COVID second wave crashing on NJ: 4,320 new cases, 34 more deaths

By Brent Johnson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

New Jersey on Thursday reported 4,320 more coronavirus cases and 34 additional deaths, while hospitalizations rose for the 20th straight day as Gov. Phil Murphy warned the next few months could be “brutal” as the second wave of the pandemic hits the state.

The Garden State has now announced more than 4,000 COVID-19 cases in five of the six last days, pushing its total 293,744 positive tests out of more than 5.46 million tests administered since the start of the outbreak in March.

Don’t miss information like this. Click to receive free EP Blog updates

The state of 9 million residents has reported 16,689 coronavirus deaths in that time, including 14,877 confirmed fatalities and 1,812 considered probable.

“The virus is in the second wave with a vengeance,” Gov. Phil Murphy said during a virtual economic development event Thursday. “We’re in for a rough few months here, both as a state and as a country. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

New Jersey’s latest seven-day average for new positive tests increased to 3,858 on Thursday, up 35% from a week ago and 277% from a month earlier. Fifteen of the state’s 21 counties reported at least 100 new cases, led by Bergen and Essex counties, which both topped 400.

The seven-day average of cases is now higher than the pandemic’s first wave in the spring, though the comparison is deceiving because the state was conducting less than 12,000 tests then and the outbreak was likely undercounted. The state is now averaging more than 40,000 tests a day, and that number does not include recently-deployed rapid tests.

But hospitalizations, patients in intensive care and on ventilators, positivity rate, transmission rate, and deaths have all been rising in recent weeks.

There were 2,471 patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases in New Jersey on Wednesday. That’s much lower than the 8,000 who were hospitalized in April but the most since May 29. Hospitalizations have more than tripled over the last month.

Read the full story

EnviroPolitics Blog is working to keep you informed about all aspects of the coronavirus — the status of confirmed cases, disease spread, death toll–and also how Americans are coping. Like this story, for instance. If you like what we are doing, Click to receive free EP Blog updates and please tell your friends about us.

COVID second wave crashing on NJ: 4,320 new cases, 34 more deaths Read More »

Maryland spent $9.46M on coronavirus tests that were never used because of flaws

LabGun coronavirus tests from South Korea are unloaded at Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport on April 18. The tests, purchased by the state of Maryland for $9.46 million, were flawed and not used. (Maryland governor’s office)

By Steve Thompson, Washington Post

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) spent $9.46 million in state funding to import 500,000 coronavirus tests from South Korea that turned out to be flawed and weren’t used, emails, documents and interviews show.

As it became clear that the much-touted tests could not help detect which Maryland residents had contracted the novel coronavirus, the Hogan administration quietly paid the same South Korean company $2.5 million for 500,000 replacement tests.

The state offered the tests free to two private labs, one of which declined because the tests took much longer to process than U.S. versions, records and interviews show.

Try our daily newsletter, EnviroPolitics, FREE for a full month

The University of Maryland, which had spent months equipping its lab in Baltimore to process coronavirus tests, abandoned the replacement South Korean tests this fall after a spate of suspected false positives. But the other private lab continues to use them; a state official said Wednesday that 370,000 of the replacement tests have been used.

Hogan heralded the initial purchase as “an exponential, game-changing step forward” and featured it as the climax of his political memoir, published this summer.

“No one knew how many lives those 500,000 tests might save, but it would be a lot,” he wrote of their arrival in April at Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport. “The successful mission got tons of attention in the national media.”

Local officials in Maryland hoped that the purchase would make screening in the state more widely available. When the tests were not quickly deployed, they — and state lawmakers — began asking what was going on.

But Hogan and his top health and procurement officials withheld the tests’ flaws from the legislature, state spending authorities and the public, according to a review of public testimony and hundreds of pages of emails and other records.

Read the full story

Care to share? Use icons at bottom to share this post on social media

Maryland spent $9.46M on coronavirus tests that were never used because of flaws Read More »

Frantic steps by Trump, allies to overturn Biden victory

By Colleen Long , Zeke Miller, Jill Colvin and David Eggert Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and his allies are taking increasingly frantic steps to subvert the results of the 2020 election, including summoning state legislators to the White House as part of a longshot bid to overturn Joe Biden’s victory.

Among other last-ditch tactics: personally calling local election officials who are trying to rescind their certification votes in Michigan, suggesting in a legal challenge that Pennsylvania set aside the popular vote there and pressuring county officials in Arizona to delay certifying vote tallies.

Election law experts see it as the last, dying gasps of the Trump campaign and say Biden is certain to walk into the Oval Office come January. But there is great concern that Trump’s effort is doing real damage to public faith in the integrity of U.S. elections.

Fact checking Giuliani and the Trump legal team’s wild, fact-free press conference

“It’s very concerning that some Republicans apparently can’t fathom the possibility that they legitimately lost this election,” said Joshua Douglas, a law professor at the University of Kentucky who researches and teaches election law.

“We depend on democratic norms, including that the losers graciously accept defeat,” he said. “That seems to be breaking down.”

Trump’s own election security agency has declared the 2020 presidential election to have been the most secure in history. Days after that statement was issued, Trump fired the agency’s leader.

Read the full story

Don’t miss information like this. Click to receive free EP Blog updates

Frantic steps by Trump, allies to overturn Biden victory Read More »

More conservative SCOTUS to hear remand question in Baltimore climate suit

By the National Law Review

With the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett on October 26, the Supreme Court that will review a Fourth Circuit decision affirming the remand of Baltimore City’s ongoing climate suit is significantly more conservative than the Supreme Court that granted certiorari just a few weeks prior.[1] 

Justice Barrett, a self-proclaimed textualist and a prior clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, is expected to give strong preference to the plain language meaning of federal statutes, regardless of the policy ramifications. This will likely favor Petitioners, whose certiorari petition relied on a plain language reading of the relevant federal statute.

Read the full story

Try our daily newsletter, EnviroPolitics, FREE for a full month

More conservative SCOTUS to hear remand question in Baltimore climate suit Read More »

Barrasso next chair of Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell listens as Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) speaks during a news conference after the weekly Senate Republican policy luncheon. | Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

By KELSEY TAMBORRINO, Politics Morning Energy

Senator John Barrasso, R-WY, announced his intent Wednesday to become the top Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, leaving behind his post as the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Provided Republicans maintain their majority, Barrasso will chair the committee in the next Congress, replacing Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who is term-limited.

“Wyoming has been represented on the Senate Energy Committee continuously since 1899. Former Wyoming Senators Wallop, Hansen, O’Mahoney and Kendrick all led the committee at some time over the last century,” Barrasso said in a statement. “It will be an honor to continue this tradition of Wyoming leadership.”
As Pro’s Anthony Adragna reports, the move will put lawmakers from the two leading coal-producing states atop the powerful Energy panel, presenting a potential barrier for any aggressive legislation to enact President-elect Joe Biden’s climate change policies. Ranking Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s state of West Virginia is second only to Barrasso’s in coal production, and both lawmakers have defended the fuel that has seen its demand slump sharply over the past decade as the power sector moved to cleaner, cheaper energy sources.

Barrasso has been a strong supporter of nuclear power and uranium mining, as well as carbon capture and sequestration technology, and observers don’t expect the committee’s agenda to be wildly different than under Murkowski.

“The whole space of energy innovation is so bipartisan,” said Rich Powell, executive director of ClearPath, a group that advocates for conservative clean energy policies. “It’s hard for me to imagine a whole different set of outcomes from that committee. I don’t expect a revolutionary change there.”

Keep in mind: Barrasso will remain in Senate Republican leadership next Congress as conference chair. That could put him in prime position to secure floor time for any legislation the committee produces.

“There are opportunities for Sen. Barrasso to be a partner on important parts of the clean energy agenda in 2021,” said Josh Freed, senior vice president for climate and energy at think tank Third Way. “We’re going to have to see how creative and open-minded he is.

“What’s happening at EPW? Barrasso’s move opens up the top slot for Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who is next in line. In addition to advancing what’s expected to be a hefty infrastructure package, several people said they expected Capito would work on legislation addressing PFAS contamination, a major issue in her state, and providing funding to clean up former mines.

If you liked this post you’ll love our daily newsletter, EnviroPolitics. It’s packed with the latest news, commentary and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Don’t take our word for it, try it free for an entire month. No obligation.

Barrasso next chair of Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee? Read More »

DEP to honor NJ recycling leaders at awards program today

From The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection

 While the global recycling community continues to face challenges due to global recycling markets and rising program costs, New Jersey’s recycling leaders are pursuing innovative techniques and strategies to further reduce the waste stream.

Among the 2020 honorees of the DEP’s annual recycling awards are a business that recycles food waste from its cafeterias and plastics from its laboratories; a municipality that recycles 75 percent of its waste, including polystyrene; a university with a comprehensive recycling and reuse program; and an 11 year-old boy who started a successful battery recycling program.

The Department of Environmental Protection will recognize Merck & Co., Inc. in Kenilworth, Union County, Middletown Township in Monmouth County, Princeton University in Princeton, Mercer County, and Sri Nihal Tammana of Edison, Middlesex County among 10 businesses, organizations and individuals during a Thursday, Nov. 19 virtual awards ceremony being held in conjunction with an Association of New Jersey Recyclers educational webinar.

Register for the webinar and ceremony at  www.anjr.com. 

“I commend the award winners for their innovative efforts to promote recycling and educate their communities about the importance of diverting waste,” DEP Commissioner Catherine R. McCabe said. “New Jersey has been a national leader in recycling for many years, thanks in part to the types of initiatives we see from our recycling award winners and those who follow their excellent examples. Their work helps protect our environment by keeping communities clean and reducing the impacts of climate change.” 

Read the full story

Don’t miss information like this. Click to receive free EP Blog updates

DEP to honor NJ recycling leaders at awards program today Read More »