Former NJ Gov. raps current NJ Gov. on RGGI pullout

Former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean

Former Republican Gov. Thomas Kean told an audience at a Rutgers University conference yesterday that he  thought it was “a shame” that fellow Republican Gov. Chris Christie pulled New Jersey out of the Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative.  [The right and left debate RGGI in New Jersey]. 
 

From today’s NJ Spotlight‘s report on the climate-change conference:

Former Republican Gov. Thomas Kean is such a believer in climate change
that he is calling on informed citizens to “confront those who don’t
believe in the science of it for the ignorant people that they are.”

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

Speaking before a Rutgers University conference in New Brunswick
Tuesday, Kean criticized fellow Republican Gov. Chris Christie, saying
it was a “shame” that he pulled New Jersey out of the Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Christie’s decision to pull out of RGGI was highly controversial and
was especially disappointing to its backers, who hoped the regional
initiative would serve as a successful prototype for a national effort
to combat global climate change. 

His decision also has been criticized
by Democrats in the legislature who have sought to enact bills to
maintain New Jersey’s participation in the program, most often without
any Republican backing.

When Christie announced his decision to withdraw from the program
this past summer, he conceded manmade activities were contributing to
global warming, but dismissed the regional initiative as ineffective and
merely a tax on consumers.

Former Gov. James Florio, however, said “we ought to be asking what it’s going to cost if we don’t do something.”

The state’s liberal political blog, Blue Jersey, which rarely misses an opportunity to criticize Mr. Christie, offered this perspective:

It is a sad measure of the lack of influence of Gov. Kean, a hugely
popular figure in New Jersey politics, on today’s Republican Party that
not one of the over 40 Republicans in the Legislature – who are led, in
part, by his son – will stand up to Christie the way that Kean did
yesterday.

As the event pointed out, it is ultimately our farmers, shore
communities, and tourism industry that will pay the price of state and
national inaction on climate change.


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Anti-fracking bill clears NJ environmental committee
Need mulch? Give almost any town in North Jersey a call
Anti-fracking bill before NJ Assembly committee today





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Anti-fracking bill clears NJ environmental committee

“Politics is perception,” the chief lobbyist for the state’s chemical industry reminded members of
a legislative committee yesterday at the start of its hearing on A-4231, a bill to outlaw the storage or treatment of fracking wastewater in New Jersey.

And, for the ensuing 90 minutes, people on both
sides of the issue did their best to shape the public perception on hydrofracturing–the natural gas extraction technique more commonly known as fracking.

Hal Bozarth, executive director of the Chemistry Council of New Jersey, said that activists are using the legislation (and a separate bill banning fracking) to send a message to other states that New Jersey is opposed to fracking and, by extension he argued, to economic development.

How so? Because natural gas is a “building block” used by the chemical industry to create
a host of consumer products from computer parts and shampoo to toys and solar panels.

Many former manufacturers left the state, he said, when the cost of natural gas traded at
$14 per British thermal unit. The cost has dropped to $3 per Btu today, largely due to Marcellus Shale production, presenting New Jersey businesses, he said, with a significant raw material cost savings.

Bozarth argued that natural gas also promises to bring down New Jersey’s industrial energy rates which are 70 percent higher than the national average, while offering an environmentally cleaner alternative to coal in the production of that energy.

So much for shaping the positive perception. 

On the negative side, fracking opponents, like Tracy Carluccio of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, asked why New Jersey would want to dispose of fracking wastewater in its waterways, claiming it is “ten times more toxic than waste water produced by gas drilling platforms.”

Up to 20 million gallons of it is produced daily in Pennsylvania, she said, and is being sent to Ohio where it is being disposed of in injection wells. DuPont, Carluccio said, is interested in treating fracking wastewater in New Jersey.

The Sierra Club‘s Jeff Tittel said:  “We can’t handle the wastewater we currently have. Every time it rains, we have billions of gallons of partially treated sewage going out into our waters and streams.”

Tittel said that 50,000 gallons of wastewater escaped full treatment in Bergen County during Hurricane Irene, and asked: “What if that was fracking fluid?”

To avoid a possible interstate-commerce constitutional challenge, the bill was amended to remove a prohibition on transportation of fracking water into the state, presumably from Pennsylvania where fracking is being used to drill for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale or from New York where state regulators are getting closer to allowing such drilling.

The two Republican members of the five-member committee would not provide votes for the bill’s release, foreshadowing a tough battle ahead. The bill has virtually no chance of passing during the current lame-duck session but surely will be reintroduced when the Legislature reconvenes for a new two-year session in January.

You can listen to the entire hearing here.

Related:
Committee Says NJ Won’t Treat Wastewater from Hydraulic Fracturing
Panel approves bill banning treatment, disposal of wastewater from ‘fracking’





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Need mulch? Give almost any town in North Jersey a call

The freak October storm that dropped a good amount of snow across northern New Jersey also dropped tons of trees and branches. So much so that Department of Public Works employees are piling up the overtime as they pick up, chip up, mulch up and pile up all the debris.

And they need to get it done soon, as the annual fall leaf collections already are coming in.

NBC New York’s Brian Thompson, who has a nose for such quirky environmental news, shows us just how big a job the North Jersey Mulchup is in the video below. 

View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.


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Anti-fracking bill before NJ Assembly committee today

The New Jersey Assembly’s Environment and 
Solid Waste Committee this afternoon will vote 
on six energy and environmental bills, including 
one that would prohibit the treatment of fracking 
wastewater anywhere in New Jersey.
A-4231, sponsored by Assemblywoman Connie Wagner (D-Bergen) and Reed Gusciora 
(D-Mercer), the bill would prohibit the shipping or transporting into, or treatment in
the State of wastewater from hydraulic fracturing (fracking). A companion measure, S-3049, 
awaits action in the Senate Environment Committee.    

The Legislature already has approved legislation that would ban the use of fracking, a
controversial natural gas-drilling technique, but Governor Chris Christie says he will not sign
the bill unless it is amended to apply for only one year. [Governor’s conditional veto message]
Although gas companies have shown no interest in drilling in New Jersey so far (the
Marcellus Shale formation lies under neighboring Pennsylvania and New York states)
environmentalists here have made fracking an the issue, calling on Gov. Christie to vote
against fracking rules [Fracking foes celebrate a win but cannot declare victory] proposed
by the regional Delaware River Basin Commission.

Other bills to be heard by the Environment and Solid Waste Committee today 
at 2 p.m. in Committee Room 9 of the  State House Annex in Trenton are:
A-1102  Coyle, D.M. (R-16)
Provides for priority consideration, by DCA, DEP, DOT,
and local government units, of permit applications for green building projects.
      
A-4267  Wagner, C. (D-38); Pietro, V. (D-32)
Allows counties and municipalities to use open space
trust funds for purchase of flood-prone properties.  Related Bill: S-3078
   
A-4269  Wagner, C. (D-38)
“Emergency Transportation and Water Infrastructure
Recovery Bond Act of 2011;” authorizes bonds for $100,000,000.  Related Bill: S-3099
      
A-4279  McKeon, J.F. (D-27); Chivukula, U.J. (D-17);
Benson, D.R. (D-14)
Increases renewable energy and energy efficiency
requirements under “Electric Discount and Energy Competition Act.”  Related Bill: S-3032
     
A-4358  McKeon, J.F. (D-27)
Establishes forest harvest program on State-owned land.

Assembly Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee also meeting today.  
The Agriculture committee, meeting at 2 p.m. in Room 8, plans to take up:

A-2770  Amodeo, J.F. (R-2); Albano, N.T. (D-1)
Transfers the Division of Fish and Wildlife (currently within the state Department of Environmental Protection to the Department of Agriculture.
     
A-3387  Riley, C.M. (D-3)
Expands number of salesrooms winery may operate from
six to seven and permits sampling of wine at salesrooms.
   
A-3388  Riley, C.M. (D-3)
Permits wineries to sell wine at certain farm markets.
   
AR-168  Albano, N.T. (D-1)
Urges USDA and other federal agencies to support State
efforts and fund solutions that reduce or eliminate the stink bug population.
     





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A big Thanksgiving for opponents of fracking, power line

If environmentalists were pleasantly surprised last week when an expected vote to allow the use of fracking to extract natural gas in the Delaware River basin was blocked [Fracking foes celebrate a win but cannot declare victory] they had to be stunned days later when a federal agency delivered a totally unexpected Thanksgiving gift.

Standing up to a formidable array of political interests, including electric power companies in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the governors, lawmakers and regulators in both states, operators of the PJM Grid, and even the liberal editorial writers at the (Newark) Star-Ledger, the relatively puny National Parks Service recommended that a proposed high-power line through the Delaware Water Gap not be built.

Environmentalists and residents living along the line’s route in both states have been fighting against the proposal for more than a year, claiming that doubling the existing line’s capacity from 230 kilovolts to 500 kilovolts, and carrying that power load on new towers some 165 to 190 feet taller than the exiting 65 to 80 foot structures, would create a visual and environmental scar, especially through the Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area.

Star-Ledger graphic by Frank Cecala

The opponents had been vigorous in their protests despite a long series of setbacks in both states. But they sunk into a resigned slump back in October when Interior Secretary Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that the Obama Administration had selected the project as one of several to “fast track.”

The enviros took Salazar’s announcement as a signal that the President, with re-election looming, had decided in favor of economic development over environmental protection and that they, essentially, were screwed.

Event the Star-Ledger declared in a Nov. 9 editorial: New Susquehanna-Roseland power line must be built.

“You have to have some sympathy for them. This line will be ugly and
sections will stretch nearly 200 feet tall, dwarfing the existing line.
As it winds through the Highlands region, it will tarnish unspoiled
views.

“But the hard fact is that New Jersey needs this line, or we will soon
be at risk of brownouts and blackouts. Imagine how helpful that would
be to the region’s economy, to the quality of life and to public safety.
Let’s face it: We need the juice.”

So, as we said at the start, the National Park Service’s  recommendation was more than surprising.

“Very unusual” is how Julia
Somers, executive director of the Highlands Coalition, described it
“It was gutsy of
the NPS to have taken this position.” 
 

The recommendation, however, does not end the controversy.

While choosing a ‘no build’ alternative among six options considered in its draft environmental impact study, the National Park Service noted that a final decision won’t come for a year.

In the meanwhile, it plans three public hearings on its recommendation:

  • Jan. 24 at the Fernwood Hotel on Route 209 in
    Bushkill, Pa.
  • Jan. 25 at the Stroudsmoor Country Inn in Stroudsburg,
    Pa.; and 
  • Jan. 26 at the Farmstead Golf and Country Club on Lawrence Road
    in Andover. 

Public comment is to be accepted through Jan. 31. The full study and information on submitting comment can be accessed here

Related:
Susquehanna-Roseland power line faces one more round of scrutiny
Park Service’s final decision on power line a year away
National Park Service Opposes New Power Lines in the Delaware Water Gap
National Park Service: Susquehanna-Roseland line best for environment if not built



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Fracking foes celebrate a win but cannot declare victory

Anti-fracking opponents rally in Trenton, (Julio Cortez/AP photo)

On the steps of Trenton’s War Memorial yesterday hundreds of environmentalists took time to celebrate a battle win in a campaign that they know is far from over.

At a rally followed by a march to the State House, they were urged to keep up the political pressure that had forced the Delaware River Basin Commission to postpone a vote on regulations that would have allowed the start of natural gas well drilling in northeast Pennsylvania.

Those wells would employ the controversial technique called hydrofracturing (fracking) that pumps a mixture of water, sand and toxic chemicals, under high pressure, into underground shale rock deposits to release trapped natural gas.

The natural gas industry supports the regulations, arguing out that further delay will penalize local governments that could benefit from the economic development that gas exploration promises.

A coalition of regional environmental organizations is leading the opposition, claiming that fracking poses an unacceptable pollution risk to the Delaware River basin’s water supply that serves 15 million users.

The vote, originally scheduled for yesterday in Trenton, was postponed abruptly on Friday when Delaware’s Governor, Jack Markell, a Democrat, made it know that he would be voting no. He would have joined New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo, also a Democrat, in voting no.

Pennsylvania’s Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, a virtual cheerleader for the gas-drilling industry that contributed more than a million dollars to his election campaign, was more than ready to vote yes. His GOP colleague, NJ Gov. Chris Christie, was expected to do the same.

The deadlock gives the tie-breaking vote to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ representative on the Commission, a distinction that the Obama Administration likely would have preferred not to make.

If the federal government votes against the rules, Obama’s presidential rivals will claim he’s turning his back domestic energy, jobs, and an opportunity to stimulate the Keystone State’s slumping economy.  A yes vote will further alienate progressives who already find the President’s environmental efforts to be uninspiring.

More coverage in today’s EnviroPolitics. Try it free, for 30 days with no-obligation


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