Carla K. Johnson and Mike Stobbe / Associated Press
Travelers wear face masks as they wait their flight at Hong Kong International Airport in Hong Kong today. Face masks sold out and temperature checks at airports and train stations became the new norm as China strove Tuesday to control the outbreak of a new coronavirus
SEATTLE (AP) — A U.S. citizen who recently returned from a trip to central China has been diagnosed with the new virus that has sparked an outbreak and stringent monitoring around the world.
The man returned to the Seattle area in the middle of last week after traveling to the Wuhan area, where the outbreak began. The man is in his 30s and is in good condition at a hospital in Everett, outside Seattle.
The U.S. is the fifth country to report seeing the illness, following China, Thailand, Japan, and South Korea.
Late last week, U.S. health officials began screening passengers from central China at U.S. airports. Officials around the world have implemented similar airport screenings in hopes of containing the virus during the busy Lunar New Year travel season.
In announcing the airport screenings last week, CDC officials said then risk to the American public was low but that it was likely the illness would appear in the U.S. at some point.
The New Jersey Legislature presented Governor Phil Murphy with hundreds of bills in the final days of its lame-duck session that expired last week. Below is a list of environmental bills that the governor signed into law today and those he took no action on which, following a lame-duck session, constitutes a ‘pocket veto.’
Bills signed into law:
S721 /A1751 (Greenstein, Cunningham, Diegnan / Quijano, Benson) – Authorizes use of certain electric school buses
S1683 /A4267 (Smith, Greenstein / McKeon, Space, Wirths) – Concerns regulation of solid waste, hazardous waste, and soil and fill recycling industries
S2511 / A4020 (Madden / Mazzeo, Murphy, Johnson) – Changes title of DEP “conservation officer” to “conservation police officer”
S3920 wGR / A5552 (Pou / Wimberly, Sumter) – Concerns provision of energy to certain manufacturing facilities by providing exemptions to certain energy-related taxes
S3939 and S3944 / ACS for 2018:A5681 and 2018:A5682 (Smith, Greenstein, Bateman, Codey / Pinkin, Lopez, McKeon) – Establishes Recycling Market Development Council
S3985 / A5663 (Smith / McKeon, Pinkin, Vainieri Huttle) – Amends “Electric Discount and Energy Competition Act” to add a definition of “open access offshore wind transmission facility” and revises law concerning “qualified offshore wind projects”
S4025 / A5695 (Pou / Wimberly, Sumter) – Makes FY 2020 language allocation of $1,000,000 appropriated to Grants for Urban Parks to Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson
S4162 / A6014 (Smith, Greenstein / Vainieri Huttle, Pinkin, Houghtaling) – Establishes NJ Climate Change Resource Center at Rutgers University; appropriates up to $500,000
S4275 / A6088 (Smith, Greenstein / Burzichelli) – Allows BPU to increase cost to customers of Class I renewable energy requirement for energy years 2022 through 2024, under certain conditions
S4276 / A6109 (Corrado, Bateman / Armato, Calabrese, Land) – Appropriates $32,153,936 to State Agriculture Development Committee, and amends 2017 appropriations for stewardship activities, for farmland preservation purposes
S4277 / A6112 (Greenstein, Bateman / Freiman, Danielsen, Downey) – Appropriates $5,000,000 from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues to State Agriculture Development Committee for municipal planning incentive grants for farmland preservation purposes
S4278 / A6108 (Greenstein, Bateman / Taliaferro, Karabinchak, Kennedy) – Appropriates $21 million from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues to State Agriculture Development Committee for county planning incentive grants for farmland preservation purposes
S4279 / A6106 (Smith, Bateman / Houghtaling, Reynolds-Jackson, Pinkin) – Appropriates $1,350,000 from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues to State Agriculture Development Committee for grants to certain nonprofit organizations for farmland preservation purposes
S4309 / A6107 (Turner, Cruz-Perez / Mejia, Vainieri Huttle, Zwicker) – Appropriates $13,902,723 from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues to NJ Historic Trust for grants for certain historic preservation projects and associated administrative expenses
S4310 / A6114 (Codey, Bateman / Carter, Murphy, Lopez) – Appropriates $8,872,682 to DEP from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues for grants to certain nonprofit entities to acquire or develop lands for recreation and conservation purposes
S4311 / A6113 (Greenstein, Bateman / Mukherji, Verrelli) – Appropriates $77,450,448 from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues and various Green Acres funds to DEP for local government open space acquisition and park development projects
S4312 / A6111 (Smith, Bateman / Giblin, Mazzeo, Land) – Appropriates $36.143 million from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues for recreation and conservation purposes to DEP for State capital and park development projects
S4313 / A6110 (Corrado, Bateman / Moriarty, McKeon, Swain) – Appropriates $33.915 million from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues to DEP for State acquisition of lands for recreation and conservation purposes, including Blue Acres projects
A4136 / S2675 (Land, Milam / Andrzejczak, Van Drew) – Establishes Possession In Excess of Daily Limit Vessel License for black sea bass and summer flounder; dedicates fees therefrom to marine fisheries programs
A5511 / S1852 (Spearman, Jones, Reynolds-Jackson / Turner, Cruz-Perez) – Revises certain penalties for illegal operation of snowmobile, all-terrain vehicle, or dirt bike
A5970 / S4201 (Lopez, Speight, Chaparro / Codey) – Amends list of environmental infrastructure projects approved for long-term funding for FY2020 to include new projects, remove certain projects, and modify estimated loan amounts for certain projects
A5971 / S4202 (Mukherji, Pintor Marin, Spearman / Bateman, Corrado) – Authorizes NJ Infrastructure Bank to expend additional sums to make loans for environmental infrastructure projects for FY2020
A5972 / S4203 (Pinkin, Benson, Zwicker / Greenstein, Singleton) – Makes changes to New Jersey Infrastructure Bank’s enabling act
Governor Murphy declined to sign the following bills, meaning they expire without becoming law:
S2421 / A1030 (Smith, Bateman / Johnson, Kennedy, Benson, DeAngelo) – Concerns installation of electric vehicle charging stations in common interest communities
S3393 / A5384 and A5157 (Sarlo, Addiego / Mazzeo, Murphy, Houghtaling, Calabrese, Armato, Dancer) – Allows certain preserved farms to hold 14 special occasion events per year; imposes further event restrictions on residentially-exposed preserved farms
A1045 /S2856 (Houghtaling, Downey, Dancer / Gopal, Oroho) – Clarifies sales tax collection responsibilities of horse-boarding businesses in New Jersey
A2731 / S3407 (Taliaferro, Space / Sweeney, Oroho) – Removes statutory limitation on number of permits that may be issued by Division of Fish and Wildlife for the taking of beaver
A4382 / S2815 (Pinkin, Lopez, Kennedy / Beach, Smith) – Requires paint producers to implement or participate in a nationwide paint stewardship program
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David Masur, director of PennEnvironment issued the following alert in anticipation of an expected vote this weekon Senate Bill 790
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is expected to take up a proposal in the near future to roll back crucial health and environmental protections from gas and oil drilling that have been on the books for nearly thirty years.
This proposal is Senate Bill 790, and if passed into law it would roll back safeguards for our health and environment in outrageous ways, including:
Allowing oil and gas companies to replace drinking water they contaminated with replacement water that doesn’t meet Safe Drinking Water Act standards;
Weakening reporting standards for oil and gas spills;
Preempting local ordinances meant to protect our environment and local communities from the threat of drilling–a rollback that the state supreme court already found unconstitutional in 2013.1
The state Senate has already passed this disastrous proposal and sent it to the House for a vote, which could happen as early as THIS WEEK.
Martin Luther King Jr. stayed in the back bedroom of this house (left) on Walnut Street in Camden, according to the owner who inherited the property from her father-in-law. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
Thelma Lowery remembers a day in June 1950 when two young men at her family’s home discussed staging a sit-in at a bar in Maple Shade, New Jersey.
“Daddy told them” not to go, Lowery recalled in a 2017 interview. “And Martin said, ‘Well, it’s a free country, you know. They shouldn’t be segregated, you know.’ And they went. And they got locked up.”
Jeanette Hunt, who owns the home in Camden where Martin Luther King once lived. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
The “Martin” in her story is Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., then a 21-year-old seminary student studying at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, planning one of his first acts of civil disobedience. It culminated with the white tavern owner firing a gun in the air.
And the setting was 753 Walnut St., a two-story row house in Camden owned by relatives of King’s classmate.
That structure, which local activists want to preserve as a key waypoint in King’s early development, is now on the verge of collapse in the face of indecision by local and state officials.
(Bloomberg) — China’s top economic planner said it would cut the production and use of plastic over the next five years, helping reduce one of the world’s biggest sources of plastic pollution.
By the end of this year, non-degradable plastic bags will be banned in places such as supermarkets and shopping malls in major cities, as well as in the country’s ubiquitous food delivery services, according to a plan released by the National Development and Reform Commission on Sunday.
China will significantly reduce the use of disposable plastic in e-commerce, express deliveries and takeaway food by 2022, while promoting alternative materials, the NDRC said. The nation will also establish a system for producing, distributing, consuming, recycling and disposing of plastic products by 2025.
The use of plastic in the world’s most populous nation has risen as online shopping and food delivery apps have become part of everyday life, even in rural areas. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., which organizes a 24-hour shopping marathon every year, has been criticized for shipping 1 billion packages in a single day.
The ease with which food can be ordered online, often with waiting times of only 10 to 15 minutes, means an increase in plastic bags, containers, and utensils that are then discarded.
China has taken steps to address the deluge of plastic, including introducing a mandatory recycling system that’s being piloted in cities such as Shanghai. The country will also completely ban the import of plastic waste, the NDRC said on Sunday, without giving a deadline.
The Asian nation will ban non-degradable, single-use plastic straws nationwide by 2020, it said, with the goal of reducing the “intensity of consumption” of such plastic utensils by takeout services in urban areas by 30% by 2025.
By 2022, some delivery services in major cities including Beijing and Shanghai will be forbidden from using non-degradable packaging, with the ban extended to the whole country by 2025.
A million seabirds died in less than a year as a result of a giant “blob” of hot ocean, according to new research.
A study released by the University of Washington found the birds, called common murres, probably died of starvation between the summer of 2015 and the spring of 2016.
Most dead seabirds never wash ashore, so while 62,000 dead or dying murres were found along the coasts of Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California, researchers estimate the total number is closer to 1 million.
Alaska saw the most birds wash up. In Prince William Sound in southern Alaska, more than 4,500 bird carcasses were found every kilometer, or 0.62 miles.
The blob stems from a years-long severe marine heatwave, believed to be caused by an anticyclone weather system that first appeared in 2013. The weather phenomenon known as El Niño accelerated the warming temperatures beginning in 2015 and, by 2016, the rising heat resulted in water temperatures nearly 11F (6C) above average.
Anticyclones form when a mass of air cools, contracts and becomes more dense, increasing the weight of the atmosphere and the surface air pressure.
Heat maps at the time showed a huge red blob growing, spanning more than 380,000 sq miles (1m sq km). That’s nearly 1.5 times the size of Texas or four times the size of New Zealand.
The study found that the murres mostly likely starved to death. The seabird must eat half its body weight to survive, but food grew scarce amid intense competition from other creatures. Warming ocean waters gave fish such as salmon and halibut a metabolism boost, causing a fight for survival over the limited supply of smaller fish.
Researchers also uncovered other effects, including a vast bloom of harmful algae along the US west coast that cost fisheries millions of dollars in revenue. Other animals also died off, including sea lions, tufted puffins and baleen whales.
“Think of it as a run on the grocery stores at the same time that the delivery trucks to the stores stopped coming so often,” Julia Parrish, a co-author of the study and UW professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, said in a press release.
The murres’ population also took a hit. According to the study, a limited food supply resulted in reduced breeding colonies across the entire region. Between the 2015 and 2016 breeding seasons, more than 15 colonies did not produce a single chick. Researchers say those estimates could be low since they only monitor a quarter of all colonies.
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