NJ panel takes its anti-Exxon settlement show on the road

New Jersey Assembly Judiciary Chairman John
McKeon today announced the committee will meet Wednesday in Bayonne to hear
public comment on the proposed $225 million settlement between the
Christie administration and ExxonMobil for the environmental damage caused by
Exxon’s refinery operations in Bayonne and Linden.
The
meeting is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m., June 3, in the City of Bayonne
Municipal Council Chambers at 630 Avenue C.

“The
Assembly has made its voice clear in opposing this settlement, but I also want
to make sure those directly impacted by this environmental damage get a chance
to make their voices heard,” said McKeon (D-Essex/Morris). “This settlement is a
slap in the face, especially those who live in the areas affected by the
contamination, yet it’s barely a slap on the wrist for Exxon. The public
deserves the chance to express their opinion and be heard loud and clear.”


The
committee has held several hearings on the proposed settlement, and on May 14
the Assembly approved a McKeon-sponsored resolution (AR-242) opposing the
proposed settlement. The resolution respectfully urged the court presiding over
the proposed settlement to reject it because it “shocks the conscience in light
of undisputed evidence of significant damage to, and loss of, the state’s
natural resources caused by pollution at the Bayway and Bayonne oil refinery
sites and at certain other ExxonMobil sites in New Jersey.”


The
Assembly resolution noted that the New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection’s own experts estimated that restoration of former wetlands, meadows,
forests and intertidal habitat, and compensation for decades of contamination,
at the Bayway and Bayonne sites would cost $8.9 billion, including $2.6 billion
for primary restoration and $6.3 billion for compensatory damages, and $1.2
million for assessment costs.

Instead,
the Christie administration and Exxon agreed to a $225 million settlement, which
not only exempts Exxon Mobil from all natural resource damages claims and
liability from the Bayway and Bayonne facilities, but 16 other different
facilities owned or operated by Exxon.


Related news:
Assembly passes resolution
condemning Exxon settlement
New Jersey Exxon Settlement Faces
New Criticism
New Jersey’s Incredible Shrinking
$225 Million Exxon Mobil
Christie Aide Took Political Trips
Before Exxon Settlement
Congresspeople Urge Rejection of
Proposed Exxon 



Was this post of value to you?
Click here for free updates




Recent Blog Posts:
Remember when EPA regs did not trigger Olympian rage?
No fracking in NJ but pipelines are changing its landscape  
Matt Mowers – Gov. Christie’s man in New Hampshire 
Memorial Day Photos 2015 
Gov. nominates four to NJ Water Supply Advisory Council


NJ panel takes its anti-Exxon settlement show on the road Read More »

Remember when EPA regs did not trigger Olympian rage?

Nathanael Johnson writes in Grist:

The Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday released a long-awaited and long-debated rule for interpreting the Clean Water Act. The EPA has regulated rivers since the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, but Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006 reduced the scope of government authority to protect water against pollution. Since that time, it has been unclear what the government is allowed to regulate. A New York Times article in 2010 suggested that this rollback was allowing pollution that previously would have been illegal:
“This is a huge deal,” James M. Tierney, the New York State assistant commissioner for water resources, said of the new constraints. “There are whole watersheds that feed into New York’s drinking water supply that are, as of now, unprotected”…
“Cases now are lost because the company is discharging into a stream that flows into a river, rather than the river itself,” said David M. Uhlmann, a law professor at the University of Michigan who led the environmental crimes section of the Justice Department during the last administration.
The new EPA rule doesn’t give the agency as much authority as it previously wielded under the Clean Water Act. But it says the EPA will regulate tributaries of navigable rivers, wetlands, and a few other environmentally important bodies of water, like prairie potholes and vernal pools in California.

If you haven’t been following this, you may wonder why it’s controversial. That’s a fair question. As Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) pointed out in an op-ed, these regulations used to seem like common sense to both Republicans and Democrats:

The draft rule relies on more than 1,200 pieces of peer-reviewed scientific literature that evaluate the critical functions that various types of water bodies perform. It restores protections that the administrations of presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush championed.
Still, the EPA’s critics were outraged by the rule. House Speaker John Boehner called it “a raw and tyrannical power grab.”

Remember when EPA regs did not trigger Olympian rage? Read More »

No fracking in NJ but pipelines are changing its landscape

This is an excerpt from the first in a week-long series of reports produced by NJ Spotlight in collaboration with WHYY public radio of Philadelphia. It looks at the upheaval that’s occurring in New Jersey due to the discovery of enormous natural gas reserves beneath the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and the need for thousands of miles of new interstate pipelines to get the gas to market. The series will culminate with a roundtable on Friday morning. 

Pennsylvania’s pipeline building boom could expand the nations’ and perhaps the world’s, supply of natural gas. And this boom includes an estimated 4,600 miles of new interstate pipes, tunneling under Pennsylvania’s farms, wetlands, waterways, and backyards. That’s on top of 6800 miles of existing interstate natural gas pipes, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Drillers eager to reach new markets are frustrated right now, because there’s just not enough room in the current pipeline system to transport their gas beyond regional markets. “That gas languishes and it builds up and now that price will drop,” said Rob Boulware, a spokesman for Seneca Resources.
Today, Marcellus Shale gas sold at less than $2/MMBtu, which is about a dollar lower than gas sold in other parts of the country.
While producers and utilities try to expand their infrastructure, the pipeline construction boom has run up against opposition in small towns and rural areas where environmentalists and residents are pushing back. Some opponents simply don’t want their land disturbed, or taken by eminent domain. But other activists see pipelines as part of a larger mission to end drilling altogether.
“The pipelines are being built in order to induce more drilling and fracking,” said Maya van Rossum with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. “And of course more drilling and fracking results in the need for more pipelines. So the two are inextricably intertwined and if you oppose one, truthfully, you have to oppose the other.”

Natural Gas Drilling in Pennsylvania

The Marcellus Shale has been underneath Pennsylvania for centuries, but the extraction of natural gas began only recently.
The “fracking” boom is changing the landscape of northeastern and southwestern Pennsylvania. Use this tool to learn which operators are drilling, and where. Find active wells in your county or municipality — and see whether the drillers have been cited for violating state environmental regulations.
Read More ▶
Luke Jackson is an analyst with Bentek Energy, a firm that specializes in natural gas. Jackson says that just 5 years ago, the Marcellus Shale, which is made up primarily of Pennsylvania’s gas fields was producing two billion cubic feet of gas a day. Today that’s jumped to 19 billion cubic feet every day. And he predicts, in just 4 years, there will be 30 billion cubic feet of gas coming out of the region. That’s a 1400 percentage rise in just 10 years.
“There’s so [many] molecules out there, whether its gas, whether its oil, whether it’s natural gas liquids, you just have a ton of supply on the market at the moment,” said Jackson.
And that massive supply is too much for the current system of pipelines to carry. There’s a traffic jam of gas molecules in the pipeline system. Seneca Resources is a natural gas driller, one of the many trying to expand their number of customers by delivering gas to new markets. Their spokesman Rob Boulware says demand for new pipes to carry all that gas, and to ease the traffic jam, are so high, the new routes for that gas is already sold out. And some of those pipelines won’t come online for another couple of years.
“Think of it like a turnpike that no one is driving on but people are lined up at the gate to go through it,” said Boulware.

Was this post of value to you?
Click here for free updates

No fracking in NJ but pipelines are changing its landscape Read More »

Matt Mowers – Gov. Christie’s man in New Hampshire

Christie advance man Matt Mowers – Mel Evans AP photo

Rutgers-grad Matt Mowers is Gov. Christie’s man in New Hampshire, working out of an apartment and coffee shops to build relationships for his boss in the first-in-the-nation primary state.

A GOP strategist says of Mowers work: “You get a sense they have thought through where they need to go to get the votes you need to win.”

Read Mattie Hanna’s Philadelphia Inquirer piece here  


    

Was this post of value to you?
Click here for free updates


Matt Mowers – Gov. Christie’s man in New Hampshire Read More »

Memorial Day 2015

Thanks for your photos:

Ed Murray
NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

___________________________________________________________________________

    

Was this post of value to you?
Click here for free updates

Memorial Day 2015 Read More »

Gov. nominates four to NJ Water Supply Advisory Council


Governor Chris Christie re-filed the following nominations with the State Senate. These nominations were filed during the 2014 annual session, but were not acted upon by the Senate. The Governor’s nominations are subject to the advice and consent of the State Senate. 

Water Supply Advisory Council
Nursery/Landscape Industry Representative
Nominate for reappointment Peter F. Haran (Marlton, Burlington)

Municipal/County Water Company Representative
Nominate for appointment Stephen R. Blankenship, P.E. (Williamstown, Gloucester)

Golf Course Superintendent Representative
Nominate for reappointment Michael A. Stachowski (Robbinsville, Mercer)

Academic Community Representative
Nominate for appointment Taha F. Marhaba, Ph.D., P.E. (Bridgewater, Somerset)

    

Was this post of value to you?
Click here for free updates



Gov. nominates four to NJ Water Supply Advisory Council Read More »