European Union votes to ban single-use plastics By 2021

Robin Andrews is a contributor to Forbes

Plastic isn’t recyclable, and much of it ends up in the seas and oceans where, eventually, it returns to us through our diet. (Fachrul Reza / Barcroft Images / Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
As reported by BBC News, the European Parliament has voted to ban single-use plastics across the board in an attempt to stop the unending stream of plastic pollution making its way into the oceans.
Such plastic products are, as the name suggests, used just once and then thrown away. They include things like straws, plates, cups and cotton buds, and can take several centuries to degrade in the oceans where they are increasingly observed to be consumed by marine life. According to the European Commission, such plastics make up 70 percent of all marine litter.
A ban was proposed in May after the public outcry and awareness over the issue reached a new zenith. A vote at the European Parliament was held earlier this week, with a huge majority of MEPs – 571 yays to 53 nays, with 34 abstentions – agreeing to enforce the ban by 2021.
The ban is, at a glance, comprehensive. Aside from the 2021 complete ban on plenty of single use products, the use of plastics for which no alternatives currently exist – mostly food packaging – will have to be cut down by 25 percent by 2025. Beverage bottles will also required to be collected and recycled at a rate of 90 percent by 2025. Cigarette butts, remarkably resilient components of plastic pollution, will have to be reduced by 50 percent by 2025, and 80 percent by 2030.
Thankfully, despite the persistent Brexit nightmare looming on the horizon, it’s possible – although not certain – that this rule will go into effect and apply to the UK too before the end of the transition period and the country’s grim divorce from the EU is complete.



Read the full story

European Union votes to ban single-use plastics By 2021 Read More »

Two plan challenges to indicted Philly Councilman Henon

City Councilman Bobby Henon attends a March budget hearing. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
Four years ago, Philadelphia City Councilman Bobby Henon was unopposed in the Democratic primary and the general election.
He won’t get a pass this time.
Henon was charged with powerful electricians’ union Local 98 Business Manager John Dougherty in a sweeping corruption indictment last month, and at least two candidates say they’ll challenge him this year’s municipal elections.

Democratic hopeful

Deborah Young, 49, of Mayfair says she’ll file to run in the Democratic primary for Henon’s seat in the 6th  district in Northeast Philadelphia.

Deborah Young, the Democratic candidate running against City Councilman Bobby Henon wants to develop more affordable housing and economic opportunities for Philadelphia families. (Dave Davies/WHYY)

Young, 49, says she is an advocate working on issues of homelessness and addiction, two problems she’s battled in her own life.
“I know what it’s like to be homeless. I know what it’s like not to have food, not to have that paycheck,” Young said in an interview.
“I go out and help families all the time.”
Young said she suffered sexual abuse as a child and began drinking heavily as a teenager. Two relationships with abusive men followed in adulthood, and Young said she eventually found the therapy and support she needed to stabilize her life.
“I’m in recovery for 13 years,” she said.
She said she wants to work on City Council to develop more affordable housing and economic opportunity for struggling families.
Is she running because the indictment made Henon vulnerable?
She said she was interested in running before, but that the charges solidified her decision.
“I’m a Christian woman, and I did a lot of praying on this,” Young said, “and I woke up Thursday [Jan. 30, the day after the indictment] and saw all those charges.”
Young is a political novice, so she faces a challenge in building a political campaign. Her first task will be to collect signatures on nominating petitions, which must be submitted by March 12.
She needs notarized petitions with the signatures of 750 registered Democrats within the district, and petitions are often challenged by opponents who have experience and expertise on their side.
She said she hopes to tap her network of advocates and people in recovery to help with that.
Another potential candidate, community activist Patty-Pat Kozlowski, is considering entering the primary.
Kozlowski was a former aide to Democratic City Councilwoman Joan Krajewski, who held the seat before Henon won in 2011.
Last year, Kozlowski ran unsuccessfully as a Republican candidate for the 177thstate legislative seat in Northeast Philadelphia, losing to attorney Joe Hohenstein.

Republican challenger

Pete Smith, 52, until recently the president of the Tacony Civic Association, will seek the Republican nomination for the 6th district seat. At the moment, he is unopposed in the primary.

Pete Smith is the Republican candidate running against Bobby Henon for city council. (Courtesy of Pete Smith)

“We have a lot of mismanagement going on in this city,” Smith said. “It always seems we’re raising taxes, or implementing new tax procedures to fund programs that aren’t working.”
Smith criticized the Kenney administration’s sweetened beverage tax, which he said has harmed local bottlers and food retailers.
Asked how voters should view the charges against Henon, he said, “I would say to everyone in the Northeast, ‘Read that indictment like I did and make an informed decision.’”
He declined to say Henon should resign.
Smith said he’s proud of his work with the Tacony Civic Association and the 15thpolice district to increase patrols and make the Torresdale Avenue business district safer.


Two plan challenges to indicted Philly Councilman Henon Read More »

Op-Ed: Experts agree PSEG handout is unneeded

The following op-ed was written by Janet Tauro, chairwoman of Clean Water Action, NJ.

It was published in the Asbury Park Press on Wednesday, February 13, 2019


EnviroPolitics welcomes the views of PSE&G and other participants in this important public debate
  __________________

It’s official. Two independent regulatory entities and an economist have issued reports stating that PSE&G did not prove financial hardship necessitating an annual $300 million ratepayer-funded handout ramrodded by the NJ legislature in 2018.

The reports, filed with the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU), which will ultimately decide whether PSE&G receives the funding, throw cold water on the company’s claims that it would be economically unfeasible to continue the operation of its three nuclear units in Salem County; Salem I and II and Hope Creek without the ratepayer handout. Exelon Corporation, the owner of the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lacey Township, has a financial stake in the Hope Creek nuke and would share in the handout.

As reported in NJ Spotlight, the in-depth analysis by the NJ ratepayer advocate, Stephanie Brand, and the operators of the Pennsylvania, Jersey, Maryland (PJM) grid, which distributes the state’s energy from various sources, states that PSE&G overstated costs and under-represented revenues. PSE&G also did not adequately take into account the role that renewables and energy efficiency will play in providing the state’s baseload energy needs, according to the report. Instead, the company limited its analysis to showing the outcome of closing its three nuclear units all at once.

Not only would PSE&G not be operating in the red, but it is projected that the company will make between $338 to $477 million in annual profits over the next ten years, according to analysis by Paul Sotkiewicz, PhD., a former PJM chief economist who filed a separate report with the BPU. Sotkiewicz drafted the report for the PJM Provider’s Group, a coalition of power suppliers.

New Jersey ratepayers’ bills are among the highest nationally, and individuals would not be the only ones whose utility bills would increase if BPU approves the windfall. Some of the State’s largest employers would be especially hard hit. That’s one reason why an odd-mix of opponents have drawn together to oppose the handout; the NJ Large Energy Users Coalition, small business Main St. Alliance, Chemistry Council, Petroleum Council, Gasoline Retailers, and Convenience Store Association, as well as consumer groups like AARP and NJ Citizen Action, as well as environmental groups. The portion large employers might pay could be in excess of $500,000 annually, with some paying more than $1 million. Jobs could be lost if businesses are forced to pay higher electric bills or leave the state.

PSE&G’s greatest ally has been the Legislature and Senate President Steven Sweeney, who feared a loss of a varied energy mix, jobs, and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions if the state had to meet its energy needs with carbon-producing natural fracked gas from out of state sources. Many Salem and Hope Creek employees live in Senator Sweeney’s district. Clean Water Action has publicly called for a just transition for workers, renewable energy job training, and a complete decommissioning of the Salem and Hope Creek nuclear reactors by plant employees.

Using nuclear power as an answer to climate change is a smokescreen. Life-cycle emissions from the nuclear fuel chain, from mining, processing, to disposal, puts nuclear power as the third highest carbon emitter after coal-fired plants and natural gas, according to research done by Beyond Nuclear, a nuclear watchdog group based in Tacoma, Maryland.

Nor is nuclear power emissions free. Nuclear power plants emit daily doses of low-level radiation. This lethal cocktail of radionucleotides are odorless, colorless, and tasteless, but they are present nonetheless.

Independent study by epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA, director of the Radiation Public Health Project, found elevated cancer mortality rates in Salem County. Studies in Europe and Scotland have found elevated pediatric cancer rates in communities around nuclear plants. Citizens and environmental groups have called for a definitive national study, which has never happened. A federal National Academy of Sciences cancer study around older nuclear plants nationwide, including Oyster Creek, was abruptly canceled in 2015.

The independent analyses should weigh heavily on the BPU’s final decision expected in April. The board should flatly deny PSE&G’s $300 million annual goody bag. It will do nothing to boost renewables, expand a 21st Century green job market, and achieve Governor Murphy’s goal of 100 percent renewable energy by 2050.

Janet Tauro
Clean Water Action, NJ Board Chair


Like this? Click to receive free updates

Op-Ed: Experts agree PSEG handout is unneeded Read More »

With a dozen power plants and pipeline projects on the drawing board, can NJ Gov. Murphy hit his green goals?

Scott Fallon reports for the North Jersey Record:

Gov. Phil Murphy will not be able to make his ambitious clean energy goals if he fails to stop 12 fossil fuel projects from moving forward, according to a report issued Wednesday by a coalition of environmental groups.

Advocates say four proposed power plants along with eight pipelines and other natural gas infrastructure would increase New Jersey’s greenhouse gas output by 30 percent and would derail Murphy’s efforts to power the state by renewable energy by mid-century.

“You can’t get to 100 percent renewable by 2050 by building more power plants and pipelines,” said Amy Goldsmith, state director of Clean Water Action. “You can’t build a single one of these projects and hope to achieve these goals.”

PSE&G’s Bergen Generating Station – one of the biggest contributors of greenhouse gases in New Jersey. (Photo11: File photo)

Among the projects are a power plant in the Meadowlands to produce electricity to New York, two pipelines through the protected Pinelands, a pipeline under Raritan Bay and New York Harbor to Queens and a pipeline from Pennsylvania through Central Jersey.

A full list and descriptions are below.

Those projects continue a decades-long trend in New Jersey, which saw pipelines and other infrastructure built to move an abundant supply of gas fracked in northern Pennsylvania to a large swath of customers in the Northeast.

Murphy inherited almost all of these projects from the pro-fossil-fuel Christie administration. But Murphy came into office last year championing an environmental agenda to transition New Jersey’s energy production to wind and solar power.

Construction of the Tennessee Gas pipeline through the protected New Jersey Highlands in 2013. The pipeline was built to allow more natural gas fracked from northern Pennsylvania to reach customers in the Northeast and elsewhere. (Photo11: THOMAS E. FRANKLIN/THE RECORD)

Alexandra Altman, a Murphy spokeswoman, said the governor “has directed his team to take a hard look at energy infrastructure projects as part of an updated Energy Master Plan, which will focus on renewable energy and shift away from outdated energy sources.”

Over the past year, Murphy has made moves to reduce the state’s contribution to global warming by rejoining a regional cap and trade system and laying the groundwork to build one of the nation’s largest offshore wind farms – a project that has been stalled for at least a decade.

His aggressive clean energy mandate requires 50 percent of all electricity sold in the state to come from renewable sources by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050.

But advocates say his efforts will be in vain unless he takes a strong stand against the natural gas industry, which generated 58 percent of electricity in New Jersey as of October. Only 3.5 percent came from renewable sources.

Opponents of the Penn East pipeline have objected to the federal government’s review process of the proposal. (Photo11: ~File)

The four power plants plus a recently completed PSEG plant in Woodbridge would spike carbon dioxide and methane emissions from New Jersey’s power plants by 76 percent, according to the report.

“It’s kind of scary that no one until now has done the basic math around these cumulative impacts or shared it,” said Ken Dolsky of the Don’t Gas the Meadowlands Coalition and a primary author of the report. “Our research shows building these gas projects would make it impossible to achieve Governor Murphy’s objectives.”

Dolsky and other members of a coalition called Empower New Jersey held a rally in Trenton on Wednesday calling for Murphy to pass a moratorium to halt progress on the dozen projects.


With a dozen power plants and pipeline projects on the drawing board, can NJ Gov. Murphy hit his green goals? Read More »

Three offshore energy vendors competing for NY contract

© Dawid S Swierczek / Adobe Stock
                                                                                           © Dawid S Swierczek / Adobe Stock
Eric Haun is editor of Offshore Engineer
Equinor, Vineyard Wind and Ørsted are among the offshore wind players who have submitted separate bids to supply New York with power from planned projects off the coast of Long Island.
The bids come in response to New York’s 800 MW procurement, its first formal solicitation targeted the developing U.S. offshore wind industry. New York is expected to announce the chosen supplier(s) later this spring.
Equinor’s 80,000-acre Empire Wind project site is located between 14 and 35 miles south of Long Island in the New York Bight, with a potential capacity of up to 2,000 MW of renewable power.
Vineyard Wind’s Liberty Wind proposal includes 400, 800 and 1,200 MW project size options and would be located in federal waters 85 miles away from the nearest New York shore.
Ørsted, alongside partner Eversource Energy, has submitted a proposal for the Sunrise Wind project which would be built more than 30 miles east of Montauk.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has stated it is his objective to eventually develop 9,000 MW of offshore wind energy to supply New York.

Three offshore energy vendors competing for NY contract Read More »

Margate stores to provide reusable bags to deter plastic


AP photo by Mark Baker

Avalon Zoppo reports for the Atlantic City Press

MARGATE — In an effort to cut down on plastic bag use, Margate is launching a new program that will have businesses distribute 10,000 reusable bags to customers.

The program, called “Bag it Forward,” will start in the spring with a majority of local businesses on board. Shoppers will be given fabric bags they can return at any participating stores or keep for future use. The city and the Margate Business Association are working together on the program.

“It will become cyclical in nature,” said MBA Executive Director Anna Maria Blescia-Courter.

Margate has not joined a growing number of shore towns that have placed fees on single-use plastic bags in hopes of reducing the amount of litter that ends up on beaches and in the ocean.

In towns with plastic bag fees, it’s ‘matter of changing old habits’

In Margate, plastic bags will still be used as a backup, Blescia-Courter said.

“The point is to convert everything to reusable bags and get plastic bags out of circulation,” she said. “We’re not putting a cost burden on anyone.”

The initial cost for Margate’s new program is several thousand dollars, Blescia-Courter said. Those costs are being covered by Downbeach Dental, Tomatoe’s Restaurant and Colmar Hardware.

Longport became the first municipality in the state to pass an ordinance placing fees on single-use plastic bags in 2016, followed by Ventnor, Brigantine, Somers Point and others.

Meanwhile, a bill sits in the state Legislature that would ban stores from distributing single-use plastic bags and plastic straws, and put a fee on paper-bag use.

 Like this? Click to receive free updates

Margate stores to provide reusable bags to deter plastic Read More »