Analyzing the cap-and-trade vote in Pennsylvania

On Saturday, we focused on the key role played by three New Jersey Republicans in the narrow passage of the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill in the House. (Jersey Republicans key to climate bill passage)

Matt Friedman reports in PolitickerNJ that the three are facing heat from conservatives over their votes and they may face primary challenges because of it. The New York Times’s Green Inc. blog quotes Rush Limbaugh linking the “northeastern Republicans” to Wall Street and urging that they be “sent packing” at re-election time.

Today, we recommend an analysis of the vote from a Pennsylvania perspective. It’s written for PoliticsPA by Louis Jacobson, a contributing editor with National Journal magazine. He says that, for most members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation, Friday’s vote was not about ideology but about quietly doing the safest thing for their district – and for their own reelection prospects.

Your views? Use the comment box below. If you don’t see it, click on the tiny ‘comments’ line.

Related:
Gerlach opposes cap-and-trade bill
Conservative Ire Rains on 8 Republicans Who Voted for House Climate Bill

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Solar advocates urge veto of NJ union wage bill


A coalition of New Jersey solar energy businesses, electrical contractors, independent electricians, and solar energy workers is urging Governor Jon Corzine to veto (A-3372), legislation that the group says will not only drive up costs for ratepayers, but cost the state hundreds of new green energy jobs as well.

In a press release, the coalition said the legislation imposes an “oppressive new mandate” on all renewable energy and energy efficiency installation projects in New Jersey, with the sole exception of residential projects, by mandating that state “prevailing wage” rates be paid to workers on all such projects.

Prevailing wages, the coalition says, are synonymous with union wage rates and “often forces businesses to hire union labor and sub-contractors at additional cost.”

“This legislation must be vetoed by Governor Corzine. It is anti-solar because it will result in increasing the labor costs of solar by 180%. It contradicts the Governor’s and Legislature’s policies of growing solar and reducing global warming gases, ” said Dennis Wilson, vice president in New Jersey for the Mid-Atlantic Solar Energy Energy Industries Association, a trade group representing solar energy companies, manufacturers, and solar project developers in NJ, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

The coalition says the legislation applies to all energy efficiency projects–along with renewable projects such as wind, solar, and biomass–that receive any “approval” or any authorization by the NJ Board of Public Utilities.

The group claims that the legislation is so broad that it would includes energy efficiency upgrades for non-profits such as churches, and small businesses.

In opposing the bill in committee and on the floor of both legislative houses, the solar industry and its allies were supported by the NJ Business and Industry Association and the state Chamber of Commerce.

A large number of union organizations lobbied in favor of the legislation.

Curiously absent from the legislative debate were environmental organizations, like the NJ Environmental Federation and the Sierra Club, which normally are outspoken advocates of alternative energy technologies and projects.

Your views? Use the comment box below. If you don’t see it, click on the tiny ‘comments’ line.

Our most recent posts:
Jersey Republicans key to climate bill passage
Big environmental day in NJ Legislature
NJ Pinelands report: Some sun, some clouds
Greenhouse grants for NJ towns and schools
NJ’s offshore wind energy pick is lobbying large

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Jersey Republicans key to climate bill passage

Three Republican congressmen from New Jersey helped get the ferociously-lobbied Waxman-Markey climate-change bill through the House of Representatives yesterday on a narrow 219-212 vote.

They were among only eight Republicans in the House who voted for the bill, while 44 Democrats voted opposed it.

The legislation, called ‘historic’ by President Obama, is Congress’s first attempt to address global warming by curbing greenhouse gases and establishing a cap-and-trade system. It now goes to the Senate where the lobbying is expected to only increase.

The New Jersey Republican votes were extremely valuable since dozens of conservative Democrats–especially those in vulnerable district–had made it clear they would never support cap-and-trade legislation.

The GOP, seizing on ‘cap and trade’ as a key political issue for 2010 campaign, emptied their rhetorical bag of apocalyptic warnings in testimony against it.

Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) told her colleagues: “We get to choose. We choose liberty, or we choose tyranny — it’s one of the two.” Geoff Davis (R-KY) said the bill represents the “economic colonization of the heartland” by coastal states and Devin Nunes (R-CA) pictured it as the culmination of “the twisted desires of radical environmentalists.”

New Jersey’s House delegation–except for Republicans Scott Garrett and Rodney Frelinghuysen–chose to heed the advice of such ‘radical environmentalists’ as Ralph Izzo, president of the state’s largest utility, PSEG.

Izzo said the legislation would “provide business leaders with a level of certainty that will allow them to plan and expand, and it will create jobs that will usher in a new green economy.” Wow, now that’s radical, no?

New Jersey Republicans Leonard Lance, Chris Smith and Frank LoBiondo joined with Democrats Albio Sires, Bill Pascrell, Donald Payne, Rush Holt, Rob Andrews, John Adler, Frank Pallone, and Steve Rothman in casting yes votes.

As always, your opinions are encouraged. Use the comment box below. If you don’t see one, click on the tiny ‘comments’ line.

RELATED:
House passes climate-change bill
In Close Vote, House Passes Climate Bill
Key provisions in the legislation
GOP Senators Pledge to Fight Climate Bill
House Passes Bill to Address Threat of Climate Change
Winners and losers emerge in carbon economy

Our most recent posts:
Big environmental day in NJ Legislature
NJ Pinelands report: Some sun, some clouds
Greenhouse grants for NJ towns and schools
NJ’s offshore wind energy pick is lobbying large
NJ offers funding for energy-efficient projects

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Big environmental day in NJ Legislature

In their final voting sessions prior to summer recess, members of the New Jersey Senate and Assembly last night took action on a host of environmental bills.

Among those receiving final passage and sent to the governor’s desk were bills that:

  • Place on the November, 2009 election ballot a $400 million open-space and farmland preservation bond issue question .

  • Make it more difficult for local zoners to block the construction of wind and solar energy facilities.

  • Authorize counties and towns to acquire land for resale or lease with agricultural deed restrictions attached for farmland preservation purposes.

  • Appropriate funds to DEP for environmental infrastructure projects.

  • Authorize the New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust
    to make loans for environmental infrastructure projects.

  • Extend the deadline for municipal recycling coordinators’ educational requirements.

  • Allow developers with approved but un-built housing projects aimed at buyers aged 55 and older to be able to seek permission
    to eliminate the age restrictions.

To learn more about each of the bills above… and much more…
sign up now for a FREE, 30-day trial subscription to our daily
e-newsletter, EnviroPolitics. We’ll start your trial with today’s
issue which will contain a listing of all action taken on enviro-
bills in the legislature yesterday, plus individual news stories
on a number of them. It’s typical of the valuable information
you’ll find every day with your trial subscription. Don’t miss it!

Questions? Contact us at editor@enviropolitics.com
or Call 215-295-9339

Our most recent posts:
NJ Pinelands report: Some sun, some clouds
Greenhouse grants for NJ towns and schools
NJ’s offshore wind energy pick is lobbying large
NJ offers funding for energy-efficient projects
Are you sure the NJ Sierra Club said that?

Big environmental day in NJ Legislature Read More »

NJ Pinelands report: Some sun, some clouds

** Updated on June 26**

The Pinelands Preservation Alliance (PPA), an environmental organization that sees itself both as a protector and promoter of New Jersey’s extensive Pinelands region, says in its third annual report that:

“while most of the Pinelands’ forests, streams and wetlands are surviving the pressures of sprawl, government agencies are not doing enough to save the Pine Barrens over the long term by controlling development and its impacts.”

The group issued its report today in advance of the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Pinelands Protection Act on June 28.

“Recent debates and actions of the Pinelands Commission have placed its commitment to preserving the Pinelands in serious question,” says Carleton Montgomery, the PPA’s Executive Director. “In the coming year, the Commission faces critical tests that will show us where its soul really lies.”

Montgomery’s organization says the news is not all bad. It credits the state Pinelands Commission staff with completing an Ecological Integrity Assessment and says the regulatory agency is using the analysis to identify changes to the management area boundaries that could lead to greater environmental protection.

The PPA also tips its hat to the Commission’s dedication of some $2.1 million to preserving 602 acres in Camden and Ocean Counties that connect to adjacent properties that already are preserved.

But the enviros also have concerns.

“Over the past few years we’ve seen a slow shift in philosophy from the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP) as rules with regulatory teeth, to the CMP as guidelines only,” said Richard Bizub, PPA’s Director for Water Programs.

A recent example, Bizub says, is the Commission’s approval of a road project through threatened and endangered species habitat in the Preservation Area of Woodland Township. In this case, he says the burden of proof was placed on the public to prove a violation of the CMP, instead of requiring the township to demonstrate compliance with the CMP.

Bishop says that “reverses the regulatory standard and contradicts nearly 30 years of the Pinelands Commission’s practice in order to approve an unnecessary, financially wasteful and environmentally harmful project.”

You can get a copy of the entire report here.

UPDATE: In a June 26 Philadelphia Inquirer story, a spokesman for the Pinelands Commission criticized the report’s “incendiary language,” and said it was both unbalanced and misleading.

Share your own views of the Pinelands 30 years of preservation in the comment box below or click on the tiny ‘comments’ line. You can identify yourself or respond anonymously.

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Greenhouse grants for NJ towns and schools


Courier-Post outdoor writer Kevin Callahan reports on a new NJ Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) grant program designed to assist efforts by local government agencies and schools to identify and implement plans to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

The DEP is accepting pre-applications from municipal and county governments, public school districts, county colleges and other local government agencies such as municipal utilities authorities for $2.5 million available in the first round of funding under the Local Government Greenhouse Gas Reduction Grant program.

Where’s the money coming from? Like another grant program for businesses seeking to implement energy-efficiencies (NJ offers funding for energy-efficient projects), the funding source is RGGI,
the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

What’s that?

It’s the multi-state program under which utilities and other carbon dioxide emitters pay for privilege of continuing to discharge CO2.
The money they fork over is funneled into various energy conservation projects and alternative energy production incentives. Or, at least, that’s the plan.

According to the Courier-Post, the DEP expects applicants to demonstrate that proposed projects will result in measurable reductions of greenhouse gases.

Eligible projects may include those that help local government agencies calculate and reduce their carbon footprints as well as land-use and transportation planning efforts that reduce the need to drive since vehicle exhaust contributes significantly to the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The DEP will also consider projects that spur development of green infrastructure such as green buildings or rooftop gardens, programs that foster resource conservation such as better management of trees, efforts to strengthen local economies through marketing of locally grown food, and outreach programs that promote public involvement in sustainability efforts.
That all sounds pretty high-minded and, with tight oversight, some good could result.

But this, after all, is New Jersey. And we all know that the scent of free public money draws political, consulting and legal sharks like a taste of blood in the water does their natural counterparts.
Who gets the grants and what they produce…only time will tell.

MORE: For information on the grant program and a copy of the pre-application, go here
Our most recent posts:
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