The Ocean County attorney and Republican political boss charged with more than $1 million in tax evasion was found guilty of three of six counts by federal jury and not guilty on two others.
George Gilmore, 69, of Toms River, was found guilty of two counts of failing to file payroll taxes for employees and one count of making a false statement on a loan application, the U.S Attorney’s Office for New Jersey said. He was found not guilty of two counts of filing a a false tax return.
A jury sitting in federal court in Trenton could’t reach a verdict on a charge of tax evasion against Gilmore and declared a hung jury following a trial that lasted more than two weeks.
His attorney Kevin Marino said Gilmore “has no intention of resigning” as head of Ocean County Republican Party, after the verdict was announced. “The jury has flatly rejected the centerpiece of the government’s case.”
Gilmore will be sentenced July 23. Each count of failing to file payroll taxes comes with a maximum five year sentence. The maximum penalty for lying on a loan application.
Authorities charged Gilmore with concealing money and dodging tax payments to fund lavish vacations, home renovations and a collection of rare items that ranged from model trains and animal tusks.
Gilmore was charged in January and faced six counts, the most serious of which carries a five-year maximum prison sentence.
His defense argued the whole case is a misunderstanding. Gilmore, a partner and shareholder in the Toms River firm Gilmore & Monahan, had a pattern of paying his taxes late along with interest and penalty, but never meant to conceal his earnings.
State lawmakers are considering giving out roughly half-a-billion dollars a year in subsidies Pennsylvania’s nuclear power industry. How much would it cost you?
Marie Cusick reports for StateImpact APRIL 16, 2019 | 08:00 AM
Two bills under consideration, HB 11 and SB 510, differ in some respects. However, both are aimed at preventing the premature closure of Exelon’s Three Mile Island Unit 1 reactor, which is scheduled to close this fall, and FirstEnergy’s Beaver Valley plant, set to close in 2021.
Here’s how much the House bill would add to Pennsylvania electric customers’ bills each year:
HB 11 sponsor Rep. Thomas Mehaffie (R- Dauphin) put out his own (lower) cost estimate, but these numbers come from the Pennsylvania Office of Consumer Advocate an agency tasked with representing the interests of Pennsylvania utility customers before state and federal utility regulators and in court. The amounts shown represent the annual impact of HB 11 during reporting year 2019.
The Office of Consumer Advocate has not yet completed an analysis of the Senate bill. You can read more of their review of the financial impacts of HB 11 here, here, and here.
The constant flow of contaminated liquid, known as leachate, simmers at the heart of a long-running legal battle between local officials and Waste Industries, a North Carolina corporation that agreed in 1999 to take over day-to-day operations of the Decatur County Landfill.
When the county operated the landfill, it served as the local dump for small towns and rural communities in Decatur County.
But under new management, Waste Industries’ subsidiary Waste Services of Decatur, the landfill began accepting “special wastes” – defined as “difficult or dangerous” to manage.
The industrial waste comes with higher “tipping fees” for the landfill company than household trash, making the landfill more profitable.
That special waste, accumulated over the years, created a costly toxic challenge: Mixed with rainfall, hundreds of gallons of harmful leachate must be hauled from the site for treatment.
Waste Industries claims it costs them $1 million each year to treat the leachate.
‘A lot of the damage has already been done’
For the past two years, the company has tried to walk away from the landfill, claiming it is no longer their responsibility. In a lawsuit against the county, they sought about $8 million. The county’s annual budget is $12 million.
A federal judge ruled against them. And, in March, the judge ruled the county can go forward with a lawsuit against the company that claims it violated federal environmental rules.
The dispute could prove a harbinger for other communities that have, on their own or through outsourced landfill operators, accepted special waste.
Altogether, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) has approved 3,885 permits for special waste to be deposited in 85 Tennessee landfills in the past three years.
They include contaminated soils from acid leaks, nuclear plant auxiliary building basement sump water, asbestos floor tiles and coal ash that combine with garbage hauled from local households.
In Decatur County, Waste Industries accepted approximately 640,000 tons of smelting waste from aluminum companies seeking to dispose of industrial byproducts, according to legal filings.
Mike Lisiewski, the owner of Brighton Beach Surf Shop in Long Beach. (AARON HOUSTON)
One year ago a statewide ban on plastic bags seemed all but certain. A Democrat — Gov. Phil Murphy — took the helm of New Jersey for the first time in eight years. And with Democrats also holding solid majorities in both the Assembly and state Senate, the sky was the limit for environmental activists.
But 15 months later momentum on those efforts has flagged, with the proposed plastic bag ban — Senate Bill 2776 — stalling in the state Legislature. New York beat New Jersey to the punch as the first East Coast state to enact a ban on plastic bags; California and Hawaii are the only other states with prohibitions in place.
“To some degree, the New York ban was a thunder clap from above. New York’s ban is clearly a shot in the arm for the New Jersey legislature’s effort to ban single-use plastics,” said Doug O’Malley, executive director of Environment New Jersey. “Suddenly New Jersey won’t be the guinea pig on the East Coast for banning single-use plastics.”
Lawmakers originally sent Murphy a bill enacting a five cent fee on plastic bags, which the governor vetoed in August. Environmentalists praised the move, worried that if the bill was enacted the state would end up counting on the revenue from the fees, and the bill would fail to reduce plastics-usage.
“Instituting a five-cent fee on single-use bags that only applies to certain retailers does not go far enough to address the problems created by overreliance on plastic bags and other single-use carryout bags,” Murphy said in a veto statement.
But Murphy agreed that the state was not leading the way on the issue. “We are lagging behind, and I hope we can get something together,” Murphy said at an unrelated event in Neptune City on April 8. “I wouldn’t comment specifically on what we should be doing, but we’ve got to do something.”
Opponents of the ban, mainly business groups and chemical manufacturers, cite increased costs along with the threat of job losses and are seeking exceptions for specific uses. Supporters cite the benefits of reducing litter on the state’s streets and beaches — something they say is already evident in towns that have enacted their own bans. In fact, while the legislature debates the parameters of a statewide prohibition, municipalities — especially along the shore — have taken the lead, creating a patchwork of ordinances around New Jersey.
Exemptions and exceptions
S2776 calls for a ban on any plastic bags and straws, as well as polystyrene or Styrofoam containers. The bill would also impose a 10-cent fee on paper bags, half of which goes back to the business and the rest toward a newly created Plastic Pollution Prevention Fund, run by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
The Senate Energy and Environment Committee approved the measure in a 4-1 vote at a Sept. 27 hearing, following several hours of testimony by business groups and environmental activists.
“It’s a huge environmental problem,” Senate Environment Chair Bob Smith, D-17th District and the bill’s sponsor, said of plastics pollution as he opened the hearing.
“It may be as big as a problem as the global warming problem on the planet. Serious stuff,” Smith added. “It requires New Jersey citizens to change their lifestyle … When you go get your groceries, you’re going to be bringing your reusable bags.”
Certain businesses could be exempt from the Styrofoam ban if they generate less than $500,000 in gross income annually and lack a “commercially available” alternative, or if “there is no feasible and commercial alternative” for any polystyrene food service product.
Business advocates such as Christine Buteas, chief government affairs officer at the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, argued that shops handling meat, deli products, poultry and seafood should be eligible for a permanent exemption, rather than the year-long waivers called for in the legislation.
Reusable bags can be made of plastic and as such not subject to the ban, as long as they measure at least 10 millimeters in thickness.
“Everyone agrees that we have to do something with our plastic problem, and the question is what is the most effective way of doing it?” said Assemblywoman Nancy Pinkin, D-18th District and the sponsor of the lower house version, Assembly Bill 4330. That measure was assigned to the Assembly Environment and Solid Waste Committee, which she chairs.
“The senator is working with the senate president and the administration on the measure. We’re hoping to move the bill shortly,” Smith’s chief of staff, Cristine Mosier, told NJBIZ.
A group of consumer, environmental and industry trade groups are pressing the Murphy administration to release an analysis they said the Board of Public Utilities commissioned to gauge whether three nuclear power plants in South Jersey need a combined $300 million subsidy.
The Salem Nuclear Power Plant. (PERETZP [CC BY-SA 3.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY-SA/3.0)])In just two days, the BPU is set to make a decision on whether to grant the subsidy to PSEG’s three nuclear plants, which the utility giant argues is vital to keeping the plants open.
If approved, the subsidies, which are called zero emission certificates, would be financed through an additional surtax on ratepayers’ annual electric bills.
“We believe the plants are highly profitable, are projected to be in the future, and that no subsidy can be reasonably justified except as a windfall handout to PSEG, that will have the primary effect of benefitting its stockholders,’’ reads the letter to the BPU.
The letter was signed by the AARP of New Jersey; the New Jersey Main Street Alliance; the Chemistry Council of New Jersey; Environment New Jersey, power suppliers trade organization PJM Power Providers Group; the New Jersey Petroleum Council; and the New Jersey Large Energy Users Coalition—all of whom oppose the subsidy.
Without the money, PSEG officials said they would have to close all three plants –which account for roughly 40 percent of the state’s electricity – within the next three years.
“While the closure of the plants will have material detrimental impacts on air quality in New Jersey, and will adversely impact the regional economy in the vicinity of the plants, the decision to retire is clear and straightforward from an economic standpoint,” reads a February letter to the BPU from Joseph Accardo, PSEG’s regulatory and deputy general counsel.
“While the commenters opposing PSEG Nuclear’s applications may believe that the company is bluffing, the reality is that after years of analysis, this difficult decision already has been made,” he added. Now, whether the plants continue to operate or retire is now in the hands of the BPU.
Casting doubt on the subsidy, the New Jersey Rate Counsel and the Independent Market Monitor PJM have repeatedly maintained that PSEG would need far less than $300 million to keep the three plants viable and profitable, if anything at all.
Stefanie Brand, director of the Rate Counsel, an agency tasked with keeping utility rates at a reasonable rate for residents, said PSEG overstated its costs, underestimated its revenue and does not qualify for that amount.
“When their assumptions are examined more closely, their claims of financial hardship fall away. Moreover, the applicants failed to demonstrate that closure of the units will have a significant and negative impact on New Jersey’s ability to comply with state air emissions reduction requirements,” Brand said in her February testimony to Board of Public Utilities President Joseph Fiordaliso.
A separate letter was also sent from the same seven groups to Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday, similarly urging the release of the analysis: “if the promise you made when you signed the ZEC legislation into law to have the BPU conduct an open, transparent evaluation process is to have meaning.’’
A spokesperson for the BPU said the report could be released only with the approval of the board, while a spokesperson for PSEG could not be immediately reached for comment.
Multipacks of Guinness will now come in a cardboard box
Drinks giant Diageo has announced that it is removing plastic from multipacks of its Irish stout brand Guinness.
Plastic ring carriers and shrink wrap will be also removed from packs of Harp, Rockshore and Smithwick’s beers, as part of Diageo’s £16m initiative.
The change will be phased in with multi-can packs sold in “100% recyclable and biodegradable cardboard” in Ireland from August this year.
The new packaging will then be used in the UK and globally next year.
Many companies have been committing to being more green after concerns about plastic waste were highlighted in shows such as the BBC’s Blue Planet 2, narrated by Sir David Attenborough.
Last year, rival brewer Carlsberg switched to using a glue instead of plastic to hold together its cans.
And more recently, Nestle got rid of plastic straws from its products and is using paper ones instead.
That was part of a report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which is pushing for companies and governments to do more to tackle plastic pollution. In total, 150 companies have pledged to reduce their plastic usage as part of the campaign.
