The lawsuit follows DEP’s denial of a petition seeking faster action to fight climate change, restrict new fossil fuel projects
By Tom Johnson NJ Spotlight
A coalition of environmental groups sued the Murphy administration on Wednesday over what it views as the state’s failure to take steps to reduce climate pollutants by 50% by the end of this decade, a goal advanced by 14 other states and the Biden administration.
The lawsuit, filed in the appellate division, follows the state Department of Environmental Protection’s denial of a petition last month seeking to speed up actions to fight climate change and to restrict new fossil fuel projects in New Jersey. Among other demands, the petition wants the DEP to set benchmarks for achieving significant reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030, the so-called 50×30 target.
The failure to establish such benchmarks, the coalition argued, ignores Gov. Phil Murphy’s own executive order issued in November 2021, calling on the state to reduce carbon pollution 50% below 2006 levels by 2030. The coalition also argued the denial flouts amendments to the Global Warming Response Act signed by Murphy in 2019 requiring interim benchmarks be established to achieve the goal of reducing emissions by 80% by 2050.
“There are only two ways to look at DEP’s outright denial of our petition: DEP has gone rogue or this administration is uninterested in pursuing its own stated policies and state law,’’ said John Reichman, chair of BlueWaveNJ’s environment committee and a member of the coalition, Empower NJ.
With signs of the climate crisis worsening, the coalition argued the denial of its petition is a dereliction of duty.
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