Chemistry Council of N.J. adds representatives to board of trustees

 

By ROI-NJ Staff

Chemistry Council of New Jersey (CCNJ) on Aug. 6 selected two new associate member representatives to serve on its board of trustees.

CCNJ also unanimously elected its officers for the 2026-2028 term. The new board representatives and newly elected officers will begin their terms in September.

The board elected Martin J. McHugh, director of regulatory affairs for Groundwater & Environmental Services (GES), and Mark S. Heinzelmann, partner at Lowenstein Sandler LLP, to serve as the board’s associate member representatives for the 2026-2028 term.

McHugh has more than 35 years of experience in environmental regulation, natural resource management, and ecological restoration. His career includes leadership positions with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, NOAA, and the environmental consulting sector.

As Director of Regulatory Affairs at GES, he works with state and federal agencies to help clients navigate complex environmental and regulatory challenges.

Heinzelmann is a partner in Lowenstein Sandler’s Environmental Law & Litigation Group, where he advises businesses on environmental regulatory compliance, permitting, litigation, and corporate transactions. A former New Jersey deputy attorney general, he has extensive experience with NJDEP regulatory and enforcement matters and is a frequent speaker and author on emerging environmental issues.

Re-elected to serve a second two-year term as chair is Grant Hutchings, head of supply chain – Americas for Infineum.

Also elected to the executive committee are Ian McCormick, commercial EHS North America lead for Bristol Myers Squibb, as first vice chair; Pamela Dudish, site manager for Urethane Systems USA LLC (UBE), as second vice chair; and Mike Naughter, environmental remediation project manager for Syensqo, as treasurer.

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Vineland, N.J. data center makes case for on-site power generation during 6-hour hearing

Developers plan to use on-site fuel cells, saying the new plan will not draw power from the grid or increase residential rates.

 

the data center in Vineland being constructed

Vineland, N.J.’s data center is under construction in March of 2026. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)

By Zoë Read, WHYY News

Representatives for a hyperscale artificial intelligence data center in Vineland, New Jersey, on Wednesday defended a proposal to house liquefied natural gas and utilize fuel cell technology to power the 300-megawatt facility.

The project, with the first phase already approved and under construction, is being developed by DataOne for the Nebius Group to support AI infrastructure as part of a $17 billion deal with Microsoft.

During a six-hour hearing before the city’s planning board, DataOne pleaded their case for the project’s second phase: a new proposal to use Bloom Energy fuel cells to power the site. If approved, it would be Bloom Energy’s largest single-site fuel cell project to date. Currently, the company’s largest fuel cell project is an 80-megawatt installation in South Korea.

Related: NJ Data Centers at a Crossroads?

DataOne’s attorney Michael Fralinger said the fuel cells, which do not utilize combustion, release fewer carbon emissions than traditional power generation. The fuel cells use a chemical reaction to convert natural gas into electricity. Fralinger also said on-site generation takes strain off the electrical grid and won’t impact ratepayers’ bills.

“This particular project has been deliberately designed and structured so that its energy requirements are not subsidized by existing electric or natural gas customers,” Fralinger said at the planning board hearing, which included six hours of witness testimony and cross examination. “All of the financial risk for this project is being borne by the project.”

Read the full story here

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Billions of dollars that would fix the grid are being blocked by the Trump administration

The Department of Energy has canceled or stalled funding for thousands of projects that would improve the country’s stressed grid — and not just in blue states.

Chris Wright talking with his arms in the air; an image of him is on a large screen on the wall behind him
U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright testifies during a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill on April 16, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)


By Jeff St. John, Canary Media, 

In Wisconsin, utility Alliant Energy has called off a project meant to reduce power outages in disadvantaged and tribal communities, after the Trump administration terminated a federal grant that would have supported it.

In California, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which has deployed and upgraded hundreds of thousands of advanced smart meters, has not received any reimbursement from the U.S. Department of Energy for the work since October, when the Trump administration declared it was killing grants that it described as fueling ​“the Left’s climate agenda.”

And in the upper Midwest, a consortium of regional grid operators, utilities, and state agencies is still waiting for $464 million in DOE funds meant to help build high-voltage transmission lines to reduce grid congestion — although the agency in charge of the project says the funding will soon be restored.

Across the country, hundreds of such projects to improve grid reliability and make electricity more affordable face a highly uncertain future — the result of Trump administration actions that have slowed the outflow of billions of dollars of DOE funds to a trickle.

Some of those projects in ​“blue states” were targeted as political retribution, as recent reporting from The New York Times has made clear. A handful of grant awardees in this category have won favorable court rulings, and more are seeking legal redress.

See the full story here

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Hanwha vs. Holt: How New Jersey lost a shipyard

Holt refused to give up its lease in Paulsboro. Hanwha is now looking in southern states for a place to invest a chunk of the $5 billion it has pledged for U.S. shipbuilding.

Former State Senate President Steve Sweeney (left) takes a tour at the Paulsboro factory where Germany-based multinational pipemaker EEW had begun building massive cylindrical supports for New Jersey’s planned ocean wind electric plants before the program was canceled.

By Joseph N. DiStefano, Philadelphia Inquirer


Hanwha Philly Shipyard says it needs a lot more space outside its 110-acre South Philadelphia complex to win lucrative U.S. Navy contracts, turn the money-losing facility profitable, and hire up to 1,000 union welders and metalworkers.

The Korean-owned yard’s leaders thought they had found just the place, four miles by barge down the Delaware River at the New Jersey-funded Paulsboro facility, vacated by the offshore wind industry when President Donald Trump killed that program. In December, Hanwha agreed to take over the lease.

But port operator Holt Logistics refused approval and sued to block the deal. After months of lobbying, Hanwha has given up and is now collecting offers from southern states that hope Hanwha will invest a big chunk of the $5 billion it has pledged for U.S. shipbuilding into their yards and future workers.

This despite the fact Hanwha’s proposal enjoyed support from federal, state, and local officials and even made it into the U.S. military budget for fiscal year 2026, which called for $110 million “to support shipbuilding industrial capacity” and steel fabrication in a manufacturing facility “formerly used for offshore wind manufacturing.”

Paulsboro Mayor John Giovannitti estimates that on a given day, there are fewer than 50 workers at the port.

Leo Holt, whose century-old company runs ports in Gloucester City and South Philadelphia, said he’s not completely averse to manufacturing around the Paulsboro terminal after his family’s plans to beef up container and bulk shipping there accelerate.

Hanwha declined to comment, confirming only that the shipyard is still looking for space “in the U.S.”

What went wrong?

The full article here

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Federal Court rules against Trump EPA’s freeze of $20B in ​‘green bank’ funds

(J. David Ake/Getty Images)

A federal appeals court has ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency acted improperly in terminating billions of dollars of ​“green bank” financing last year, setting up a potential showdown before the U.S. Supreme Court over one of the Trump administration’s earliest attacks on a key Biden-era climate program.

Tuesday’s divided ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is a victory for the nonprofit groups targeted by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin as part of a broader attack on the Biden administration’s clean energy and climate spending.

In March 2025, the EPA moved to freeze $20 billion in funding under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), which was created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and is commonly known as the federal ​“green bank” program. The ambitious effort was meant to inject large-scale federal funding into climate and clean-energy lending pioneered by state-level green banks — lending institutions that have successfully enabled $21.8 billion in public-private investment to date.

The idea was to put federal money to work to boost financing for clean energy and climate-oriented projects in communities that have traditionally lacked access to it. That could spur a virtuous cycle that could yield between $150 billion to $250 billion in private-sector investment over the next 10 years, according to an April 2023 analysis by consultancy McKinsey.

That effort has been frozen in its tracks by the current EPA, forcing the nonprofits awarded grants to curtail operations. Those groups argued that the EPA’s actions violated the law by not spending money authorized by Congress.

Read the full article here

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PJM’s big new data center plan: Make the states figure it out

Grid operator PJM wants states and utilities to hold data centers responsible for buying their own power — or risk being cut off from grid service.

 

Data center building with construction equipment on a dirt lot, with a nuclear power reactor behind it

A data center owned by Amazon Web Services under construction in Berwick, Pennsylvania, in January 2025 (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

By Jeff St. John, Canary Media

PJM Interconnection, the biggest grid operator in the U.S., has finally settled on a plan to prevent data centers from causing other customers’ utility bills to soar further in its 13-state territory.

That plan relies heavily on states themselves, and the utilities they regulate, to force data centers to secure their own power supplies — or face the possibility of getting their power cut off during grid emergencies.

Last week, PJM’s board of managers sent proposals along these lines to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which must grant the grid operator permission before it can implement the new plan for its system, which serves about 67 million people from Virginia to Illinois. The multipart plan is PJM’s attempt to quiet down months of mounting pressure from state governors and the Trump administration to contain skyrocketing costs while staying within its regulatory limits.

“Historically, PJM has been very nervous to step into what it considered — or what are legally — the states’ rights,” said Julia Hoos, who leads coverage of Eastern U.S. power markets for Aurora Energy Research. But with its new proposals, PJM is ​“making a definitive request to the states to accomplish what it needs.”

Read the full article here.

 

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