EnviroPolitics Blog

N.J. freezes Holtec’s $260 million tax break pending investigation

Kris Singh, center, the founder, president and CEO of Holtec International. The company was granted the second-largest tax break in state history, but officials placed a hold on the break following our reporting. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Nancy Solomon, WNYC, and Jeff Pillets, ProPublica

This article was produced in partnership with WNYC, which is a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network. It was co-published with The Star-Ledger.

New Jersey state officials have placed a hold on a $260 million tax break for Holtec International, a nuclear company that built its new headquarters on the Camden waterfront, while investigators examine details of its application, according to two state officials with knowledge of the investigation.

Officials took the action after a report last month from WNYC and ProPublica about an inaccuracy in a sworn certification submitted by Holtec CEO Kris Singh as part of the company’s application. In 2014, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority granted Holtec the second-largest tax break in state history to help the company bring new jobs to the city.

The company collected its first installment, a $26 million tax credit, after moving into its new headquarters in 2017. It would have been eligible for a $26 million credit every year thereafter for nine years. The status of the 2018 credit is not clear. The decision to freeze the credits is the first corrective action by the EDA that has become public since Gov. Phil Murphy started criticizing the program in January.

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Holtec is one of a number of companies aligned with South Jersey Democratic boss George E. Norcross III, who serves on its board of directors. Companies linked to Norcross and the law firm of his brother Philip received at least $1.1 billion worth of tax breaks, according to a review by WNYC-ProPublica.

Holtec did not respond to a request for comment. After WNYC and ProPublica contacted Holtec about the incorrect information on the application, a lawyer representing Holtec wrote to the EDA, calling the misstatement an “inadvertent mistake” that the company would like to correct. The letter was sent by Kevin Sheehan, an attorney at the law firm Parker McCay, where Philip Norcross is managing partner.

In the sworn statement required for the tax break application, Singh said the company had never been barred from doing business with a state or federal agency, but in 2010, the Tennessee Valley Authority suspended the company for two months and fined it $2 million after a federal investigation found the company had paid a TVA employee $54,212. The employee pleaded guilty to a federal charge of failing to report the payment on a financial disclosure form. Holtec restored its relationship with the TVA and continues to hold contracts with the agency.

Sheehan handled the applications for many of the companies that received tax breaks to move to Camden. Emails obtained under a public records request show that Sheehan and Philip Norcross were involved in rewriting the tax break laws in 2013 that gave special advantages to companies that moved to the city.

George Norcross’ insurance company received a tax break to move from the suburbs of Camden into the city. Norcross also sits on the board of Cooper Health System, a nonprofit hospital that received a $39.9 million tax break in 2014.

The New Jersey tax break program is under investigation by the state attorney general and a task force appointed by Murphy. Norcross has hired a phalanx of high-powered attorneys who have filed a lawsuit challenging the task force’s authority.

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Trump administration cancels English classes, soccer, legal aid for unaccompanied child migrants in U.S. shelters

Migrant children play soccer at the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in Homestead, Fla., on April 19. The Trump administration is canceling educational and recreational programs at such shelters, saying the government has run out of funding for them amid a crush of migrants crossing the border. (Wilfredo Lee/AP)

Maria Sacchetti reports for the Washington Post
June 5 at 11:14 AM

The Trump administration is canceling English classes, recreational programs, and legal aid for unaccompanied minors staying in federal migrant shelters nationwide, saying the immigration influx at the southern border has created critical budget pressures.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement has begun discontinuing the funding stream for activities — including soccer — that have been deemed “not directly necessary for the protection of life and safety, including education services, legal services, and recreation,” said U.S. Health and Human Services spokesman Mark Weber.

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Federal officials have warned Congress that they are facing “a dramatic spike” in unaccompanied minors at the southern border and have asked Congress for $2.9 billion in emergency funding to expand shelters and care. The program could run out of money in late June, and the agency is legally obligated to direct funding to essential services, Weber said.

The move — revealed in an email an HHS official sent to licensed shelters last week, a message that has been obtained by The Washington Post — could run afoul of a federal court settlement and state licensing requirements that mandate education and recreation for minors in federal custody. Carlos Holguin, a lawyer who represents minors in a long-running lawsuit that spurred a 1997 federal court settlement that sets basic standards of care for children in custody, immediately slammed the cuts as illegal.

“We’ll see them in court if they go through with it,” Holguin said. “What’s next? Drinking water? Food? . . . Where are they going to stop?”

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Court documents reveal a $3 million settlement for homeowners in a long-fought Pa. fracking contamination suit

Reid Frazier reports for State Impact Pennsylvania

Range Resources and other defendants agreed to pay $3 million to settle a lawsuit last year with three Washington County families who alleged the natural gas drilling company contaminated their properties and made them sick, according to a court document obtained by The Allegheny Front and StateImpact Pennsylvania.

In a separate release, Range revealed that the company’s insurance carrier paid $1.88 million to the plaintiffs to settle the case. “We have voluntarily released the settlement agreement that resolved prior litigation with eight landowners in Washington County. We believe this additional transparency resolves any outstanding questions on this topic,” Range spokesman Mark Windle said in an emailed statement.

The settlement, agreed to in January 2018, remains sealed, though much of its contents are now public. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is suing to have the agreement made public.

Terms of the settlement were spelled out in a court order dated Aug. 31, 2018 and signed by Washington County Court of Common Pleas Judge Katherine B. Emery. The order was issued under seal but was publicly available over the course of at least two days, May 28 and May 29, on the Washington County Prothonotary’s Public Case File Database.

Washington County Prothonotary Joy Ranko said on May 30 that the order had not been uploaded into a public-facing database where the county stores its court records. She later told the Washington Observer-Reporter that the document was public because of a computer error.

On May 30, after learning that The Allegheny Front and StateImpact had obtained the record, Emery issued an injunction against the news organizations, barring them from reporting on its contents, and setting a hearing date for Tuesday.

At the hearing Tuesday in Washington County common pleas court, Range told Emery it would publicly release settlement terms that apply to Range, and did not ask Emery to continue her order for the injunction. They said the company was seeking “peace” in the matter.

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Provision slipped into defense bill could delay or even sink offshore wind farms

Block Island Wind Farm is seen off the coast of Rhode Island. Photo credit: Dennis Schroeder/NREL — Offshore wind projects could be delayed because of legislative language in a spending bill. The Block Island Wind Farm is seen off the coast of Rhode Island.

Benjamin Storrow and David Iaconangelo, E&E News reporters Climatewire: Friday, May 24, 2019

Offshore wind developers are up in arms over a provision inserted into the Defense appropriations bill earlier this week requiring the Pentagon to study the impact of turbines on military radar and sonar.

The American Wind Energy Association labeled the study “duplicative” in a statement yesterday, while the National Ocean Industries Association warned that it “threatens to derail” the nascent industry.

The outcry follows the House Appropriations Committee’s passage of a nearly $690 billion Defense spending bill Tuesday. Included in the legislation was a requirement that the secretary of Defense submit a study of “any potential national security concerns with respect to the construction of offshore wind arrays, to include an examination of legacy and new turbines, and any appropriate mitigation measures that should be implemented to address these concerns.”

An amendment carrying the language said, “The Committee recognizes that wind turbine structures, particularly when arranged in large arrays, may cause interference to standards and that vibrations generated by the operation of turbines may cause sonic interference to underwater sonar.”

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The origin of the language wasn’t entirely clear. The Defense Department did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), said the committee doesn’t “discuss the origin of report language.”

“This is report language that requires the Defense Department to submit a report and does not have any effect on ongoing offshore wind development,” said Evan Hollander, a spokesman for the committee.

Wind industry officials said they suspected that Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) was the provision’s author. Harris, a member of the Appropriations Committee, represents Maryland’s Eastern Shore and has emerged as an outspoken opponent of offshore wind development in recent years.

In a statement, the congressman did not claim responsibility for the provision but said, “I agree with the Committee Report language — we need to be absolutely certain we are not impairing defense capabilities as we consider the advisability of further development of offshore wind in the Mid-Atlantic area. Several reports and studies indicate there may be serious national security concerns.”

A spokesperson for Harris did not respond to follow-up questions.

Supporters of offshore wind expressed surprise at the budget language and promised to fight it.

“All proposed offshore wind developments must already consider any national security implications, and to date, none have been raised as New England begins to build turbines off of our coast that can power homes and employ a new generation of workers,” said Rep. Joe Kennedy III, a Massachusetts Democrat who has championed the industry. “Any effort to delay the permitting process and deployment of offshore wind turbines is deeply troubling and I will work with my colleagues to address those concerns.”

The offshore wind industry has emerged as a central tenet of Northeastern states’ attempt to green their power sectors, meet their climate goals and drive new investments in aging ports in recent years.

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Trump lifts the summer ban on E15 gas to help farmers hurt by China trade war

A gas pump selling E15, a gasoline with 15 percent of ethanol

Humeyra Pamuk, Jarrett Renshaw report for Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Friday lifted restrictions on the sale of higher ethanol blends of gasoline, keeping a campaign promise to farmers suffering from the trade war with China but drawing a legal threat from the oil industry.

The announcement will allow gasoline stations to sell blends containing up to 15 percent corn-based ethanol, called E15, year-round, ending a summertime ban that President Barack Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency imposed in 2011 to reduce smog pollution.

“As President Trump promised, EPA is approving the year-round sale of E15 in time for summer driving season,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a press release.

In a nod to the oil industry, the agency also issued new rules to improve transparency in the market for biofuels credits that refiners must acquire under the nation’s biofuel law, but the steps stopped short of what many refiners were seeking.

The widely anticipated action on E15 is a win for the U.S. farm lobby, which has argued the restrictions on E15 hurt growers by limiting demand for corn-based fuel, without providing tangible air quality benefits. Recent research has found little difference in smog risk between E15 and E10, a 10 percent ethanol blend that is already available year-round.

“We estimate this one change will generate over a billion new gallons of ethanol demand in the next five years,” said Emily Skor, chief executive of biofuel trade group Growth Energy, adding it could also boost the market for American grain by some 2 billion bushels over time.

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What keeps ethnic media strong in New Jersey (and beyond)

LINK: CENTERFORCOOPERATIVEMEDIA.ORG
POSTED BY: CHRISTINE SCHMIDT | JUNE 3, 2019

What news outlets don’t really have a trust problem with audiences?

Ethnic media — media outlets that serve specific cultural, racial, ethnic, religious, geographic, or language communities — are pillars in their communities, often rooted for decades and telling the stories of immigration and American life on their own terms. A new report from the Center for Cooperative Media examines the state of ethnic media in and around New Jersey (that definition of ethnic media is theirs), highlighting the work the state’s 119 outlets have already done in building strong ties with their audiences, and the work the outlets need to do to survive in the future.

Authors Sarah Stonbely and Anthony Advincula write:

In a sense, the story of ethnic media is the story of immigration. Historically, the sector was established by and for immigrants, and the sustainability of the sector has largely depended on the immigrants that it serves. Ethnic outlets remain closer to immigrant communities than mainstream outlets both in physical proximity and because those communities serve as the sources of news and the audience. In the same way that local newspapers used to be deeply integrated with the towns they covered, local ethnic media have their fingers on the pulse of communities that were born of diaspora and/or are still welcoming newcomers to this country.

And ethnic media’s been doing the work the rest of the journalism industry is trying to jump on: “Ethnic media are in constant dialogue with their communities, canvassing them for stories by attending events at community centers and churches, speaking with community leaders and elected officials, and taking comments on the content they publish.”

Ethnic media isn’t the antithesis of mainstream media, but the two are often at odds in their treatment of ethnic communities. Stonbely and Advincula’s interviewees pointed out that mainstream media typically does negative coverage of the community, tied to crime, whereas ethnic media celebrates the community’s bonds and heritage more.

Here are some top findings from the report, which calls out the strengths and weaknesses of ethnic media. Again, this is from outlets that are based in New Jersey/New York/Pennsylvania but report for widespread communities: 71 percent of the 119 outlets did not do local New Jersey news.

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