Enviros claim NJ lost out on millions by exiting RGGI

                                                                                             Watchdog.org graphic
New Jersey could have reaped $114 million for clean energy projects had Governor Christie not yanked the state almost three years ago from a multi-state program designed to reduce greenhouse gases, claims a report released by an environmental advocacy group today.

Scott Fallon writes in The Record:

“The report comes as the Christie administration is finalizing its formal withdrawal from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, known as RGGI, after environmental groups had lobbied intensely this summer for the governor to reconsider.

“We wanted to put some more firm numbers on what New Jersey is losing out on if it is not part of this program,” said Doug O’Malley of Environment New Jersey, which released the report in conjunction with Environment Northeast. “This is the real-world cost of leaving RGGI.”

Fallon quotes Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for Christie, saying that RGGI “amounted to nothing more than a tax on business” and “failed to achieve its goals of lowering the use of carbon emissions and creating green jobs.”

“RGGI was formed more than a decade ago by 10 Eastern states to curb the amount of carbon dioxide emitted from power companies. The gas works like a blanket to trap heat in the atmosphere, which increases air and ocean temperatures, melts polar ice, raises sea levels and produces more intense storms. Sea levels have risen along the New Jersey coast about a foot and a half over the past century and are expected to rise another foot by 2050.

“Under RGGI, power companies must buy credits for every ton of carbon their plants emit while generating electricity. RGGI has raised $1.8 billion for the states, including $113 million for New Jersey before Christie pulled out.

“In its report, Environment Northeast says New Jersey is projected to forgo an additional $387 million from now until 2020 if it does not rejoin RGGI.

The report touted several clean energy projects that New Jersey’s RGGI money helped fund, including a solar panel system at William Paterson University that was said to be the largest ever built at an institute of higher learning. It also said that Christie diverted $75 million of RGGI revenue slated for clean energy projects to balance the state budget in 2010.

SCR-125, a resolution that challenges the legitimacy of the state’s withdrawal from RGGI will be heard in Trenton on Monday at 10 a.m. in the Senate Environment and Energy Committee. The committee will meet in Room 10, Third Floor, State Houses Annex.



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Politicians march into the Battle of the Philly Port Titans

In today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, Linda Loyd sends a dispatch from the front lines where forces are being marshaled for the ‘Battle of the Port Titans.’


“Two prominent marine-terminal operators with big stakes in the Delaware River each want to manage and control some of the 200 acres known as Southport, at the eastern end of the Navy Yard, south of the Walt Whitman Bridge.

“Vying for the millions of dollars in business opportunities that could result: John Brown Jr., president of Penn Warehousing and Distribution Inc., a paper-import company that operates from Piers 38 and 40 and 78 and 80, who also runs Murphy Marine Services at the Port of Wilmington; and the Holt family, whose companies operate the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal and Gloucester Terminals L.L.C. in Gloucester City.
Vincent J. Fumo: “I wrote the law on the PRPA.”

Here’s where it gets interesting-enter the politicians


“Brown said he had hired former state Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, a longtime family friend, to advise him in his Southport efforts. He did so, Brown said, after learning that the Holts had been trying to team up with an energy company to develop Southport without an open bid process, known as a request-for-proposals (RFP).   


Listen to this quote from tough-guy Vince Fumo

“As a senator, I wrote the law on the PRPA,” Fumo said. “I’m very familiar with its powers, its duties. I’ve represented the waterfront for 31 years. I know it inside out. And I will bet you this deal will not go down as envisioned by Corbett and his henchmen. How I do it, and what advice I give to do it, and who I direct to do it, is my business and my client’s business. I’m not going to give you proprietary information on how I work.”


The Holts have there own political fire power. The story, which is just unfolding, should be great fun to watch.


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Four NJ towns consider pooling their power purchases


A 2003 New Jersey law allows municipalities, either individually or in tandem, to pursue cost saving by pooling customers and buying in bulk from a third-party, non-utility producer of electricity. Four towns in Mercer County are thinking about joining together to do just that.


“Ewing, Hopewell Township, Lawrence and West Windsor, boasting a combined population of about 115,000 people, could achieve electricity cost savings by participating in “energy aggregation,” Brendan McGrath reports in the Times of Trenton.


At 7 p.m. on Sept. 18, the four towns will host a public information session at the Mercer County Community College conference center in West Windsor. An energy aggregation consultant will give a presentation and public officials will be in attendance.


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Big player in New Jersey recycling closes its doors

A prominent Clifton-based recycling company abruptly closed its doors on Friday, informing more than 100 employees that they had worked their final day while dozens of North Jersey towns scrambled to forge temporary arrangements with other collectors, The Record reports.

Green Sky Industries, which promoted itself as the state’s largest private recycler with 75 municipal contracts, many in Bergen and Passaic counties, announced in a letter to towns on Thursday that it was shutting both of its plants, in Clifton and Carteret in Middlesex County. The company’s Clifton employees on Friday were given their final paychecks and a note on a quarter sheet of paper that explained the closure as a result of “declining business conditions.”
Green Sky workers being told that the recycling plant is closing.

CARMINE GALASSO/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
James Escudero, 61, of Paterson after the news.

Richard Biondi II, the operations manager, said he learned about the closure early Friday. He paced back and forth outside of an office, sweat running down his face, before he went to break the news to the plant’s 76 workers at the end of their shift.

“I’m fighting back the tears,” he said.

After the announcement, office manager Mary Baez walked to her car with her niece Nilda Quinones, an office clerk. Tears welled in her eyes as she searched for the white paper slip that told her that time had ended.

“We regret the suddenness of this decision and thank you greatly for your service to the company,” the note said.

Company executives did not return emails or phone calls seeking comment on Friday. The closure was preceded by other layoffs, late payments to some towns and complications with China, a major importer of recyclables that last year rejected large quantities of material from U.S. companies because they contained too much regular trash.

Green Sky was a proponent of “single stream” recycling that permits residents to combine paper, cardboard, glass, aluminum and plastic into one container, rather than separating them. The process is designed to entice more residents to participate in recycling, and has become popular in Bergen County in recent years.

The Chinese crackdown, called the “green fence,” put financial pressure on companies such as Green Sky that purchased shipments from towns, separated the waste and then sold it to China. 

The company’s closing will come at a cost for several towns in Bergen and Passaic counties, where officials searched for alternative collectors in a hurry. Westwood’s borough administrator, Bob Hoffman, said the borough already had made arrangements with a company it contracts with to pick up recycling. But that outfit pays less for the materials than Green Sky, he said.


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Another effect of (hic) climate change?

Are longer, colder, snowier winters encouraging us to adopt Nordic drinking habits?

The New York Governor’s office reports that the number of breweries, wineries and cideries
in the state has doubled over the past three years–growing from 205 to 410.


The number of microbreweries has increased from 40 in 2011 to 104 this year.
The state also has 57 new farm breweries and nearly 100 new farm wineries.

Climate change’s role?  



It makes sense. You may not have power or a backup generator, but you can stock up on schnapps to help get you through the dark and frigid nights.

And, if alcohol consumption follows climate change, imagine what it will do to birth rates.

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Two good stories on Pa fracking and NJ flooding

Here are two stories that you might have missed in the past few days that deserve attention.

natural gas blue flame In Fracking takes toll in Pennsylvania, but New Jersey gets bargain, The Record‘s
James M. O’Neil writes:

"The recent boom in natural gas drilling across Pennsylvania has turned some property owners into millionaires. It also has forced some rural communities there to endure swaths of denuded forest, fumes from diesel engines, the rattle of equipment, midnight skies lit up by the lights for well pads, spills of dangerous wastewater, and the leak of explosive methane into their drinking water wells.

"One state away, New Jersey residents have enjoyed significant benefits from the gas being mined from the Marcellus Shale Formation through fracking. With  an abundance of gas on the market, New Jerseyans have seen significant drops in the price of gas to heat their homes and cook their food – price cuts that are likely to continue this winter. And many coal-fired power plants in the Midwest have switched to natural gas, which has improved the air quality downwind in New Jersey."

O’Neil goes on to highlight the benefits and downsides of the fracking boom in both states.


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In Problems with repetitive flooding mean recurring losses for inland New Jersey, NJ Public Radio reporter Scott Gurian creates both an audio and written story (for NJ Spotlight) on a complicated problem that has no easy answers.

It is the repetitive flooding in New Jersey towns far from the shore communities that drew most of the attention in the wake of Hurricane Sandy

Dashboard 1


This eye-opening paragraph gives you an idea of how big a problem repetitive flooding is:

 
"Since most homeowners living in these areas are insured through the National Flood Insurance Program, this ends up costing taxpayers, who until now have been forced to subsidize residents to repair houses that continually flood. According to claims data supplied by FEMA, one condominium building in Kearny, for example, has filed 30 separate claims over the past 36 years totaling more than $5.3 million in pay-outs. Another, single-family home in River Vale is listed as having filed 16 flood insurance claims, adding up to $1.3 million, while a home in Pompton Lakes has flooded 20 times over the years."

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Two good stories on Pa fracking and NJ flooding Read More »