New Jersey Senate Environment and Energy Committee (file photo)
After a ‘summer recess’ stretching back to early July, NJ lawmakers are back in Trenton for a lame-duck session running through early January 2024.
One of the first scheduled committees to meet is the:
Senate Environment and Energy 10:00 AM, November 20,2023 Committee Room 6, 1st Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ
Agenda
S2978 – Revises State renewable energy portfolio standards.
S3258 – Appropriates $28,670,924 in 2003 and 1992 bond act monies for loans for dam restoration and repair projects and inland waters projects.
S3863 – Establishes program, in DEP, for acquisition of development easements on privately-owned woodlands.
S3909 – Establishes conditions for net metering for authorized food waste recycling facilities.
S3928 – Authorizes State Treasurer to appoint Garden State Preservation Trust acting executive director under certain conditions.
S3996 – Directs DEP to establish a leasing program for State-owned land to be used and managed as pollinator habitat.
A2810 – Directs DEP to establish a leasing program for State-owned land to be used and managed as pollinator habitat.
S3992 – Requires electric public utilities to develop and implement grid modernization plans; appropriates $300 million.
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OAKLAND — The borough is asking residents to get behind its efforts to oppose a Class B recycling facility proposed for West Oakland Avenue, “a short distance from homes, Potash Lake and the Ramapo River.”
The facility, if approved, would be able to bring in and process up to 900 tons of concrete, brick, asphalt, and topsoil per day.
Residents are being asked to sign a petition to oppose “Oakland Materials, LLC’s application to the BCUA because of quality of life impacts such as noise, dust, odors and truck traffic as well as potential pollution, including groundwater contamination of a sole source aquifer that provides drinking water to Oakland residents.”
The petition, as of Friday had 2,089 signatures, with a goal of 2,500.
The borough was granted a 60-day extension to produce comment
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In 2017, NJ Gov. Phil Murphy signed the Food Waste Reduction Act into law, establishing a goal to reduce the amount of food waste generated in the state by 50% by the year 2030 (the 50×30 Goal)d.
The law directs the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to develop a plan to guide the state toward achieving this goal.
The 52-page document quantifies the amount of food waste generated in 2017 and sets forth actions the state intends to take to achieve the 50×30 Goal. The plan also includes a brief toolkit for food waste-generating sectors to take additional actions that support this goal.
New Jersey mirrors the federal government’s food-reduction goal
Top 15 states generating the most food waste by tonnage annually
Rank
State
Annual Food Waste (Tons)
1
California
6,000,000
2
Texas
4,600,000
3
Florida
2,800,000
4
New York
2,700,000
5
Pennsylvania
2,500,000
6
Illinois
2,400,000
7
Ohio
2,300,000
8
Michigan
2,200,000
9
North Carolina
2,100,000
10
Georgia
2,000,000
11
Virginia
1,900,000
12
New Jersey
1,800,000
13
Tennessee
1,700,000
14
Indiana
1,600,000
15
Arizona
1,500,000
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The three banks (along with most of their peers) have committed to eliminating financed emissions—the greenhouse gas pollution enabled by their lending and investing—starting with the most carbon-intensive areas of their balance sheets. And in sustainability reports published this year, all three banks said those numbers had come down—in some cases significantly.
Yet if you read the footnotes, one would discover that their emissions have fallen in large part due to technical factors outside of their control.
Just last month, Deutsche Bank reported that emissions associated with its lending to oil and gas companies—the primary perpetrators of global warming—declined 29% from the prior year. As a result, the bank is much closer to its 2030 target for reducing financed emissions from the sector.
How did this happen? The war in Ukraine may have played a part. The German lender said the reduction was “predominantly explained” by three factors, the biggest of which being a decrease in the size of its loan books after ending relationships with Russian clients. But additional factors were changes in exchange rates and the increasing market value of its fossil-fuel clients.
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New Jersey Republicans entered the legislative contests this fall buoyed by optimism. They held a shared hope that maybe — just maybe — their party could finally climb out of the wilderness and back into power for the first time in nearly two decades.
Or, at the very least, they hoped they could continue to weaken the Democratic Party’s iron grip on power in Trenton. GOP candidates wanted to build on the successes their party delivered in 2021 when Republicans stunned the political community by flipping seven seats and dethroned Senate President Stephen Sweeney at the hands of a little-known and underfunded truck driver, Ed Durr.
But optimism proved to be no match for the harsh reality of being Republican in a resolutely blue state. The GOP entered the race trailing in fundraising. The party once again fell far behind Democrats in the race for pre-election day voting, either by mail or early in-person voting.
And, at the end of the day, the party lacked a coherent message of hope. It didn’t articulate a vision of future Republican governance. The party sought to stir up its base with messages of fear.
The strategy failed.
The result: It was the Democrats, not the Republicans, who gained ground Tuesday night, winning back five seats.
Republicans hoped for a ‘common sense’ backlash that backfired
The Democrats will maintain their 25-15 edge in the state Senate, in part by defeating Durr, the truck driver in the 3rd Legislative District, which offset an expected loss in the 12th District in Monmouth and Middlesex counties. Sam Thompson, a long-time Republican who defected to the Democrats earlier this year, is retiring and the seat was expected to revert back to Republican hands. Owen Henry of Old Bridge will succeed him.
Throughout the fall campaign, Republicans believed they had a winning formula: Cast the Democrats as morally and politically bankrupt, advancing a series of radical, far-left policies that most middle-class and centrist voters find objectionable.
The party of liberal “King Phil” Murphy — as he was called during the pandemic — had run the table in Trenton far too long. Democrats had lost touch with a public clamoring “common sense,” a favorite GOP buzz phrase. Murphy’s was an administration, Republicans contended, that was banning gas stoves and killing whales by insisting on installing wind turbines off the Jersey Shore. Crime was running rampant in suburbia because of Murphy and the Democrats’ lax crime policies, GOP leaders claimed.
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Truck driver Edward Durr made national headlines two years ago when he pulled off one of the biggest upsets in New Jersey politics ever — defeating Democratic incumbent and longtime Senate President Steve Sweeney in South Jersey’s 3rd Legislative District.
The victory over Sweeney, considered one of the most powerful figures in New Jersey politics, highlighted a Republican “red wave” that saw the GOP close gaps in the state Senate and Assembly while nearly capturing the governorship.
Fast forward two years: Durr is now fighting for his short political life, with Democrats and progressive political action committees targeting the man who funded his campaign last time around with credit cards.
Durr is facing former 10-term Democratic 3rd District Assemblyman John Burzichelli, whom Durr helped sweep out of office in 2021. Durr is also facing his own ultra-conservative record in a district that had been leaning moderately Democrat before Durr’s victory.
In the 3rd District Assembly race, the Republicans are running incumbent Bethanne McCarthy Patrick, an emergency medical technician in Salem County, and Thomas Tedesco Jr., a member of the Hopetown Township Committee.
The Democratic candidates include Heather Simmons, the deputy director of the Gloucester County Board of Commissioners, and Woodstown nonprofit CEO Dave Bailey Jr.
“This is a different election than it was two years ago,” said John Froonjian, executive director of the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University. “Nobody expected Ed Durr to have a shot and were shocked when he upset Sweeney and the Democrats then.
“Durr does not have the element of surprise this time. In fact, the Dems are fighting hard. Durr was an unknown then; this time, his controversial statements are well-known and not very popular,” Froonjian said.
One of Durr’s social media statements related to abortion has become a Democratic battle cry in the race. In a knock on the “pro-choice” theme for abortion supporters, Durr was quoted as saying that they already have a choice, “keep her legs closed.”
Durr’s rhetoric has made some Republicans so nervous that they publicly distanced themselves from him. Earlier this fall, six Republican legislative candidates from South Jersey called Durr’s past social media posts about women “offensive and unacceptable.”
The GOP candidates included state Senate candidates Latham Tiver and Christopher Del Borrello, Assemblymen Michael Torrissi Jr., and Brandon Umba, and Assembly candidates Matt Walker and Amanda Esposito.
In defense, Durr has touted his support for the conservative so-called parental rights movement to give parents more of a say in the school curriculum.
“There is nothing remotely political about elected officials and parents telling Governor Murphy and his activist administration to get out of the classroom,” Durr said in September in voicing his support for a parental rights notification bill.
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Charles Stile