Is Trump’s cut to Sandy aid latest attack on New Jersey?


Herb Jackson reports for The Bergen Record:


Funding for Amtrak’s Gateway project, which includes a new tunnel under the Hudson River, was not touched in the $15 billion package of budget “rescission” requests that President Trump’s administration sent to Congress on Tuesday.


But Trump did propose rescinding $107 million in Superstorm Sandy aid, and the cut has added fuel to a fire burning in the New Jersey delegation that sees the state as under attack from Washington.


“Coming on the heels of a tax scam they bragged was designed to hurt the Northeast, Republicans now want to take away $107 million to help my state continue its recovery from Hurricane Sandy,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson.


“They want to kick New Jerseyans while we’re down all over again. It’s insult to second injury and chutzpah doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Pascrell said.


Rep. Donald Norcross, D-Camden, also reached for some Yiddish.


“You’d have to be an anti-Jersey schmuck to support this,” Norcross said. “The ‘moocher state’ Republicans that voted against Sandy aid in the first place are now trying to use every trick in the book to suck New Jersey dry.”


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Delaware Riverkeeper seeks new PennEast hearing

A federal court ruling could force the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to decide whether or not to rehear the PennEast Pipeline application. The natural gas pipeline would go through a portion of Upper Bucks County.





Chris Ullery reports for the Courier-Times: 
After more than three months without a decision, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network is seeking a federal court order to rehear the approved application for the controversial PennEast Pipeline.
On May 9, the network filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals asking the courts to compel the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to hold rehearings for the pipeline application approved earlier this year, a news release from the network states.
FERC approved the pipeline’s Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity on Jan. 19, prompting the network to file a rehearing request five days later.
The network also filed a motion with FERC on Jan. 24 “to halt construction and any other land disturbance pending the rehearing request,” a news release from the network states.


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Silver guilty on all counts in retrial; faces 130-year term

Sheldon Silver found guilty on all counts (Richard Harbus photo)



Kaja Whitehouse reports for the New York Post:

The ex-speaker of the New York state Assembly Sheldon Silver was found guilty on Friday of selling his office for $4 million in kickbacks — affirming a 2015 conviction on the same charges that had been overturned on appeal.

A jury of seven women and five men found Silver, 74, guilty of all seven counts against him, including two counts of honest services mail fraud and money laundering.
He faces as much as 130 years in prison when sentenced on July 13.
Silver showed no emotion as the jury read the verdict to the judge.
“Obviously I am disappointed,” the Lower East Side Democrat said outside of court, adding that he will appeal the verdict.
The verdict is a crushing blow to Silver, who was once one of the three most powerful men in New York along with the governor and Senate majority leader.
In 2015 he was sentenced to 12 years in prison, which his lawyers argued was a death sentence for the septuagenarian, who was fighting prostate cancer at the time.

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Poll: Broad support for taxes on wealthy, corporations

NJTV News correspondent Michael Aron reports:

The predominant topic in Trenton this season is, how will Gov. Phil Murphy get his budget passed? The governor has proposed taxing income over $1 million. He also wants to restore the sales tax, currently at 6.625 percent, to 7 percent where it’s been for a decade.
Legislative leaders have been noncommittal. They’ve called tax increases “a last resort.”
Now, a poll commissioned by New Jersey Policy Perspective, a liberal think tank, suggests the public supports Murphy’s taxes. Of 600 respondents, 70 percent support raising the income tax on households earning $1 million or more a year, while just 24 percent oppose. Fifty percent support reinstating a 7 percent sales tax, while only 37 percent oppose.
The head of the organization that commissioned the poll says, while taxes are generally unpopular, when you connect taxes to investments in key areas, the numbers change.
“This should give comfort to people who understand that, to members of the Legislature who know that we need to improve our investments in transportation, in school aid, in all of those things, property tax relief, put those together with higher taxes, it becomes possible,” said New Jersey Policy Perspective President Gordon MacInnes.

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Take a ferry from Carteret, NJ to NYC? Yes, coming soon

Ferry boat doing test runs between Carteret and NYC three years ago

Larry Higgs reports for nj.com:

Ferry service between Middlesex County and New York City, talked about since the 1990s, could set sail soon now that federal officials have awarded a $6 million grant to purchase a boat. 

The Federal Transit Administration awarded the grant this week to NJ Transit to purchase a 299-seat ferry for a proposed Carteret to Manhattan route. NJ Transit applied on behalf of Carteret , which will receive the money.
The ferry route from Carteret’s Waterfront Park, along the Arthur Kill to midtown, could transport passengers to the city in 54-minutes.
Ferry service from Middlesex County and Staten island was first studied by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in 1996, which recommended Carteret because of its location along the Arthur Kill.
The grant is the most significant recent step since a ferry was brought in to conduct test runs in 2015. That route took the Arthur Kill to the Kill Van Kull through New York Harbor, and ended at Pier 11 in New York. 
Work to get federal funding for various stages of the project started when now U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, D-N.J., was a congressman and Carteret was part of his district. 
“It was 22 years ago, that the Port Authority first found this would be an ideal place for ferry service into Manhattan,” Menendez said.  “So, I’ve long known what a new ferry would mean for this community – faster commutes, greater access to jobs, and better quality of life.”

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NJ asks feds to extend offshore-wind comment period


Governor asks feds for six-month extension to assess impact of offshore wind farms on state’s main fishing grounds

wind

Tom Johnson reports
for NJ Spotlight:


Gov. Phil Murphy is asking the federal government to extend the public comment period on proposed new lease sales for offshore wind in the New York Bight, a step that could delay the process for up to six months.
In a letter to Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior, the governor requested more time (180 days) because the areas in New York under consideration for wind-energy development include New Jersey’s main fishing grounds, including two that are closest to its coast.
The request, if granted, could slow recent steps taken by both states to expedite building offshore wind farms in waters near New York and New Jersey. All along the Eastern Seaboard, states are bidding to lure developers to build large wind farms off their coasts, a process that is becoming increasingly competitive.
New Jersey needs more time to adequately respond to the proposed lease sale, and more than a dozen issues raised by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) in seeking comment from stakeholders, Murphy noted in his letter. New Jersey stakeholders have not yet been meaningfully involved in the process, including the state’s large and valuable commercial fishing industry.


Productive coexistence

“While New Jersey believes that wind energy and the fishing industry can coexist productively, it is critical that potential conflicts from these multiple uses be identified and planned for early in the process,’’ Murphy’s letter said.
In the letter, the governor cited his strong support for offshore wind, including setting a goal of 3,500 megawatts of capacity for the state by 2030. “We look forward to working cooperatively with BOEM and our New York neighbors to achieve this ambitious goal,’’ Murphy said.

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