EnviroPolitics Blog

Solar and biofuel bills clear NJ environment committee

The New Jersey Senate Energy and Environment Committee yesterday approved bills that expand siting opportunities for solar-energy facilities and promote state use of biofuels.

Senator Jim Whelan (D-Atlantic County) said there are roughly 80 old landfills in Pinelands region towns where local governments do not have the money to properly cap the facilities. His bill, S-2126, would allow solar-energy developers to overcome existing Pinelands restrictions and erect solar arrays on the site of any closed landfill or quarry.

Whelan said the towns could use revenues generated by the energy facilities to help pay the cost of capping the facilities. The bill also permits similar installations at closed landfills and quarries outside the Pinelands.

The environment committee also released twin bills S-1413 (Smith) and A-1052 (Quijano/Cryan/Chivakula) that require state entities to purchase biofuels in place of fossil fuels when it is “reasonable, prudent and cost effective to do so.”

The bill was amended to define “biofuel” as “liquid or gaseous fuels produced from organic sources such as sustainably grown and harvested crops including native noninvasive energy crops, agricultural residues, non-recycled organic waste including waste cooking oil, grease and food wastes, sewage and algae.”

The amended bill defines ‘energy crops‘ as those “grown exclusively for energy production, including switchgrass and poplar.”

Our most recent posts:
Bill hiking spill liability to $1B advances in NJ
Bill would hike New Jersey Spill Fund liability
ETS looking to score a 1.8 on its solar energy project
Pennsylvania builders get permit extension relief

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Bill hiking spill liability to $1B advances in NJ

Reacting to the devastating BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a New Jersey legislative committee yesterday released a bill (S-2108) that would increase the state Spill Fund’s current liability cap of $50 million to $1 billion. The measure was amended to also increase the per-vessel cap from $1,200 to $3,000 per gross ton.

However, after hearing testimony from petroleum and chemical industry lobbyists objecting to the 20-fold increase for on-shore spills, bill sponsor Bob Smith (D-Middlesex) agreed to consider floor amendments that would increase the cap to some yet undermined level for on-land spills while leaving unchanged the bill’s $1 billion cap for off-shore spills.

New Jersey Petroleum Council Executive Director James Benton told members of the Senate Energy and Environment Committee that the current $50 million cap had been sufficient for all spills at petroleum facilities since the Spill Fund was instituted in 1976 and that an oil tanker spill in the Delaware River that totaled $100 million was covered by the shipping company’s insurance carrier and did not require the use of Spill Fund money.

Smith said that while major corporations may be able to cover cleanups in excess of the law’s current $50 million liability cap, he was concerned about a potential $350 million spill at a mom-and-pop-sized facility. “This bill is designed to cover that situation,” he said.

New Jersey Chemistry Council Executive Director Hal Bozarth questioned whether the more than 300 chemical and pharmaceutical companies also covered by the state Spill Fund law would be able to find insurance carriers willing to provide coverage for spills with a $1 billion cap—and at what cost. He said that pollution premiums currently run between 8 and 15 percent of the liability exposure.

A representative of the state Department of Environmental Protection, which supports the legislation, agreed to the committee’s request that the department research the history of Spill Fund payouts and make a recommendation as to a new liability level for on-shore spills.

The New Jersey Audubon Society and the New Jersey Sierra Club registered their support for the legislation.

Related:
Congress moves to lift oil spill liability cap

Our most recent posts:
Bill would hike New Jersey Spill Fund liability
Another Rendell insider jumps to shale gas industry
ETS looking to score a 1.8 on its solar energy project
Pennsylvania builders get permit extension relief

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Bill hiking spill liability to $1B advances in NJ Read More »

Bill would hike New Jersey Spill Fund liability

Are New Jersey’s onshore petroleum and chemical industries about to be punished for BP’s disastrous oil rig spill in the Gulf of Mexico?

That’s how some may view S-2108, legislation that will be taken up on Thursday in Trenton by the Senate Energy and Environment Committee.

Sponsored by committee chairman Bob Smith (D-Middlesex), the bill would raise the state Spill Fund’s liability limit for hazardous substances spills from the current $50 million to a new maximum of $1 billion.

Hal Bozarth, the Chemistry Council of New Jersey’s executive director, said the bill would “ increase taxes and fees on hundreds of New Jersey facilities, significantly affecting industry jobs.”

New Jersey’s Spill Compensation and Control Act, which has been in effect for 30 years, covers the owners and operators of large petroleum and chemical facilities. They support the fund through an annual tax which is based on the amount of hazardous substances they manufacture, store or transport.

The law was enacted to cover spills at existing facilities and the cleanup of hazardous discharges at abandoned sites whose former owners have gone out of business.

Jim Benton, executive director of the New Jersey Petroleum Council, notes that the Gulf spill liability issue is already being debated in Congress where legislation would impose a $1 billion liability cap on oil companies.

Benton questioned the appropriateness of grafting the same limit onto the New Jersey spill act, where he says the current $50 million limit has proven sufficient and where spills have historically been limited to facility sites.

He said his members were “concerned about the bill’s impact on our energy supplies and our onshore facilities in New Jersey.”

Benton concedes that the legislation does not directly raise the Spill Fund tax on refineries but noted that affected companies would be required to support higher reserves to accommodate their increased legal liability.

Our most recent posts:
Another Rendell insider jumps to shale gas industry
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Another Rendell insider jumps to shale gas industry

A third member of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s administration has taken a job with the natural gas industry which is ramping up drilling operations in the Marcellus Shale while fighting tougher environmental regulations and a state tax on natural gas.

Read the details in today’s issue of EnviroPolitics.

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Pennsylvania’s DEP releases a report on the June 3-4 well blowout…
Hearings open today on controversial plans to dredge the Delaware River…
NJ fishermen caught up in a tightening net of government regulation…

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ETS looking to score a 1.8 on its solar energy project

The organization that tests just how bright college-bound students are just got a bit brighter itself with the installation of a 1.8 megawatt solar energy system.

Educational Testing Service and SunPower Corp. have announced that the installation of a solar system on the roofs of ETS’s Lord and Messick halls in Princeton, NJ and Z Building in nearby Ewing, NJ will be complete next month.

According to a joint press release, “the T5 Solar Roof Tile is the solar industry’s first non-penetrating rooftop product that combines a high-efficiency SunPower solar panel, frame and mounting system into a single pre-engineered unit.

“The systems at ETS were financed through a SunPower power purchase agreement with Wells Fargo Bank. Under the agreement, ETS will host the systems and buy the electricity from SunPower at prices below retail rates, providing not-for-profit ETS with a long-term hedge against rising power prices with no initial capital investment. Wells Fargo owns the solar renewable energy credits and environmental benefits associated with the systems.”

ETS expects that the 1.8-megawatt installation will generate the equivalent of 10 percent of current electricity demand at the sites, delivering $1.5 million in cost savings over the next 20 years.

Several miles north of the ETS facilities, in South Brunswick, NJ, Sun Power Corp is installing a 4.1 megawatt solar roof system at Dow Jones’ corporate offices on Route 1.

That system will comprise a rooftop installation with 522 kW capacity and 3.6 MW of elevated solar panels installed above parking areas. Once completed next year, this system is likely to produce the equivalent of 15% of the present electricity requirements for Dow Jones’s 200-acre campus.

The project is partially financed by means of the Solar Loan Program of PSE&G, through which PSE&G provides loans meant for solar energy.

Our most recent posts:
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ETS looking to score a 1.8 on its solar energy project Read More »

Pennsylvania builders get permit extension relief

A building permit extension bill, designed to help Pennsylvania’s struggling homebuilders survive the continuing economic downturn, has been signed into law by Governor Ed Rendell.

The Pennsylvania Permit Extension Act gives developers who have already lined up just about any kind of state or local permit–building, water, sewer or road–until July 2, 2013 to break ground on the project without having to secure a new permit.

In seeking passage of the legislation, developers argued that the economy has put many projects on hold due to a lack of consumer demand or diminished access to financing. As a result, permits acquired before or since the downturn have been expiring.
They warned that, if developers and landowners lost their permits and were forced to reapply when the economy recovers, construction projects would be further delayed.

Pennsylvania lawmakers may also have taken some cues from neighboring New Jersey where a law, enacted two years ago, extended existing permits through July 1, 2010. The Legislature recently extended that period until Dec. 31, 2012.

Environmental organizations in both states opposed the legislation. Related:
Pa. permit extension law comes to builders’ rescue Our most recent posts:
NJDEP consolidating some PO box numbers
EPA transport rule targets deep cuts in SO2, NOx
New York sued over Long Island Sound pollution
Legislation puffs up NJ’s offshore wind prospects
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Pennsylvania builders get permit extension relief Read More »