New Jersey lawmakers are working to set strict health limits on so-called forever chemicals as a class rather than regulating them one by one, as now happens.
Since there are thousands of the chemicals and only three subject to health limits in New Jersey’s drinking water, it would make sense to subject all of them to state regulation to reduce public exposure to substances that are linked to some cancers, immune impairment, developmental problems in young children and other serious health conditions, supporters say.
A bill (S-3176) that cleared a Senate committee would require the Department of Environmental Protection to examine the feasibility of regulating the chemicals as a group and to work with scientists at the state’s Drinking Water Quality Institute and report back to lawmakers within two years.
The measure is one of five bills introduced by Sens. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex) and Linda Greenstein (D-Mercer) in early October that would strengthen the state’s efforts to protect public health from the chemicals, which are formally known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The other four bills have yet to go before their first legislative panel, the Senate’s Environment and Energy Committee, which is chaired by Smith.
‘We in New Jersey have a huge problem with PFAS chemicals.’ — Sen. Bob Smith
Smith and other advocates for tighter regulation of the chemicals say New Jersey’s current limits on three of the most found types of PFAS chemicals don’t come close to shielding consumers from the class as a whole because there are so many of them, and that New Jersey has a higher rate of PFAS contamination than many other states because of its long industrial history.
Mass action?
In the last eight years, New Jersey has set strict limits on the presence of PFOA, PFOS, and PFNA in drinking water, becoming a national leader in efforts to curb the chemicals. But those efforts aren’t enough to fully protect public health, advocates say.
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Walkout at six N.J. daily newspapers staged in protest of layoffs, cost-cutting measures, bad-faith union negotiations
By David Wildstein, New Jersey Globe, November 04 2022 10:19 am
Four days before Election Day, employees at Gannett newspapers across New Jersey and other states went on strike Friday to protest cost-cutting measures at the national newspaper chain that have resulted in layoffs, furloughs, and a decision not to fill key vacant positions.
The one-day walkout affected reporters at The (Bergen) Record, Asbury Park Press, Courier-News, Home News Tribune, Daily Record, and the New Jersey Herald, as well as employees of the Atlantic Digital Optimization Team.
“Gannett is actively sabotaging our democracy by attacking its own journalists,” said Jon Schluss, the NewsGuild-CWA president. “The company has the money to invest in journalists and it should start doing that immediately instead of fighting them.
Reporters planned to continue to cover news, but to post their work on their strike paper, the Gannett Union Press.
Gannett reported losing $54.1 million during the third quarter of 2022, despite cost-cutting measures that included over 400 layoffs nationally in recent months. The company lost $53.8 million in the second quarters.
The union said that the decision to strike was not an easy one.
“It runs counter to our passion for journalism and the communities we serve,” a statement posted on Gannett Union Press stated. Those very communities recognize our value and the need for the work we do, but, sadly, Gannett does not.”
The union website cited “the most recent draconian measures,” of forced furloughs next month, additional layoffs, and a suspension of funding retirement plan matches, as “the latest example of Gannett’s disregard for our passion, our work, and our commitment.”
“I’m walking off the job today along with my unionized colleagues in New Jersey, New York, Arizona, and California to protest Gannett’s cost-cutting including layoffs, furloughs, 401k cuts, and bargaining in bad faith,” said Scott Fallon, a reporter at the Bergen Record. “We’re tired of it.”
The union slammed Gannett CEO Mike Reed for taking an $8 million annual salary, which they say is 160 times the median salary of a Gannett employee.
Another Bergen Record reporter, Colleen Wilson, said she and about 200 other Gannett journalists “walked off the job today to protest wide-ranging cuts to our newsrooms and to fight for a fair contract.”
“I’m walking out to support my colleagues in our efforts to get living wages that will allow us to stay in the communities we cover, job security, and the resources we need to deliver the best local news coverage to our readers,” said Jean Mikle, a reporter for the Asbury Park Press.
TRENTON – Legislation sponsored by Senator Vin Gopal and Senate President Nick Scutari prohibiting the inhumane confinement of breeding pigs and calves raised for veal in a manner that unduly restricts movement or provides inadequate space was released from the Senate Environment and Energy Committee.
“The confinement of mother pigs and calves raised for veal, a common practice among factory farms, constitutes a most savage form of animal cruelty, and should not be tolerated in New Jersey,” said Senator Gopal (D-Monmouth). “While we are assured the majority of our hog farmers do not use this barbaric method of confinement for these sentient beings, our state needs to stand with other states and several countries in making sure this uncivilized practice is banned once and for all.”
Typically, in factory farm settings, a mother pig will spend the entirety of her pregnancies and nursing periods confined in a metal cage, called a gestation crate or sow stall. Gestation crates enclose pigs in a space of about seven feet by two feet — an area barely larger than the pig’s body. A few days before giving birth, sows are moved to farrowing crates where they are able to lie down with an attached crate where their piglets can nurse.
Specifically, the bill would prohibit a farm owner or operator from knowingly confining a breeding pig or calf raised for veal:
* in a manner that prevents the animal from lying down, standing up, fully extending the animal’s limbs, or turning around freely;
* in the case of a calf raised for veal, in a manner that prevents the animal from grooming itself naturally or having visual contact with other calves.
The State Board of Agriculture and Department of Agriculture would establish penalties for violations of the provisions of the bill.
The bill, S1298, was released from the committee by a vote of 4-0.
Newswise — A new nationally representative survey released by the University of Notre Dame’s Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy reveals areas of grave concern for the state of American democracy, including more than half of Republicans and one-third of Democrats believing the United States to be on the brink of a new civil war.
The results also show strikingly low support for some core democratic values and the number of Republicans who continue to doubt the integrity of both past and future elections.
Matthew Hall, the Rooney Center’s director, said the survey’s results indicate the threats to American democracy have never been more serious. Although the 2022 midterm elections will not be where America loses its democracy, he said, they could very well set the stage for its downfall.
“Is it really as bad as it seems? The answer is yes,” said Hall, the David A. Potenziani Memorial Professor of Constitutional Studies. “The key is not that what happens in the midterm elections will be inherently anti-democratic — it’s that they may put in place officials who could then undermine our democracy in 2024. We’ve already seen members of Congress willing to overthrow perfectly legitimate election results, and we may see a lot more of that in 2024 if Republicans take the House and the Senate.”
The comprehensive survey, which was conducted from Oct. 20 to 26 using a scientific sample that was representative of the American population, showed that many Americans question basic democratic principles — though there are strong partisan differences in these attitudes.
Democrats are more likely to be skeptical of free speech rights, with 44.7 percent agreeing that the government should be allowed to shut down media outlets that spread disinformation. Republicans, however, are more likely to favor voting limitations, with 37.9 percent disagreeing with the statement that “everyone should be allowed to vote,” while just 6.7 percent of Democrats and 13 percent of independents disagreed.
Many Republicans also remain skeptical of the results of both the 2020 presidential election and upcoming elections — and question the stability of the U.S. system of government. Nearly half of Republican respondents believe that “Joe Biden and the Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election,” and just over half agreed that there will be a substantial amount of election fraud across the country in the midterm elections.
Notably, 22 percent of Democrats and 44 percent of Republicans surveyed also agreed that the “true American way of life” is disappearing so fast that “we may have to use force to save it.”
Slightly more than half of Republicans (51.5 percent), over a third of Democrats (35.1 percent), and nearly a quarter of independents (23 percent) believe the United States is on the brink of a new civil war.
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Hours before citizens across the country cast their votes in a contentious midterm election, a sinister red moon will loom in the sky. The last total lunar eclipse of 2022 is set to stain the moon red during the wee hours of Tuesday morning. Residents across both coasts will be able to watch the spectacle for just under 90 minutes.
Total lunar eclipses, commonly known as “blood moons,” happen only during full moons when the Earth completely shields the moon from the sun. Once the sun, Earth, and moon are exactly aligned, light from simultaneous sunrises and sunsets around the Earth projects onto the moon, briefly causing a coppery red coat on the moon’s surface. The more dust or clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere during the eclipse, the redder the moon will appear, according to NASA.
The New Jersey regulator did not pick winners to construct wind farms but did award more than a billion for a single transmission line to Monmouth County plus upgrades to PJM’s onshore electric grid
No deal on offshore power grid
By Tom Johnson, NJ Spotlight
A state agency held off, at least for now, approving projects aimed at bringing power from offshore wind farms to land, but it did allow for $1 billion to upgrade the existing power grid.
The Board of Public Utilities balked at the more expensive projects needed to begin building what is essentially a backbone transmission system off the coast to deliver power ashore. Instead, it opted to wait until federal financial incentives are available to defray the costs to utility customers.
A law signed by President Joe Biden this summer provides lucrative tax credits to operators of offshore wind farms, but those credits are not available to most transmission projects. Several developers had sought approval from the state to build offshore transmission lines from the wind farms to the grid.
Many clean-energy advocates contend a backbone offshore wind transmission system is the most cost-effective and least environmentally disruptive way of connecting offshore power to the customers who need it. By mid-century, offshore wind farms are supposed to provide 27% of the state’s electricity. No offshore wind farm is operating in New Jersey.
Future federal funds
In the board order approving the projects, BPU staff said the action positions the state to seek direct federal funding for future expansions of the offshore transmission grid, including the potential to award a full offshore-wind backbone in future solicitations.
“We’re not finished,’’ said BPU President Joseph Fiordaliso, who said the approved projects will minimize the impact on New Jersey’s coastline, avoiding multiple projects coming ashore at different landing points.
In what it billed as the first coordinated approach to bringing offshore wind power to the grid, the board approved a project proposed by Jersey Central Power & Light and Mid-Atlantic Offshore Development, the latter a joint venture of EDF Renewables North America and Shell New Energies U.S.
The project involves building a new substation at JCP&L’s Larrabee substation in central Jersey, a site designated as the single interconnection point for the initial offshore wind farms approved by the BPU. Eventually, the new substation is projected to be the interconnect for up to 6,400 megawatts of offshore-wind electricity.
Bottom line: Larrabee
The new substation at Larrabee and other upgrades there are projected to cost $504 million. Related upgrades to the existing onshore grid will add another $575 million, bringing the total cost to ratepayers of $1.08 billion, or $1.03 per month for the average residential customer.
The onshore grid upgrades will be built by Atlantic City Electric, Baltimore Gas and Electric, LS Power, Peco Energy Co., PPL Corp., PSE&G and Transource.
JCP&L and Shell-EDF tapped for New Jersey’s transmission-first offshore wind plan
By Ethan Howland, Utility Dive
Gannet77 via Getty Images
Dive Brief:
The New Jersey Bureau of Public Utilities on Wednesday approved a set of “transmission-first” projects to connect 6.4 GW of potential offshore wind to the grid after sorting through 80 proposals made by 13 companies.
The BPU selected a $505 million proposal brought by Jersey Central Power & Light, a FirstEnergy utility, and Mid-Atlantic Offshore Development, a joint venture between Shell New Energies US and EDF Renewables North America, that will provide wind farms a shared connection point to the mainland. The BPU tapped other utilities and transmission companies to build about $575 million in other onshore upgrades.
“This action reflects a milestone in the development of proactive ‘transmission first’ infrastructure development in the offshore space,” Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies, said, noting the approach has been used successfully in West Texas, the Upper and Lower Great Plains, and parts of the Northwest and California.
Dive Insight:
While regions like New England are starting to consider a holistic approach to transmission development for offshore wind, New Jersey’s BPU approved a plan that will give multiple wind farms a pathway onto the state’s grid.
“The board finds that this ‘transmission-first’ approach to offshore wind, undertaken in partnership with its regional grid operator, PJM Interconnection …, will lower costs, reduce the chance of delays in offshore wind projects and minimize community and environmental impacts,” the BPU said in the decision.
The plan will save at least $900 million compared with each wind farm building its own transmission, Andrea Hart, the agency’s senior offshore wind program manager, said Wednesday during an agency meeting. The plan will cost the average residential customer $1.03 a month, according to the BPU.
The approved interconnection project, called the Larrabee Tri-Collector, was designed to take advantage of federal tax incentives that could be worth about $2.2 billion, according to Hart.
The BPU considered proposals for an offshore transmission “backbone” running in the ocean parallel to the state’s coast, but found its costs outweighed the benefits, Hart said. Backbone projects would connect offshore substations to each other to directly interconnect multiple offshore wind projects, according to the BPU.
The project and related grid upgrades will allow New Jersey to seek direct federal funding for future expansions of the offshore wind transmission system, including potential funding for a full offshore wind backbone, according to the agency.
The approved transmission plan could change if circumstances shift, Hart said.
The companies selected to build various upgrades to support the introduction of offshore wind onto the grid include JCP&L, Public Service Electric and Gas, LS Power, PPL, Transource Energy, and Exelon’s Atlantic City Electric, Baltimore Gas and Electric and Potomac Electric.
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