EnviroPolitics Blog

NJ Gov. Murphy pulls back on state’s new Energy Master Plan

The latest delay highlights the bumpy road the administration faces trying to reach its clean-energy future

By TOM JOHNSON, ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT WRITER, NJ Spotlight

Gov. Phil Murphy on Friday unexpectedly shelved public hearings slated to begin this week on the state’s Energy Master Plan, adding to the uncertainty about his ambitious clean-energy agenda as it moves forward.

In a press release issued by his office, the governor announced stakeholder meetings that were to begin Thursday would be put off until later this year. The aim was to update the plan, which lays out a detailed blueprint for reaching Murphy’s target of a 100% clean energy economy by 2050.

The plan, broadly supported by the environmental community and clean-energy advocates, is facing its most sustained questions yet, with a particular focus on proposals to develop a robust offshore wind industry along the New Jersey coast and electrify buildings by phasing out the use of natural gas.

Avoiding potential political fallout

With all 120 legislative seats up for election this November, the delay of any updates to the plan could avert tough election-year decisions for the administration that have the potential to further increase energy bills for consumers, who already have been hit with higher heating costs this winter.

“After five years of bold climate action in New Jersey, we must not only assess our progress to date, but renew our commitment to a clean-energy economy while taking stock of the breadth of resources at our disposal,’’ Murphy said.

The current master plan, adopted in 2019, set a strategic decision to overhaul New Jersey’s energy system and its associated greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants while building a new green economy and creating jobs.

Read the full story here

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Maine’s honeybees climate’s latest victims

A bee works on collecting nectar from a fruit tree in West Bath, Maine on Monday, April 30, 2012. Honey bees in Maine are increasingly under pressure from parasitic mites and climate change, which has led to more colony collapses. Credit: Pat Wellenbach / AP

By Julia Bayly, Bangor Daily News

Maine honey bees are dying at an alarming rate thanks to climate change. Over the last two years, beekeepers in the state have reported losing up to 50 percent of their bees annually. And it’s going to get worse, according to a top bee expert in Maine.

Drought, extreme weather events and drastic winter temperature swings helped put starvation and hive robbing as two leading causes of bee deaths last year for the first time, according to Jennifer Lund, state apiarist with the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.

Honey bees in Maine and around the country were already in trouble due to the invasive parasitic Varroa destructor mite, the number one killer of bees. Now beekeepers have to contend with wild weather.

Read the full story here

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Facing competition, Tesla cuts prices

From Industry Week

Tesla on Friday announced it will cut the price of its best-selling electric vehicle models up to 20% in Europe and the United States, launching a price war as more rivals hit the market.

Shares in the Elon Musk-led company have plummeted for more than a year and fell as much as 4.5% in early trading on Friday, before recovering some lost ground.

“It’s no secret that demand for Tesla is starting to see some cracks in this global slowdown for 2023,” said analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities.

However, Ives said the price cut was the “right move” and “a clear shot across the bow at European automakers and U.S. stalwarts (GM and Ford) that Tesla is not going to play nice in the sandbox.”

Tesla has already lowered prices twice in China in recent months and offered rare promotions in North America late last year.

Read the full story here

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Congressman George Santos’s story grows curiouser and curiouser

*Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), currently under federal investigation, leaves Capitol Hill on Jan. 12. (Will Oliver/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)*

By Isaac Stanley-Becker and Rosalind S. Helderman, WaPo

Andrew Intrater and his wife each gave the maximum $5,800 to Santos’ main campaign committee and tens of thousands more since 2020 to committees linked to him, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Intrater’s cousin is Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, who has been sanctioned by the U.S. government for his role in the Russian energy industry.

The relationship between Santos and Intrater goes beyond campaign contributions, according to a statement made privately by Santos in 2020 and a court filing the following year in a lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission against a Florida-based investment firm, Harbor City Capital, where Santos worked for more than a year.

Read the full story here

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After drought turn to floods, can seasonal weather forecasts be trusted?

Forecasters in California didn’t see it coming

*Water floods part of a road by the San Ysidro Creek near the closed Highway 101 in Montecito, Calif., on Tuesday. (Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP)*

By Dan Stillman and Diana Leonard, Washington Post

Coming into this winter, California was mired in a three-year drought, with forecasts offering little hope of relief anytime soon. Fast forward to today, and the state is waterlogged with as much as 10 to 20 inches of rain and up to 200 inches of snow that have fallen in some locations in the past three weeks. The drought isn’t over, but parched farmland and declining reservoir levels have been supplanted by raging rivers and deadly flooding.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) issues seasonal forecasts of precipitation and temperature for one to 13 months into the future. The CPC’s initial outlook for this winter, issued on Oct. 20, favored below-normal precipitation in Southern California and did not lean toward either drier- or wetter-than-normal conditions in Northern California.

However, after a series of intense moisture-laden storms known as atmospheric rivers, most of California has seen rainfall totals 200 to 600 percent above normal over the past month, with 24 trillion gallons of water falling in the state since late December.

Floods, landslides, sinkholes: See the devastation of heavy rain in California

The stark contrast between the staggering amount of precipitation in recent weeks and the CPC’s seasonal precipitation outlook issued before the winter, which leaned toward below-normal precipitation for at least half of California, has water managers lamenting the unreliability of seasonal forecasts.

Read the full story here

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Another whale washes up on Jersey shore

The second dead whale in two days. One of seven in the past month. State senator calls for a pause in offshore wind development. Governor says no way

A young humpback whale, between 20 and 25 feet long, was found dead on a Brigantine beach Thursday — the second whale to wash up on Jersey Shore beach in the last week. Connie Pyatt photo.

By Oona Goodin-Smith, Philadelphia Inquirer

A young humpback whale, between 20 and 25 feet long, washed up on the beaches of Brigantine Island Thursday afternoon — the second whale found dead on the Jersey Shore in the last week, and one of seven discovered in New York and New Jersey in a little more than a month.

The whale in Brigantine was found upside-down on the north end of the island, on state-protected property around half a mile from the site of the former U.S. Coast Guard Station, according to a post on the municipality’s Facebook page.

New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, Fish and Wildlife department, and the non-profit Marine Mammal Stranding Center responded to the scene, the post said. The state planned to bury the carcass, according to the post.

It was not immediately clear how the whale had died, and that answer could take “several months” to determine — if at all, the center said in a statement Friday. Plans for a necropsy are under way, the center said, but due to the tide cycle and erosion, the area where the whale is located is hazardous to access. The center’s staff will continue to visit the site during low tide to take measurements and samples to send to experts tasked with investigating whale deaths.

Read the full story here

Another whale washes up on Jersey shore Read More »

NJ Gov. Murphy pulls back on state’s new Energy Master Plan

Avoiding potential political fallout

Maine’s honeybees climate’s latest victims

Facing competition, Tesla cuts prices

Congressman George Santos’s story grows curiouser and curiouser

After drought turn to floods, can seasonal weather forecasts be trusted?

Forecasters in California didn’t see it coming

Another whale washes up on Jersey shore

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