By Jon Hurdle, NJ Spotlight
Gov. Phil Murphy’s new nominations to the Pinelands Commission have outraged environmentalists who said the new members would weaken environmental protections and make the 1 million-acre South Jersey preserve more vulnerable to development.
The critics said the nominees, all with corporate backgrounds, would replace three incumbents with long records as environmental advocates. These nominations, those critics said, are at odds with Murphy’s other policies of promoting clean energy and driving down climate-altering emissions.
In response to the storm of protest, the administration agreed Sunday to meet with the environmentalists on Monday to discuss the issue. The advocates consequently canceled a Monday news conference when they planned to urge Murphy to withdraw the nominations.
The newly re-elected governor on Thursday nominated Elvin Montero, deputy executive director of the Chemistry Council of New Jersey, a trade group, to replace Ed Lloyd, a retired environmental law professor who has sat on the commission since 2002.
Murphy also proposed that Davon McCurry, a government affairs official with the wind energy giant Orsted, should replace D’Arcy Rohan Green, an environmental advocate who has served on the Pinelands Commission since 2011.
And Laura Matos, an executive at Kivvit, a national communications and public relations firm, was nominated to replace Richard Prickett, a retired science teacher who joined the commission in 2012 and is its current chairman.
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