An environmental organization that gained national headlines in challenging President Obama’s selection of New Jersey’s DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson to head the Environmental Protection Agency is focusing again on New Jersey environmental regulators. In a news release today, PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility) claims that the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) re-wrote an air pollution study on the impact of dust from a cement plant in a Camden neighborhood to allay industry objections.
PEER says that e-mails it forced the NJDEP to release under threat of a law suit “depict a clubby, closed door climate in which the state regulators seek to assuage industry concerns even while keeping the affected community in the dark.”
In objecting to Jackson’s confirmation, PEER painted a picture New Jersey’s environmental agency, under Jackson’s leadership, as one that compromised environmental science and standards to satisfy business interests.
Read the PEER news release and related information links here.
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