EnviroPolitics Blog

Energy and environment bills advancing today in New Jersey Senate

*NJ Senate Environment and Energy Committee* (file photo)

The following bills were released from New Jersey Senate committees today

S339 – Requires electric public utility to install and operate smart meter infrastructure and technology at certain customers’ premises; provides employment protections for certain electric public utility employees.
02/10/2022 Reported out of Economic Growth committee with amendments, 2nd reading in Senate

S772 – Directs Department of Agriculture to establish New Jersey Minority, Women, and Underserved Farmer Registry.
02/10/2022 Reported out of Economic Growth Committee with committee amendments, 2nd reading in Senate

S787 – Requires request for proposal to establish a demonstration program to develop distributed energy resource microgrids for electric fleet and heavy-duty vehicle use.
02/10/2022 Reported out of Economic Growth Committee with amendments, 2nd reading in Senate

Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Environment and Energy Committee:

S1386 – Codifies certain energy goals related to the 2019 Energy Master Plan.
02/10/2022 Introduced and referred to the Senate Environment and Energy Committee

S1465 – Establishes a task force to study recycling streams in NJ and challenges faced by local governments in running recycling programs.
02/10/2022 Introduced and referred to Senate Environment and Energy Committee

S1492 – “Penny’s Law”; requires DEP to develop beach accessibility guidelines for persons with disabilities.
02/10/2022 Introduced and referred to Senate Environment and Energy Committee

S1523 – Prohibits the use of receipt paper containing bisphenol A.
02/10/2022 Introduced and referred to Senate Environment and Energy Committee

S1524 – Requires DEP to update school food waste guidelines to include recommendations for how to better utilize food nearing best-by and expiration dates.
02/10/2022 Introduced and referred to Senate Environment and Energy Committee

S1525 – Provides corporation business tax credit to taxpayers that develop qualified native pollinator habitat on undeveloped property.
02/10/2022 Introduced and referred to Senate Environment and Energy Committee

S1532 – Provides that solar and photovoltaic energy facilities and structures on farmland are not inherently beneficial use, per se, for purposes of zoning approvals.
02/10/2022 Introduced and referred to Senate Environment and Energy Committee

S1533 – Requires State to include distributed energy resources in certain new State buildings and consider retrofitting certain existing State buildings with distributed energy resources.
02/10/2022 Introduced and referred to Senate Environment and Energy Committee

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NJ Gov. Murphy orders flag lowered following passing of glass-ceiling-buster Barbara Curran

Union County Republican served as an assemblywoman, BPU president, judge, and NJ GOP executive director

By David Wildstein, New Jersey Globe

Gov. Phil Murphy today ordered that flags remain at half-staff at all state buildings and facilities on Thursday, February 10 to honor former Assemblywoman Barbara A. Curran, the first woman to serve in all three branches of New Jersey state government.

Curran died on January 29. She was 81

She served in the state legislature, in the cabinet as president of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, and as a Superior Court Judge.

“Judge Curran was a trailblazer who was well-respected by Democrats and Republicans alike,” said Murphy. “Throughout her remarkable career, she broke several glass ceilings in state government and served as a role model for many women in public service. She will be greatly missed.”

Curran was first elected to the State Assembly in 1973, at age 33.

Curran became involved in politics working on Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign and managed former Senate President Frank McDermott’s 1969 campaign for the Republican nomination for governor. She served as an assistant to Republican State Chairman Nelson Gross during William Cahill’s successful bid for governor in 1969. Before that, she worked as an editor of the Rahway News Record and the Clark Patriot.

In 1971, at age 30, GOP State Chairman John Dimon named Curran as the executive director of the New Jersey Republican State Committee. She was the first woman to hold that post. In 1972, she became the executive director of the New Jersey Committee to Re-elect the President.

After a new legislative map was drawn for the 1973 elections, Curran became a candidate for Assembly in the new 24th district, which started in Summit and extended through eastern Morris County and into part of western Passaic County. The district had three incumbents: State Sen. Peter Thomas (R-Chatham) and Assemblyman James Vreeland (R-Montville), both Republicans and Assemblyman John Sinsimer (D-Pompton Lakes), a Passaic County Democrat who had been redistricted into the new 24th.

With the endorsement of the Union County Republicans and the Morris GOP with no organization line, Curran won the primary by 2,258 votes against John Kroeger, a Parsippany school board member. The top vote-getter was Vreeland, who had won the seat in 1971 after his brother, Everett Vreeland, passed away. Edward Ambry, a Montclair State University professor, ran a distant fourth.

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NJ Senate’s E&E committee meets today

The Senate Environment and Energy Committee will meet today (Feb. 10) at 10 a.m. in Room 6, 1st Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ. The committee will take testimony from invited guests on the impacts of climate change in New Jersey, and what actions the State is taking, and should take, to meet its goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition, the committee is scheduled to vote on the following bills:

S333 – Prohibits persons convicted of criminal animal cruelty offenses from owning domestic companion animals and from working or volunteering at animal-related enterprises; establishes a presumption against pretrial intervention for certain persons; designated as

S336 – Establishes Office of Clean Energy Equity in BPU; directs the establishment of certain clean energy, energy efficiency, and energy storage programs for overburdened communities; makes a change to community solar program.

S417 – Requires environmental sustainability plan for State House Complex.

S419 – Establishes Renewable and Efficient Energy Financing Program; authorizes BPU to transfer up to $20 million annually in societal benefits charge revenues to New Jersey Infrastructure Bank for purposes of the program.

S1005 – Authorizes common law public nuisance suits regarding lead paint under State law; exempts Attorney General from certain aspects of public nuisance claims when pursuing lead paint actions.

The State House Annex has reopened to the general public. Visitors to the State House Annex are required to show ID and proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID-19 PCR or rapid test conducted within the previous 72 hours. All visitors are required to undergo a temperature screening prior to proceeding through security. Masks are mandatory at all times inside the State House Annex, including in Committee Rooms and in the hallways and other facilities. Please visit https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/Publications/PDF/JMC%20Rules.pdf for more information.

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Repairs unfinished, Putin’s superyacht skedaddles from Germany to gentler tax waters in Russia

*The yacht, Graceful, was worked on by Blohm+Voss. It includes an indoor pool measuring 15 by three metres*

By David Crossland, The (London) Times

Vladimir Putin’s private yacht has been spotted sailing towards Russia from a Hamburg shipyard, triggering speculation that it was trying to avoid being impounded by sanctions that would follow a potential invasion of Ukraine.

The Kieler Nachrichten newspaper on Sunday had published a photo of the 82-meter luxury yacht moored alongside the German navy corvette Emden. Since then the yacht has sailed into the Baltic.

Putin’s Graceful had been undergoing refurbishment at the Blohm+Voss shipyard since September where it had been fitted with two new large balconies and had its hull cleaned and its engines overhauled, the report said. Neither Blohm+Voss, which built the battleship Bismarck nor its parent company, Lürssen, could be reached for comment.

Putin on the deck of his yacht, which had been in Hamburg to be refurbishedALAMY

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Ethics complaints filed against seven Pa. lawyers who helped Trump try to overturn the 2020 election

All of them, the filings said, lent their “law license and the legal profession’s integrity and power to an orchestrated effort to undermine our nation’s elections.”

Jenna Ellis, a member of President Donald Trump’s legal team, speaks during a November 2020 news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington. On Thursday, a legal advocacy group called the 65 Project filed ethics complaints with a state disciplinary board against several attorneys involved in the efforts to overturn Pennsylvania's elections results. It notified the board of a previous complaint it had filed against Ellis, who is now working as a senior legal adviser to GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano. — Jenna Ellis, a member of President Donald Trump’s legal team, speaks during a November 2020 news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington.

By Jeremy Roebuck, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jul 7, 2022

A legal advocacy group formed in hopes of disbarring and disciplining lawyers who aided Donald Trump’s push to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election filed complaints Thursday with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court against seven lawyers in the state for their involvement in the former president’s legal efforts.

The list of those targeted by the 65 Project includes bit players like attorney and conservative talk show host Marc A. Scaringi, of Harrisburg, who sponsored Rudy Giuliani to argue on behalf of the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania’s federal courts, as well as some of the most in-demand GOP elections lawyers in the state, like Ronald Hicks and Carolyn McGee, who most recently represented Republican Senate candidate David McCormick in recount litigation during his primary campaign against Mehmet Oz.

Additionally, the group filed complaints against three out-of-state lawyers who participated in Pennsylvania election litigation — including Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, who is now serving as a senior legal adviser to state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee in this year’s governor’s race.

All of them, the organization said in their filings, lent their “law license and the legal profession’s integrity and power to an orchestrated effort to undermine our nation’s elections.”

“It has now become part of the political toolbox for a candidate to allege fraud and seek to … undermine people’s faith in the outcome of elections any time they lose. We need to take that away,” said Michael Teter, managing director of the 65 Project, named after the 65 lawsuits filed in 2020 seeking to overturn the election. “The best way to do that with lawyers is to ensure there are personal or professional consequences to the actions they take.”

Read the full story here

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Two men in Miami stole 192 ventilators, worth $3 million, the authorities say.

A ventilator in an emergency field hospital. Two men in Miami have been sentenced on charges of stealing 192 ventilators the U.S. was sending to El Salvador in the first year of the pandemic. — A ventilator in an emergency field hospital. Two men in Miami have been sentenced on charges of stealing 192 ventilators that the U.S. was sending to El Salvador in the first year of the pandemic. Photo credit Rogelio V. Solis /AP

By Eduardo Medina New York Times

Two men in Miami have each been sentenced to 41 months in prison for stealing medical ventilators bound for a Covid-19 care facility in El Salvador as part of a U.S. aid program, federal authorities in Florida said on Friday.

The crime occurred in August 2020, according to a news release issued by the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida after the sentencing of the second of the two men.

The men, Yoelvis Denis Hernandez, 42, and Luis Urra Montero, 25, stole a tractor-trailer from a parking lot in South Florida that was loaded with 192 ventilators, worth about $3 million, that were bound for Miami International Airport for shipping to El Salvador by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the statement said.

At the time, El Salvador was experiencing a pandemic surge and desperately seeking help to save severely ill residents.

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