EnviroPolitics Blog

Should states control the tailpipe?

The federal government has traditionally set vehicle emissions limits through EPA rules. But 10 states, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York, want to follow California’s lead and impose tighter state standards on CO2 and other greenhouse gases emitted from autos and other light-weight trucks.

California can’t impose its tougher standards, however, until it receives a “waiver” from the EPA. It’s been working for two years to get that green light but some members of Congress–Democrats of all people–are considering legislation to slam on the brakes.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, a Democrat, didn’t miss his opportunity to use the issue to take a swipe at the Bush EPA. In a news release issued Friday, he says:

“When the federal government fails to protect the environment and the health of our citizens, as it has done when it comes to limiting greenhouse gas emissions, then the states must be allowed act.”

New Jersey State Senator Tom Kean Jr., a Republican, agrees with Rendell on the waiver issue but employs a different spin in his own news release

“The legislation being considered by top House Democrats represents a shocking reversal of their position on this issue given the torrent of criticism they have leveled against the Environmental Protection Agency.”

Isn’t it great when opposing parties come together on an important issue?

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As Bush fiddles, states take action on warming

The states aren’t waiting around for President Bush to take action on greenhouse gas reductions. While the President was preaching a vague “goal-setting” solution at the G8 summit this week, numerous states, including New Jersey, were moving ahead on legislation that would require specific reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

On Wednesday, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed into law a requirement that 25 percent of power delivered by the state’s biggest utilities be made from renewable sources by 2025. Sources that will count toward the target include wind, solar, wave, geothermal, biomass, new hydro projects or efficiency upgrades to existing hydro projects.

Next Thursday, the NJ Assembly’s Telecommunications and Utilities Committee will consider A-3301 which would limit emissions of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020 (roughly a 20 percent cut from current levels).

Meanwhile, coal industry lobbyists are pushing hard on Capitol Hill for legislation to provide federal support for liquid coal research, development and subsidies. They say the technology would offer the nation an energy alternative to Middle East petroleum. Critics, however, argue that the technology is unproven and financially risky. They point to an MIT study estimating it would cost $70 billion to replace just 10 percent of current gasoline use.

Moreover, a recent NY Times story, Lawmakers Push for Big Subsidies for Coal Process used the graph (below) to illustrate how liquid coal, as a fuel source, would increase greenhouse gases emissions substantially more than other fuel alternatives.

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NJ governors too quick to tee up golf project?

Senior officials in both the McGreevey and Codey administrations signed off on a $212M loan for the EnCap golf communities project in the Meadowlands, even though subordinates warned that the cut-rate financing was a risk for taxpayers and bad environmental policy, according to a highly critical report in today’s Bergen Record.

The EnCap loan “will not meet the Financing Program’s normal creditworthiness standards,” Samuel Wolfe, a former assistant DEP commissioner, wrote in a November 2004 memo to his superiors. Still, the state signed off and today the project is teetering on the brink of collapse.

“The developer is months behind in payments to its subcontractors, and on May 17 the state Attorney General’s Office found EnCap in default of the terms of its deal with the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission. EnCap has until next Friday to submit a revised landfill cleanup budget — or else the project could be canceled, ” The Record reports

Despite the warnings from Wolfe and other ranking state bureaucrats, EnCap landed a deal “brimming with lucrative concessions while offering spotty security for taxpayers,” the paper reports. How did such a risky venture get so “fast tracked” that, at one point, 10 employees of the DEP’s Division of Water Quality were diverted to work full time on the developer’s loan application? The Record points the finger at former Governor Jim McGreevey and his relationship with the powerhouse Democratic law firm DeCotiis, FitzPatrick, Cole & Wisler whose attorneys navigated the project around a number of significant institutional and environmental shoals.

An anonymous former administration official is quoted as saying: “McGreevey didn’t really care what the loan was about. He cared who was getting it. For reasons obvious to everybody, DeCotiis projects got top priority.”

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Jeez, even the postman’s gone green

The U.S. Postal Service is the first is the only mailing or shipping company in the nation to achieve “Cradle to Cradle”SM Certification at the Silver level.
Postal Service mailing and shipping supplies already had exceeded government requirements, including recycled content standards from the EPA. Going beyond existing federal and state agency requirements was a goal in seeking certification.
Cradle to Cradle Certification is a scientifically based process that reviews specific criteria to assess the environmental attributes of materials used in products. In the review, 60 USPS packaging items were broken down into their 250 component materials. Some 1,400 individual ingredients in those component materials were further analyzed before the certification was made.
Based on the recycled content of the more than 500 million Express Mail and Priority Mail packages and envelopes the Postal Service provides its customers each year, more than 15,000 metric tons of carbon equivalent emissions (climate change gases) now will be prevented annually. Express Mail and Priority Mail boxes and envelopes also are 100 percent recyclable.
The USPS is requiring all 200 suppliers contributing to the manufacture of its envelopes and packages to complete a series of measurements and assessments of materials for human and environmental health.

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Will Albany ‘recycle’ NYC’s garbage plan?

Backed by a phalanx of city officials, community leaders and environmentalists, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg held a news conference last week to urge state legislators to authorize the construction of a marine transfer station to handle recyclable paper, metal, glass and plastic at Pier 52 on the Gansevoort Peninsula in Manhattan.

The facility would handle those recyclables generated in Manhattan that currently are trucked to facilities in the Bronx, Brooklyn and New Jersey. In doing so, the new facility would free-up capacity at an existing transfer station at 59th Street on the Hudson River to handle Manhattan’s commercial waste.

The transfer station is seen as an essential part of the mayor’s 20-year solid waste management plan that won approval from city council only after two years of jawboning and political compromises. But the effort is now in jeopardy, as the New York Times reported, because three Assembly members whose districts either include or are near the Gansevoort site say the city has never adequately studied alternative locations. The three are threatening to use their clout with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat who is also from Lower Manhattan, to kill it.

This battle has lots of political subplots and should be fun to watch from the sidelines.

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New director of legislative affairs at PA-DEP

Scott Pauchnik of Dauphin County has been appointed as the department’s director of legislative affairs. Since 2003, Pauchnik has served as a legislative specialist in DEP’s Office of Legislative affairs, most recently as the assistant director. He was directly involved in the review and development of such legislation as the energy portfolio standard, Growing Greener II and water quality/clean air initiatives. He’s also responded to inquiries and requests by members of the General Assembly and has worked with the DEP secretary and Governor’s Office of Legislative Affairs on numerous legislative matters.

Pauchnik worked for two years at EAP Industries, an environmental service provider located in Atlasburg, Washington County, where he was involved in environmental response actions and mitigation projects. He also was involved in environmental permitting and held sales and marketing responsibilities. Pauchnik holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Slippery Rock University. A native of Atlasburg, he currently lives in Harrisburg.

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