NJ environmental & energy bills set for votes Thursday

Eleven environmental and energy bills are scheduled for votes in the Senate and Assembly on Thursday (1/6/11) as members of the New Jersey Legislature return from their Christmas/New Year’s Day holiday. Following is a partial listing*. (Left-click on bill number to view full text.)

ASSEMBLY VOTING SESSION – 1/06/11  1 PM
A-2859  Quijano, A. (D-20); Burzichelli, J.J. (D-3); Riley, C.M. (D-3)
Authorizes sale and lease of unneeded public property to certain nonprofits for gardening and urban farming and exempts such urban farms from property taxation.
Related Bill: S-1964
   
A-3143 Greenwald, L.D. (D-6); Quijano, A. (D-20); Lampitt, P.R. (D-6)
Expands treatment of mixed use projects under urban transit hub tax credit.
Related Bill: S-2183
   
A-3295  Coutinho, A. (D-29); Quigley, J.M. (D-32); Wagner, C. (D-38)
Expands availability of general development plan approvals and long-term vesting of preliminary and final site plan approvals in Smart Growth areas.  Related Bill: S-483
   
SENATE VOTING SESSION – 1/06/11  2 PM
A-2529  Chivukula, U.J. (D-17); Quijano, A. (D-20); Stender, L. (D-22)
Concerns energy efficiency and renewable energy requirements.
Related Bill: S-2306
   
S-483  Lesniak, R.J. (D-20)
Expands availability of general development plan approvals and long-term vesting of preliminary and final site plan approvals in Smart Growth areas.
Related Bill: A-3295
   
S-1451  Rice, R.L. (D-28)
Revises laws concerning local redevelopment, relocation assistance and eminent domain.
   

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NJ bill encourages energy conservation by businesses

Businesses that implement energy efficiency and conservation projects would be eligible for a credit against the Societal Benefits Charge (SBC) on their energy bills under A-2528 (Chivukula) which was passed by the New Jersey Assembly on December 13 and sent to the Senate.

In a bulletin to members today, the New Jersey Business and Industry Association explained:

“All New Jersey energy consumers pay an SBC surcharge based on the amount of electricity they consume. A portion of the money raised by the surcharge goes to pay for energy efficiency projects and renewable energy. Commercial and industrial energy users consume 64 percent of all electricity and are the largest contributors to this fund. NJBIA has long called for a more balanced distribution of funds that would allow companies undertaking energy-efficiency projects to receive a credit. The purpose of funding energy efficiency and conservation projects is to reduce the state’s energy demand and related carbon emissions. The return on investment for commercial and industrial projects is $11 for every $1 invested, compared with a 4 to 1 payback on residential projects.”


Following  Assembly passage, the legislation was referred to the Senate Energy and Environment Committee were a companion bill, S-2344, sponsored by committee chairman, Bob Smith, was assigned following its introduction on October 14.

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Former diplomats discuss WikiLeaks at Princeton forum

If you are interested in the debate over the more than 1,000 diplomatic cables recently made public by WikiLeaks via the New York Times and other international media outlets, you’re likely to find the video below to be of value. 

It is a recording of a panel discussion held on December 14 at the Woodrow Wilson School on the campus of Princeton University.

The three presenters are former diplomats–all critical of the public disclosures of private correspondence between foreign embassies and the U.S. State Department. 

They discuss the nature of diplomatic work, how intelligence is gathered and reported, how the disclosures are likely to impact future relations with foreign governments and how the nature of future reports from the diplomatic corps to Washington may change as a result of the disclosures.

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NJDEP overhauling its contaminated site cleanup rules

If you are a New Jersey licensed site remediation professional or a business with an interest in a property that will require a cleanup, you’ll want to pay close attention to the following excerpt from a recent news article published by the Gibbons law firm.

Department of Environmental Protection Invites Comments on
Major Overhaul of Rules Governing Clean-ups

By: Edward F. McTiernan, David A. Brooks and Uzoamaka N. Okoye

In 2009, faced with a staggering number of incomplete clean-ups and dwindling public resources, the New Jersey Legislature decided to try its hand at privatizing the clean-up process. The Site Remediation Reform Act, N.J.S.A. 58:10C-1, et seq. (“SRRA”) established a program whereby oversight of remediation is transferred from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (“NJDEP”) to private Licensed Site Remediation Professionals (“LSRPs”) over a period of three years.

Shortly after adoption of this statute NJDEP put in place (without public comment) an interim set of rules – the Administrative Requirements for the Remediation of Contaminated Sites (“ARRCS”) – which presently govern the private oversight of clean-ups as well as the transition of cases to LSRPs.

The ARRCS are due to expire in the spring of 2011 and NJDEP has been working to develop a proposal for final clean-up rules. On December 15, 2010, NJDEP posted a working draft of the proposed amendments to the ARRCS, the Industrial Site Recovery Act rules (“ISRA”) and the Underground Storage Tank rules (“UST”).

When formally promulgated, these new amendments will replace the interim rules and bring all of the various rules governing clean-ups into conformity with SRRA. There will be a formal comment and response period when the final proposed amendments are published in May 2011. The draft proposal can be found on the NJDEP’s website at http://www.nj.gov/dep/srp/regs/drafts/. Stakeholders are invited to submit comments by January 14, 2011.

Parties who are involved in the investigation, remediation and/or redevelopment of contaminated real estate may want to review this draft proposal to get a better sense of the issues presented by the use of LSRPs and an insight in NJDEP’s approach to SRRA. Anyone who has in the past worked with the Technical Requirements for Site Remediation may want to consider these rules and provide comments. Everyone who works with, or represents, responsible parties or deals with clean-up questions should stay tuned for the formal rule proposal in 2011. Read the entire Gibbons article here 

GE told to dig deeper to remove PCBs from the Hudson  

Yesterday’s action on NJ environmental and energy bills
Enviro-Events Calendar for NJ, PA, DE & NY


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$1M in grants available for Marcellus Shale education

The Colcom Foundation on Monday said it was setting up a new $1 million Marcellus Environmental Fund for grants to study or educate the public about the environmental impact of the expanding natural gas industry in Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

“There are a number of mixed messages out there right now” about Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling, said John Rohe, the foundation’s vice president of philanthropy. “We need to know whether or how much this process might be affecting the ecology as well as the health of citizens of Western Pennsylvania.”

The foundation, in its news release Monday, suggested areas of interest in Marcellus Shale could include public education, community engagement, best practices, baseline data collection, on-going monitoring, land owner guidance and collaborative projects.

The foundation’s board of directors will award grants in two phases: the first for applications filed with Colcom by Jan. 14, to be awarded sometime in February; the second for applications filed by March 14, to be awarded in May.

Colcom, which was created by the late Cordelia S. May, heiress to the Mellon family fortune, has an environmental focus for its local grants. It targets overpopulation issues with its national grants and will disburse about $20 million in grants overall this year, Mr. Rohe said.

The foundation has previously given out individual, smaller grants related to Marcellus Shale drilling, including a 2009 grant to Carnegie Mellon University researchers to do a baseline survey of the Monongahela River watershed.


Related:

GE told to dig deeper to remove PCBs from the Hudson  

Yesterday’s action on NJ environmental and energy bills
Enviro-Events Calendar for NJ, PA, DE & NY
Obama says frack on, DRBC, but study, too 

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Corbett transition team tilts toward industry insiders?

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette took a look at incoming Republican Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s transition team and concluded yesterday that its membership tilts toward “insiders — lobbyists, lawyers and industry types.”

The Governor-elect’s spokesman Kevin Harley insisted that the committees include “a cross-section of Pennsylvanians who are subject-matter experts and who were willing to serve on the committees.”

Of the 377 members, 26 are minorities and 56 are women.

Corbett’s Energy and Environmental Committee

The Post-Gazette says that “of the 29 members, just a handful represent environmental groups, while the rest come from the scrap industry, energy companies, a water and sewer utility, coal mining, gas drilling, the National Rifle Association and from lobbying and law firms that represent clients who often have business before state regulatory boards that the committee is meant to study.”

“It’s almost all lobbyists and industry executives,” said Jan Jarrett, CEO of PennFuture, a prominent statewide environmental group with no representation on the transition team.

Ms. Jarrett noted that many of the committee members have business pending before the Department of Environmental Protection, the Public Utility Commission and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

“These are agencies that have to be independent watchdogs and these people picked to make recommendations about them either have business before them or will have business before them,” she said. “The fact is it’s hard to separate one’s self-interest from the public interest, and there are very few public-interest advocates on the committee.”

The committee, she said, will study how state agencies regulate the industries they work for.

“The industry standpoint is that Department of Environmental Protection regs are too burdensome, too expensive and too onerous. The very people making recommendations to the new governor are people who have an interest in lightening the touch of the regulatory arm,” Ms. Jarrett said.

Read the full story here

Related:
Transition team includes many campaign contributors
Plans for Corbett inauguration taking shape

Our most recent posts:
GE told to dig deeper to remove PCBs from the Hudson  
Yesterday’s action on NJ environmental and energy bills
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