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


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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.


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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.

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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.

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Court dismisses suit over EPA advisory panel membership

EPA headquarters in Washington. Photo credit: Federal Privacy Council.

EPA headquarters in Washington. Federal Privacy Council
Ellen M. Gilmer reports for E&E News
Published: Tuesday, February 12, 2019, Updated at 5:21 p.m. EST.
Then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt acted within his authority when he rewrote the rules for membership on the agency’s advisory committees, a court ruled today.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a lawsuit from Physicians for Social Responsibility, a researcher and others opposed to the 2017 policy barring current recipients of EPA grants from serving on 22 powerful panels that guide the agency on a wide variety of environmental and public health issues.
Judge Trevor McFadden ruled that the policy change — opposed by those who say it unfairly limited the experts who can serve on the boards — was within the administrator’s discretion.
“No doubt EPA aspires to recruit the ‘most qualified’ scientists and subject matter experts,” he wrote, “but evaluating the relative qualifications of potential committee members is exactly the kind of discretionary decision making that is precluded from judicial review.”
The boards affected include the Science Advisory Board and the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.
Pruitt said he moved to limit participation to those without ties to agency grant money to prevent the appearance of interference. Critics argued the change was an effort to stack the boards with members favoring the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda (Greenwire, March 12, 2018).
“EPA and the public are losing some of the best scientific advice by excluding top scientists who receive EPA grants,” Earthjustice attorney Patti Goldman, representing the plaintiffs, said in an emailed statement after today’s ruling. The plaintiffs are considering an appeal.
Agency officials were pleased by the outcome.
“EPA is still reviewing today’s opinion, but we are pleased that the court granted our motion to dismiss all of the claims in this case,” a spokesman said in an email this evening.

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Race is on to define ‘Green New Deal’

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). Photo credit: Markey/Facebook

Geof Koss reports for E&E News
Published: Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introducing the “Green New Deal” resolution last week. Markey/FacebookThe decision by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to bring up the “Green New Deal” for a Senate vote is prompting a rush to define the terms of progressive Democrats’ ambitious proposal to tackle climate change.GOP lawmakers are scrambling to highlight the possible side effects of the deal, outlined last week by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), in some cases relying on a document distributed and later disavowed by the New York Democrat’s office (Climatewire, Feb. 12).Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) took to the Senate floor yesterday to outline a host of ramifications of the plan, which he said would mean the end of ice cream.”Livestock will be banned,” Barrasso said. “Say goodbye to dairy, to beef, to family farms, to ranches.”Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), a supporter of renewable energy who faces a tough re-election in his purplish home state in 2020, told E&E News he had no qualms about the upcoming vote, which is expected after the Presidents Day recess next week.”I’ll vote against socialism every time,” Gardner said in a brief interview yesterday echoing Republican talking points against the plan.Asked if he welcomed the underlying debate on climate change, Gardner reiterated the point.”I think a debate on socialism is incredibly important,” he said. “The fact that they’re going to remodel every home and house and building in America, they’re guaranteeing jobs and benefits to every single American, paying the unwilling to work, income redistribution. I hope that we can have a vote on this, I hope that we can vote on it every day.”As he walked away, Gardner made sure the reporter heard him say the plan should be called “the green new steal.”Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri, the top Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, took to Twitter yesterday with his own nickname — the “Green New Disaster.”

Green ‘aspiration’

Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, saw McConnell’s call for a vote as a way to push Democrats to take an early position on the ambitious proposal.”He wants to take an idea or framework that is not fully vetted yet, and even some Democrats think is more expansive than they’d like, and force them to put them down for a vote sooner rather than later,” Zelizer said.The result of the vote could alternately embarrass Democrats who vote no, revealing them to proponents of the plan, or it could make proponents of the plan appear to be too radical.Zelizer said McConnell and other Republicans recognized the proposal had been successful in generating debate about green policies. “It’s his effort to try to kill it,” he said.Read the full storyLike this? Click to receive free updates

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