousins. But as we spread out we don’t see each other as much. So, I have two daughters, they come home for Christmas. My sister moved to Winston Salem twenty-three years ago, she comes over. But it’s just different, neither my brother or my sister have children so my daughter don’t really have cousins around here. Like I grew up within a couple miles of cousins. It’s just different.
DB: Let’s see. Who had an influence on you, or who did you look up to?
BB: As a kid?
DB: As a kid, now, just in general I guess.
BB: Well, I looked up to my older cousins, but of course as I got older I saw how they’re somewhat imperfect. I’ve looked up to people I’ve worked with, I clerked for a judge after law school, he was a good influence on me. One of the first lawyers I worked for here he was a good influence and I learned a lot about how to, practice law from him. My wife of course, she’s a good influence on me, most good wives are; teachers through the years, just a lot of people really.
DB: Let’s see, so back to your parents and your grandparents, can you describe them what they were like in terms of personality?
BB: I only knew my dad’s mother, the others all passed away before I was well, one before I was born, two before I was old enough to remember them. My father’s mother was, she dealt with depression. Yeah, my father’s mother dealt with depression. She wasn’t the most friendly or jovial of grandmothers. She was there, but she wasn’t a big influence on me in any way. You know, you see stories of other people who, do have big influences from their grandparents but that didn’t happen to me. I suspect if my mom’s dad had not died he might have been because, he (unintelligible at 12:32) heard about his personality, he probably would have been a fun grandfather to have. But (unintelligible at 12:39). Of course my mom and dad were influences on me. I mean I’m a baseball fan, I’m a baseball fan because of my mom. See the Mets glass? (unintelligible at 12:51).
DB: (Laughs) Let’s see, so what are some of your hobbies now and when you were a kid?
BB: I guess the hobbies are similar. I play tennis, which I learned how to play when I was in high school and I’ve been playing since high school so that was a hobby then. I used to play basketball when I was in high school, not on a team or anything just at the park. That’s what we did, we’d go home from school, the park was just a couple blocks from my house. We’d go play basketball, I can’t play basketball anymore. I probably read more now than I did then. I started reading I guess after college, when I had time, I would read. I like to read. I used to work a little bit on cars. I don’t do that anymore. In part I don’t care to crawl under them anymore, plus you can’t really work on cars now like you used to (laughs) you can’t, they don’t have carburetors anymore. Well now I cook. I didn’t cook when I was a kid. I cook, I do all the cooking in my house. I like to garden, although it’s a challenge here now for a variety of reasons one of which includes rabbits, gophers, and deer eating what I plant, but I really had a passion for gardening from my mom’s brother who had a beautiful garden at his house on Long Island. So cooking, gardening, wine. [I’m] kind of a wine aficionado. Hiking, cycling, I’ve been cycling since I was a kid. I bought a ten speed when I was in college and my wife and I have always ridden bikes together. We both cycle. It’s off and on, it depends but more so now that the kids are grown, too.
DB: Alright, if you could go back in time and give yourself, your younger self advice, what would you tell him?
BB: I don’t know. Be less shy, be more outgoing maybe. That would have been something. I was shy and not outgoing and introverted. I probably could have more outgoing. I mean I don’t know if I would have gone to law school or not, I don’t know. That’s up in the air. It was a good career for me, I’m semi-retired now. I used to say that I would have moved to Asheville, not Winston Salem if I known then what I know now, but I actually like Winston Salem so maybe I wouldn’t have done that either. I don’t have any regrets, I don’t really know of anything different to do.
DB: Ok, what drew you to Asheville?
BB: Why would I have gone to Asheville?
DB: Yessir.
BB: I like Asheville, we’re actually going tomorrow. It’s just such a beautiful city and I always liked the lawyers up there too. It’s the mountains, and I think, twenty years ago before all the cities in North Carolina had a renaissance. Almost all the cities have had a renaissance, Winston Salem, Durham. Durham my gosh, used to be, a pit and is now one of the coolest places you can visit. I always liked going there. I went there regularly because I always had cases there. I used to represent that county, I just liked being there. But to be honest, I think I prefer living in Winston Salem now. I mean it’s not the mountains, I miss that, but Ashville’s just become so trendy and so touristy and Winston is more of a real place right now than Ashville is. Asheville’s still beautiful, we like to visit we’re going to go tomorrow but, I don’t know. I still might be talked into going but I don’t feel like moving (laughs). I don’t want to pack everything up.
DB: Alright, so switching gears a little bit, what made you want to practice law?
BB: It was a TV show called The Bold Ones maybe that first maybe peaked my interest. And then I was in college and, I was an economics major, didn’t really know what I would do so I would go to law school I thought. You know, I had visions of being a labor lawyer and an environmental lawyer, which there’s really not much need for that. There is some need but it’s very precise and you don’t find that practice in a smaller city like this where it’s nice to live. So it really did have something to do and have a career where I could make a nice living.
DB: Ok, and what was your experience in law school like?
BB: I actually liked law school. For a variety of reasons I guess. One is I lived with my parents when I was in college. I went to a commuter school in New York so I finally moved out of the house. I mean one thing I might have done is I would have gone away to college but if I gone away to college I wouldn’t have met my wife so there’s, and she’s a great wife so (laughs). Better to have not gone away to college and to have met Aileen. For some reason, I was good at it, I met nice people and I got married after my first year of law school so I was a newlywed with Aileen which was fun. It was just a good time of my life too I mean we were a young married couple and there were a lot of good cultural opportunities at Duke, where I went to law school and in Chapel Hill which was not far away. It was just a nice time of my life.
DB: And drew you to Dukes law school as opposed to other colleges?
BB: Why did I choose Duke?
DB: Yessir.
BB: Well it was probably the best school I got into. But, why I applied to Duke, why I first even thought about it is, I guess it was in 1979 I was reading the, New York Times magazine the Sunday New York Times magazine, and there was a travel ad in there for North Carolina with these beautiful green, hills and this winding river, and I looked at that, I said that looks really nice. I spent my whole life in New York City, and I wanted to experience something different. So, I wanted to experience something different not in the cold weather. So Duke was the smaller City different culture, more mild winters, springs, so forth. I applied they accepted me and there I went (laughs). My other options would have been I think Georgetown, Fordham, maybe NYU I don’t know if I got into NYU or not I think I might have been wait listed there. I didn’t apply to that many law schools and I was fortunate to get into Duke and I went, and I’m glad I did.
DB: So what was your favorite memory from law school?
BB: Well I liked law school but finishing was a good memory (laughs). Probably meeting a couple of friends. One my friend Reed, who I still stay in touch with. That’s a good memory. One time one of my cousins, on my dad’s side, he was a traveling salesperson, and Durham included his territory, so he stopped by to visit that was fun. Another friend of mine that lived next door to me who was a med student my first year. When my friend Reed said something really funny in criminal procedure when he got called on, he conceded he was spacing out and everyone laughed. That’s probably it, it’s like so many things it’s the funny stuff and the people. The classes were okay. I mean, I remember my contracts professor he was a very good teacher. You know when you go back to first grade and even kindergarten, I had good teachers. Lots of good teachers but some stand out. And he’s one of the ones that stands out because he was so good at teaching.
DB: Ok. and on the flip side of that, what did you find most challenging about law school?
BB: Well I guess, it was hard. I don’t know if that’s most challenging. I mean, I never really had to work or in high school or college, I was always among a handful of smartest kids and you go to law school, well everyone was the smartest kid and, at least I, I had to just buckle down and do all the reading. And I did all my reading in college, but it wasn’t nearly as intense and as horrid. It was just a lot of work. I struggled I guess with torts a little bit, first year. I did pretty well, but it came pretty easily and it’s just sort of a, grind you got to keep at.
DB: Ok, so I did some research and saw that you mainly handled civil litigation. And so why did you choose to handle these types of cases?
BB: Criminal law never actually appealed to me, and then I didn’t really know what I was going to do and after law school I ended up being a law clerk, in a file court in DC and, watched some trials, watched motions hearings, and thought I could do it, so I did.
DB: Ok.
BB: It provides, and I haven’t done other areas of law but one, you get out of the office, you meet other people, every case is different, odd facts and situations. Now, if you wanted more stories to tell, you want to get the good stories those are the criminal lawyers. Because they deal with people who do all kinds of crazy things. But it just seemed to me to be, in a way more challenging and it also challenged me to get out and talk in front of people which I never had any desire to do. I was shy I was introverted, and then you get, to do different things, and I have learned a lot of different subjects because I’ve handled all these different cases with different subject areas. Hydraulics, construction, aviation, police. All these different things, instead of just you know, doing real estate closings all the time. And then, the cases I’ve worked on was just really a function of the firm I went to work for. Those were the cases they assigned me to handle. And then I left that firm and the cases the new firm assigned me to handle, and then the cases that happened to come in that I managed to get you know, and it takes a while to develop any expertise and to determine what you want to try to go after and what people refer to you cuz you have some expertise.
DB: And so what was your most memorable case and why?
BB: Most memorable case? I represented the pilot of a p51 Mustang that crashed. It was fascinating on so many levels. One, the guy I represented had just retired from, US Air, but they got merged into American Airlines but it used to be US Air. And he was flying 77s and 767s to Paris and back that was his job. But he had a p51 Mustang. But this other guy, had a different p51 Mustang it was painted the same colors as, Chuck Yeager’s aircraft in World War Two. Do you know who Chuck Yeager is?
DB: I do not.
BB: Chuck Yeager, he’s a renowned pilot, he’s still alive. He was a fighter pilot in World War, Two, and then he became a test pilot after that and is probably the person who first broke the sound barrier. And there’s a book called The Right Stuff written by Tom Wolfe and he’s featured prominently in that. There’s a movie as well. Anyway so Yeager’s this legendary pilot, and he was a member of this squadron in World War two and his aircraft that was hangered in Salisbury, was painted the same color as Yeager’s aircraft, and was named Glamorous Glen Three and Yeager’s aircraft was Glamorous Glen. They’re having this reunion in Ohio for all these fighter pilots in World War Two and this was in 2000- one I think it was. And, they’re all getting so old, this was going to be the last reunion because they’re all you know dying off, getting too old to go do this. So the guy who owns this Glamorous Glen Three aircraft, had some conflict couldn’t take it to, Dayton, outside of Dayton. And asked the guy I ended up representing if he would fly it up there so Chuck Yeager can fly this aircraft for one last time.
And my client, not just any pilot can fly a p51 you got to know what you’re doing, it’s a handful of an aircraft to fly. It was a state of the art for its time. I mean it had this huge 1600 cubic and supercharged sixteen, what is it, sixteen cylinder, I think it was sixteen cylinder, 1600 horsepower supercharged engine. I mean it’s just a monster, I don’t know how much horsepower that thing- yeah 1600 horse- whatever, it’s huge. You got to know what you’re doing. So my client is going to fly the plane from Salisbury, North Carolina to Ohio. And going with him is one of his old friends, who also happens to be the aircraft’s mechanic, and who also knew Chuck Yeager, wanted to be up there when Chuck Yeager flew his plane for the last time.
So, they’re, in Salisbury, the pilot is, on air traffic control radio with Charlotte getting all of his clearances, his flight clearances. And while he’s doing the run up at the end of the runway the passenger, who is also the aircraft’s mechanic and a pilot in his own right although not qualified to fly the p51. Notices there’s a little device near the right foot, pilot’s right foot, called the slider that indicates whether or not a flap below the cockpit is open or closed. That flap controls air flow through the radiator. (unintelligible at 29:20) unusual that it had a liquid cooled engine. So the mechanic sees this cow flap is closed, and there was a placard on the dash that said that flap needs to be open for all ground operations takeoff and climb. And he said he said something to the pilot but didn’t go, hey hey open that thing!
So as it turned out, the pilot took off without opening that flap, so there’s no air flow through the radiator. And they get up about, and a p51, if you ever see one in an airshow, I mean it just takes off (Imitates takeoff sound) it’s like a rocket going up. And they get up to 9,000 feet, and then, and they’re not far from Salisbury they’re near Lincolnton North Carolina which is, twenty miles, thirty miles, I don’t know it’s not that far. Coolant hits the windshield. And they knew there was a problem. They had to get this glass canopy off the aircraft, which they finally did, and of course they’re descending through clouds, because it’s all cloud cover, they break out of the clouds about a thousand feet above the ground they get this canopy off and a thousand feet isn’t that high, especially for a plane like that that doesn’t glide particular well. And then the passenger is trying to, they’re both wearing parachutes, the passenger is trying to stand up and jump out of the plane, and the wind keeps pushing him down.
He finally just pulls the ripcord on his parachute, parachute deploys, yanks him out of the airplane, he lands on the ground, on his feet, basically okay but had some fractured vertebrae. Depression fractures in his back which was the injury that became the subject of the lawsuit. The pilot meanwhile does not know what’s going on with his friend in the back these guys have known each other for twenty-five years, does not know what’s going on with his friend in the back. And, the guy that’s on the ground doesn’t really know what’s going on with his friend in the aircraft. What ultimately happens is the motor seizes up because it’s overheated. Torks the plane around, throws the pilot out. He manages to pull the ripcord on his parachute. He gets caught in some trees and doesn’t have a scratch. No injury at all. Plane goes down, blows up.
So my client the pilot he’s in a tree he doesn’t know what happened to his friend was in the back. The passenger, who landed hurt his back but landed he’s still walkin’ and talkin’ and, he’s kind of okay. He doesn’t know if his friend was in the plane that blew up. So they’re both yelling for each other and they find each other they, finally got the pilot out of the tree and all that. And well turn out, the, the passenger had this back injury so we he sued the pilot for pilot error. It’s very similar to a car accident case except it involved a p51 Mustang, World War two aircraft.
I got this case, and I’m representing the pilot, but the pilot owns his own p51 so let’s go look at the p51, so I can understand what y’all are talking about on this airplane. I went down to the airport where he kept it in Lexington, North Carolina and I’m walking around, I’ve never been so close to a p51 I got to sit in the cockpit of the p51 and it’s remarkable and then the whole case was so interesting in the details of what happened, the twists and turns I had no idea the plaintiff, the injured guy, had said something to the pilot before they took off well that created a (unintelligible at 33:14) negligence defense which in North Carolina is now (unintelligible at 33:18) recovery. And hearing those guys tell their story and depositions it was back-to-back days and it was just remarkable they had this bond I mean they lived through the crash of a p51 Mustang.
And then we actually want to trial and, we settled during trial I thought I got a pretty good settlement, based on various factors and, it was some fun stuff at trial to I mean the plaintiff had been a professional gambler for a while I wanted to get his tax returns as evidence to show that these injuries didn’t affect his ability to work the judge wouldn’t let me get the tax returns in. We were at the end of the day I said you honor I’m done with evidence today this would be a good time to do the offer of proof on these tax returns so he put the plaintiff back on the stand and, I asked him, this is somewhat timely given Mr. Trump’s issues with taxes, I said “Mr. Plaintiff do you report all your income on your taxes” and his answer was “I report what I have to” and the judge looked at him and the judge looked at his lawyers and looked back at him and said Mr. Plaintiff won’t you step down and go to talk to your lawyers before you say anything else, and we took a break but that was kind of funny. To get into, saying stuff about that could be tax law problems. That was a fascinating case.
I had another one that was just funny involving a, chief of police who got fired after it came out that he went to, parties where he other men would give each other enemas while wearing diapers. That was a little weird. That one, had a lot of interesting, stuff I got my client out of that. The client I had gotten out of later ended up in prison for something, I was representing the sheriff of Buncombe county. And then most stuff is, crazy personal injury cases that give you the stories.
But anyway that p51 case just turned out- and the lawyers on the side were very nice I still see them occasionally. People think that lawyers are just constantly fighting, no no you got to get along with each other. I’ve been out of town with opposing lawyers, you go out to dinner, you go out for drinks, we go to lunch together. I remember trying a case one time and I was a young lawyer trying a case up in Dobson North Carolina a little, motor vehicle damage case not even personal injury, and took the day to try it, during lunch break plaintiffs and I walk to the diner in that little town to get lunch together. That’s when I learned you should not eat onions at lunch before you do a closing argument.
DB: (Laughs).
BB: So there was one case I had where a guy, what was it, he owned a big heavy duty truck, you know a tractor, a heavy duty truck, a long distance tractor trailer (unintelligible at 36:31). And there’s some guy, that goes to people’s trucks and changes tires for him at his house. And as this guy was changing the tire something went wrong the tire blew up and the plaintiff got thrown back. So he’s suing the guy that did the tire changing. I was representing the tire retreader who had retreaded the tire that blew up. I think that’s what it was. And, of course the plaintiff in that case was this guy who played football at Chapel Hill when he was in college who was sort of famous in that part of the state, quite a character he was always late. He would show up an hour late for depositions he was a real pain in the ass.
DB: (Laughs)
BB: But I remember him deposing, the guy that had changed the tire, and what are his questions to him was well what was he doing this work at like eleven o’clock in the morning eleven thirty, I don’t know, he said well did you have anything to drink before you went over there. Guy’s answer was “I don’t see what that’s got to do with it” which isn’t the right thing to say (laughs). Anyway, and then the other guy the plaintiff the guy who got hurt, in a personal injury case you get all the medical records. It’s more difficult now with hip and stuff that you get all these medical records. And so in the medical records he lived in mobile home. And he told one of his doctors that there were ghosts in the house.
DB: Ok (laughs).
BB: And of course I mentioned that to his lawyers and here’s this guy saying there’s ghosts in the house is he going to be believed by a jury? And then, the lawyer that worked with at that point I told him about it and (unintelligible at 38:19) well you should have asked him if you moved the mobile home, do the ghosts stay on the lot or go with the house? And I had another case I used to do, you asked so here they come (laughter), I used to represent debt collection agencies because there was something called the fair debt collection practices Act, basically rules of conduct for debt collectors so they don’t harass people too much. So there was this one lawyer in Charlotte who filed, if I had a hundred of these cases, he filed ninety-eight of them.
DB: Ok.
BB: I probably didn’t have a hundred I probably ended up with thirty of them over the years. So he files this one, there’s some young woman who lives in Gastonia and she works at the Mill and it’s a nice spring day and she decides to trade in her perfectly fine four year old Mustang for some convertible which she really can’t afford. And then, she can’t make the payments she starts getting called by the debt collector, she gets him, she sues the debt collector. So I’m representing the debt collector and some other lawyer representing another party in that case maybe the actual company that owns the debt, a lender. This plaintiff is down in Gastonia. Well the other lawyer gets the paper where she lives, so turns out she got arrested, because she had a girlfriend but she was pretending to be a boy so she had a strap-on penis.
DB: Ok.
BB: But her girlfriend was fifteen so it had that–
DB: Oh.
BB: -statutory rape, it was weird. So this all makes the paper, and I call the lawyer and I said, “You know John, your client now has some issues.” And that case got settled soon thereafter, which was similar to another case I once had. I had this case where I was representing this guy, [and] what’s called a darting child case, and they’re very unfortunate, but a little kid just darts in the street, and someone gets hit. You’re not at fault because you can’t see the kid, they’re coming out from cars or whatever, but the kid gets hit. I don’t think he was hurt that bad I mean he didn’t get killed thankfully. So I’m representing the guy that hit the kid. And these cases are often defensible. But then I get a call from the plaintiff’s lawyer he said “Have you read about your client?” I said “No, what’s going on” he said well, he’s answering some interrogatories he didn’t say he had a criminal record. Well it turns out he has a criminal record that’s you know, as long as your arm.
DB: Oh wow.
BB: So ok, this case is worth ten thousand dollars is now worth twenty-five thousand dollars. Because they got this client that has a criminal record. I get another call a month later, “Have you heard about your client and what his latest thing is?” “No, what’s going on?” (Phone rings) (unintelligible at 41:30) county jail on five hundred thousand dollars bond for, kidnapping, something with a shotgun, and, one other thing. I was like “Oh, ok. Thank you.” So that case got settled after that because you couldn’t put someone like that, on a witness stand because, he’s a turd. That stuff happens, so I think I’m out of stories now.
DB: (Laughs). No you’re fine.
BB: Let’s see, so I also read that mainly now, you do [mediation] and arbitration. So what made you want to make the switch and do this?
BB: Mediation and arbitration. So I’ve been a mediator and an arbitrator since the early nineties. I just went through all these stories about funny stuff you see in litigation, which happens, but it’s a real grind and it’s a real waste of money. Litigation is one of the most inefficient processes you’ll ever come across. And it’s often a huge waste of money, and you do all these depositions, and exchanging information, and filing papers, and then, as you get ready (unintelligible at 42:45) the case settles. So you do all this work, and the case just settles. The mediation process sort of moves that whole settlement process up, and theoretically should save the parties a lot of money. You’re not wasting money doing depositions, and this, and it’s very expensive to get prepared for trial, for every day of trial it takes like two days of preparation. Kind of. At least the way things work in North Carolina, you can prepare for trial, and I get called for trial, [it] gets pushed back a few months, you got to, re-prepare. So it’s a lot of money and time that gets wasted.
So it’s in fact, Abraham Lincoln has a quote. Let me pull up Google. I guess in law school I took a class on negotiations and I read the book called Getting to Yes. Which came out when I was in law school. So I always sort of had it in the back of my mind. Here we go. And Abraham Lincoln was, one of the greatest trial lawyers who ever lived. So this is the quote. I actually included this in a paper I wrote, in late (unintelligible at 44:28). “Discourage litigation, persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser, in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker, the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.” I’ve always had that in the back of my mind. I think in part because I was an economics major. I knew things through those lenses.
And what I find I like the process. People are happy to get the disputes resolved. The dynamics vary from case to case, if you have an insurance company involved in a motor vehicle case that’s one thing versus, a business dispute where you have people who are motivated to get it over with. I’ve never, well, you never say never. Hardly ever, do you get a case settled and the parties are, not thankful for that. And then I don’t have to prepare for it, and I don’t have to worry about appeals, if I don’t get paid I write to the judge who makes sure I get paid, all these cases get referred to mediation. Well, most of them by the courts. I just view it as a public service to help people resolve their disputes and save money doing so.
Arbitration’s a little different it’s unlike mediation which is a settlement conference. Arbitration, I actually take evidence and, issue rulings on who should get paid what. It’s almost always about money. I’m going to be an arbitrator in a case next week. But again, I view it was a public service. Arbitration can be more efficient than the court system. It does provide lawyers more flexibility with scheduling. The hearing itself is a little less formal and thus less stressful. I did something for them today. They email me “Hey, we need this confidentiality order so we can get some documents from somebody.” So it’s easier, it’s less stressful and there’s a lot of flexibility on scheduling and how the hearing is conducted.
And why I’m doing that frankly, I, in 2006 got a call from a client, big construction company asking if I would consider becoming their general council. And I did. I got to go on a salary I no longer had time sheets. Instead of having numerous clients and billing them every month I just got paid. Paycheck every week, one company to keep happy. So I did that starting in the beginning of 2007. Of course my practice just went to the winds. At that point I was still doing aviation cases, construction cases, personal injury cases, government liability cases, first amendment cases, all that stuff.
But it was actually a nice change because well every case is different. The process is very similar so that’s sort of getting to be, drudgery or boring. And this was a chance to do something different. [To] work in a company, learn how a construction company operates from the inside, and of course they have a lot of the same problems as any other company. They got employees, you got cars, you got insurance needs. Somewhat different insurance needs but a lot of the same insurance needs as other companies. And I never really done much contract review in the construction arena. I started doing more contract review.
So it was a nice change but unfortunately the recession knocked them out and the owner decided to shut the business down, and the end of, 2011. 2012 I stayed on helping wrap stuff up they were still completing projects. It was a big company I mean they built stuff in Columbia too. Up and down the east coast. And so at the end of January 2013, I went off the payroll. I still had some stuff to wrap up for them but I did it now as an attorney in private practice. Which gave me some stuff to do that year. And I went back into practice with my former law partner. Which was the right thing to do, it was low stress, we knew each other. But over time, it took me twenty plus years to build up what I left when I went to take that job, and I was fifty five, my youngest daughter was at that point was a, junior, at Chapel Hill, she was going to become a senior so we basically had college behind us, [where] my wife worked she had a good job.
There really wasn’t any pressure, and it’s hard work to build up a law practice so it just never really got back. I thought my mediation practice would take off again and it didn’t. It did a little bit, I still do some, I did a mediation yesterday. And then what happened is, our lease was up, last January this year and I told my partner when we signed the lease “I’m not signing anymore long-term leases for office space.” Because I knew my wife was going to be retiring, and she retired two years ago, and it just made sense, the guys I worked with at that big contractor they, went to another contractor, they had been one of my clients previously.
I still help them out, I do mediations, arbitrations I just help out some existing clients with stuff I don’t want to- I have one case left in court. That’s what I decided to do, I’m in a position in my life where I can scale back, enjoy my wife’s retirement with her, and we were going to travel a little but of course that changed because of the virus. So that’s where I’m at. Somehow you found me through Citizens’ Climate Lobby. So, I do that. I do something for Citizens’ Climate Lobby every day. I think climate change is an existential problem. So I also decided I would put working on that ahead of practicing law. Now when I have a mediation or something, I got to put that first, but this gives me more time to, devote to Citizen’s Climate Lobby.
DB: So talking about the, Citizen’s Climate Lobby, how did you discover them?
BB: I read about it in New York Times. It was after I, again, because of my career change, I was no longer with the construction company, I’m back in private practice with my now former law partner. And if you asked my wife what I do, at work, at least back then, she would have told you I read The New York Times. I read the Times almost every day, in fact before we did this [interview], I was reading an editorial about Mr. Trump’s tax returns.
Anyway, so in late May, of 2013, there was a really good piece in the Times called Lobbying for the Greater Good. It was about the Citizen’s Climate Lobby. There were two things that struck me. One, the proposal of the revenue neutral carbon tax, and making it revenue neutral by providing dividends on a per capita basis. And again, I was an economics major, and I thought for a long time that we need a carbon tax. This is the most efficient way to reduce fossil fuel use, to reduce emissions (unintelligible at 52:30) what do you do with the money? One, you’re going to have objections from Republicans saying it’s tax, and they don’t want all that stuff. They have problems with three letter words that end in x. The argument that [is that] it would be a drag on the economy. Well, if you just refunded the people, you’re just recycling back into the economy and all the GDP is like, a perpetual motion machine or you could think of it more as a fountain it just keeps recycling water.
So the money’s recycling GDP (unintelligible at 53:03) shifts in GDP comes from because you’re getting, frankly, this enhances the buying power of low income people so they buy different stuff than high income people so you transition some of that. And then of course the only way you can get this done is for Congress to do it. It was about the group in Virginia that developed a relationship with Eric Cantor and his office and actually had a face to face meeting with Eric Cantor. And I’m thinking, if we’re going to solve the problem, this is how it’s going to be done. This is a sound economic proposal that will reduce emissions and the only way to do it is to go work the halls of Congress. So I looked them up, and I sent a check. And then, the oddest thing happened a few weeks later the founder of the organization called me, not to ask for more money, but to thank me for the check and to say, “Right now, we have one chapter in North Carolina, it’s in Durham. Can you help us, we need to get more chapters in North Carolina.” I said “Ok, what’s involved?” The very little training they had at that time, and I helped start the chapter here in January 2014.
Before that, I had never written a letter to the editor before, I wouldn’t want people seeing my name in the paper, “Oh Bill Blancato said this, blah blah” I did a letter to the editor. I had one in the paper today not on climate change but on political stuff. You know what, people like my letters to the editor. I’ve had dozens of them published. Probably, I would say, eight to ten a year since early 2014. I, have done, I don’t know at least a dozen (unintelligible at 54:48) that have been published in the Winston Salem Journal, I’ve had (unintelligible at 54:50) published in the Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News and Observer, The Fayetteville Paper, the Tri-Business Journal, Winston Salem Prodigal. And I became a regional coordinator, I’m acting state coordinator for South Carolina, that’s why I got your email, it came to me.
I’ve been to D.C., twelve times to lobby. I’ve had face to face meetings with (unintelligible at 55:16) Richard Burr, I’ve had (unintelligible at 54:19) Congresswoman Virginia Fox, I’ve had meetings with Lindsay Graham’s office, Tim Scott’s office, Ralph Norman’s office whose the fifth district of like Fort Mill, Rock Hill area. And, I do something on it almost every day. But that’s how I got involved because I sent a check, I read about it in the Times, I sent a check, and Marshall Saunders the founder of the organization called me to ask me to help. I’ve had a hand in starting chapters in Greensboro, Asheville, little bit in Charlotte, Jacksonville North Carolina, Beaufort North Carolina, Wilmington North Carolina, Charlottesville Virginia, trying to get something going in Columbia that’s a challenge. Greenville South Carolina, Fort Mill South Carolina, Roanoke Virginia.
DB: So where does your passion for combatting climate change stem from?
BB: I guess, I don’t know how to say this. The environment’s important, I mean that’s where we came from. I guess some people say you are what you eat. We are our environment. I first became aware of it in the late eighties when Jim Hanson testified before the Senate. It just makes perfect sense to me. The atmosphere is a fragile thing. It’s like your skin. Your skin is so thin, but it does so much. And the atmosphere is so thin but it does so much. I’ve learned a lot more since I got involved in this.
But what do you need to know. carbon dioxide traps heat. You put more up there it traps more heat. It’s going to affect the climate. I mean c’mon. And the amount of energy that we’re actually putting up there is astounding. Ever since the oil crisis’s in the seventies, first when Nixon was president and when Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter at least tried to do something about this. But every president’s paid lip service to, energy independents. Well we’re not going to be energy independent unless we reduce our use of oil because we still import some of this stuff.
Look at the big environmental disasters in our history they’re all related to oil. The river in Cleveland, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard about this, caught fire in the late sixties. It was oil sitting on top of it that caught fire. The Exxon Valdese, oil, Horizon, oil. The first thing that really got the environment, one of the things that really got the environmental movement going and probably led to the first Earth Day was on oil spill off of Santa Barbara California. You could just go on and on. Love Canal probably wasn’t oil but there’s underground storage tanks leaking oil. It’s just remarkable. If we reduced our oil consumption to what we need to reduce to save the planet, you introduce all kinds of other environmental problems. Particularly matter in the air, smog. And frankly, if we become less dependent on oil, it enhances our national security more than, anything.
DB: What role do you think climate change and climate change related issues will have on the upcoming presidential election?
BB: I don’t know, I don’t think a huge one, unfortunately. Frankly the leading issue right now from what I’ve heard is COVID-19. And responding to that. And you have on top of that health care in general. You got the economy. I mean climate change is going probably help get Biden some votes but I don’t know. It doesn’t, unfortunately, ever rank particularly high on voter’s list of concerns. Although oddly enough, it does for younger people. It’s higher for younger people. And, it’s almost indistinguishable between democrats and republicans under forty. For democrats under forty, eighty percent are concerned about climate change. For republicans it’s seventy five percent. It’s almost indistinguishable (Knock on door). Jaime Harrison apparently is doing pretty well on the polls in South Carolina, so I don’t know exactly what’s driving that other than, Lindsay Graham being a total flip-flopper on some big things. At least Lindsay Graham has been willing to talk about the need to do something about climate change. He hasn’t done anything about it, but at least he’s talked about it which is a lot better than so many others of his colleagues.
DB: Alright and let’s see, there’s one last question to wrap things up, is where do you see climate change policy within the next ten years?
BB: I can tell you where it needs to be, whether or not we get there is another question. Because there are other structural problems, primarily the money and politics that has created this problem and the way the fossil fuel companies did to this issue, what the tobacco companies did to whether or not smoking causes cancer. Where we need to be, if we had adopted CCL’s carbon fee dividend proposal, which part of some legislation that has been introduced. If that had been done thirty years ago we wouldn’t have this problem. You and I would never have met. [If] we done it twenty years ago, even if we done it when I first got involved in this.
I don’t know, but we need that because right now, there are structural advantages that the fossil fuel companies have. (unintelligible at 1:02:16) have put the wind to their back. And anything that tries to, supplant fossil fuels is going to face headwinds so long as, the fossil fuel industry has those economic advantages. This carbon fee and dividend proposal, is a big step to taking away those economic advantages and leveling the playing field so other, alternatives, have a fair chance of succeeding. But we need to put a price on carbon, that policy promotes renewables, but it also promotes efficiency it promotes conservation. We need that. We need to use less energy. It’ll be easier to transition off of fossil fuels. Whatever, you got a thousand megawatts of fossil fuels. If you can reduce the energy demand to five hundred megawatts, it’s easier to substitute something else when you only have to replace five hundred versus a thousand. We need to use every measure of that stuff. We need to do that.
We need to upgrade our grid. I was on a seminar, a little over a month ago, it was from Texas, but essentially one thing that needs to be done is that we need to electrify the transportation segment. Which my wife and I did our part in doing because we, just bought a new Tesla. Which is uber fun to drive. But, at least in Texas, the grid does not have enough- so you take this sector that’s powered by fossil fuels and you’re going to move it on to the electric grid. Does the grid have the capacity to provide the energy, that these vehicles need? The answer is, in Texas at least, no. At least in a few years the answer will be, no.
So we need to, do a couple things in the electric utility sector. One we need to modernize the grid, we need to reduce the use of fossil fuels to, generate electricity. There needs to be work on carbon capture sequestration perhaps, but there is no incentive to adopt those technologies so long as you can put the, waste from burning fossil fuel in the air for free. We need to, develop strategies to, sequester, carbon that’s already there. I’m not talking about carbon capture sequestration, but the best way to do that is reforming our agricultural practices. Which are, basically sustainable, agricultural practices, organic, being one method of, no till farming, sequesters, carbon in the soil. And there will have to be other things. We’re going to have to- other things will come along, we need to probably increase the budget for basic research into battery technologies, battery slash energy storage technologies. Biofuels, improving on, the PV cells and the windmills and whatever else we already have. Hell, I grew up in New York, they need to upgrade the subway system.
DB: (Laughs).
BB: I mean cities like Columbia that don’t really have public transit, a lot of stuff needs to be, modified so that we can maintain our quality of life without ruining the planet. And I’ve heard of the Green New Deal, I can’t say I know a whole lot about it, I’ve never read it, and what you’re going to see, once we do these things is the biggest job boom we’ve had since World War Two. It’s going to take direction and leadership from Washington. It’s a national problem, it’s an international problem and we should lead.
I mean if we hadn’t led in World War Two, [the] world would be a different place. And FDR led. We were not producing planes, tanks, vehicles, ships and he, persuaded cajoled private businesses to take on these tasks and without that leadership. Why we won World War Two, is all that stuff we produced. That made the difference, and one of them was the p51. And that’s what we need we need to treat it like the problem it is, devote the resources but what you’re going to see when you come out the other end is a stronger economy, a stronger country, a better quality of life for everybody. That’s what we need to do. I mean right now, [there’s] something like sixty thousand people employed in the coal industry. And it’s declined for decades, in large part because of automation and more recently because of the price advantage to natural gas, the whole fossil fuel industry, I can’t remember I wrote something about it not long ago maybe three hundred thousand. Millions of people work on the renewable energy industry in this country already. It’s going to create jobs that will your mind. What’s your major?
DB: Psychology.
BB: (Unintelligible at 1:08:09). Transition from one job to another.
DB: Yeah I’m also on the pre-med track so, it’s a lot of work.
BB: Well, there are all kinds of health benefits to reducing our fossil fuels. If you really want to get- well [there’s] two places to go to get a bleak picture and sort of the ick factor of climate change. The military’s very blunt about it. And it doesn’t look good. I’ll just give you one public health example: Florida is on limestone which is porous.
So the sea level rise, the salt waters coming up through the limestone. That’s why you get sunny day flooding in parts of Florida. What’s also happening in south Florida is as the water table rises, because of sea water intrusion, it’s, getting into the septic tank system. So all these septic systems are no longer usable. So that’s a public health problem. And you’re also going to see, that we just had a downpour here this afternoon. These heavy downpours overwhelm because so much water gets into the sanitary sewar systems. You got raw sewage released into waterways. Some waterways are, sources of drinking water. And this is in a country, our country, that has relatively good infrastructure. (unintelligible at 1:09:39) country that does not have good infrastructure. And it’s a real public health problem.
DB: I see. Those are all the questions I had.
BB: Alright.
DB: [I] checked everything off. Yessir.
BB: So what class was this for?
DB: This was for, so I’m in the honors college at USC here. This class is called The 2020 Election: Sharing Stories of Civic Engagement Oral History.
BB: Ok, well it’s odd that you found me, happy to help.
DB: Yessir, thank you. I appreciate your time.
BB: Alright, see you David.
DB: Take care.