New Jersey Future forum addresses redevelopment

How to keep the best and brightest young people from fleeing New Jersey was just one of the topics at the New Jersey Future Forum. Panelists also addressed making redevelopment more attractive to town officials, how to offsset NIMBY opposition, the implications of climate change for coastal communities and the importance of infrastructure.


Leah Mishkin has the story for NJTV News.

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Richard Mroz leaving NJBPU, returning to private sector

Richard Mroz, former president of the NJBPU

Tom Johnson reports
for NJ Spotlight:


Richard Mroz, a commissioner and former president of the state Board of Public Utilities, is leaving the agency that oversees energy, water, telecommunications, and other regulated utilities next month.


His departure opens up a spot in the agency, which could be facing a significant shift in policies, especially governing the future of the state’s energy policies and a pronounced focus on clean-energy choices like solar and wind power, the latter mostly ignored in the Christie administration.


In a letter to the governor, Mroz said he would resign effective April 14. His letter said he would return to the private sector, but remain in the energy, utility, and infrastructure industries. In a phone interview, he declined to elaborate. Without Mroz, the agency’s board is split between two Republicans and two Democrats.


As president, Mroz was a strong advocate for the Christie administration’s policies, including unyielding support for expansion of natural gas pipelines in the state, as well as backing investments by gas and electric utilities to make their power grids more resilient to extreme storms, such as Hurricane Sandy.


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New Director for DRBC’s Science and Water Quality


Namsoo S. Suk, Ph.D.

West Trenton, N.J. –  Namsoo S. Suk, Ph.D. has been named as the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) Director of Science and Water Quality Management.  In his new position, Suk’s responsibilities include leading DRBC science and technical teams to: develop and apply hydrodynamic and water-quality models; conduct and coordinate monitoring and assessment activities; develop and update the Commission’s water-quality standards; and collaborate with the regulatory, stakeholder, and other scientific communities to meet the Commission’s clean and sustainable water goals.  


“Dr. Suk brings to his new position a wealth of extensive experience that will support the Commission’s water resource management and science programs,” said DRBC Executive Director Steve Tambini.  


Suk joined the DRBC in 1998 as a water resource engineer/modeler and has held various positions of increasing responsibility with the Commission.  He earned his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., where he completed his dissertation on “Suspended Solids Flux Between Salt Marsh and Adjacent Bay: A Methodology for Long-Term Continuous Measurements.”  


Additionally, he earned his M.S. in Civil Engineering from Rutgers and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.  Since he has been with the DRBC, Suk has worked with Commission staff and external experts on: numerous water resource models; pollution waste load allocations; implementation of DRBC’s Water Quality and Special Protection Waters regulations; and collaborative implementation of the basin states’ and federal water quality regulations.  With more than a dozen publications to his credit, Suk regularly delivers technical presentations to academic and professional organizations in the region. 


Suk is replacing Thomas J. Fikslin, Ph.D., who has worked with DRBC since 1989, initially on assignment from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and as a member of the Commission’s staff since April 1993.  Fikslin is retiring at the end of the month after 43 years of environmental contributions to the country and region through his work at the Commission and the U.S. EPA.

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The DRBC is a federal/interstate government agency responsible for managing the water resources of the Delaware River Basin without regard to political boundaries.  The five commission members are the governors of the basin states (Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania) and the commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ North Atlantic Division, who represents the federal government

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NRA lobbyist shot down Scrub Jay’s bid to be Florida Bird


By Frank Brill
EnviroPolitics Editor


We all know how powerful the National Rifle Association is in killing off any restrictions on gun sales. But shooting down the hopes of thousands of school kids to name a state bird? A bird so gentle that it eats from your hand? 


S.V. Date tells the story in HuffPost of how a bill to designate the native Scrub Jay as the state bird was stopped cold in the Florida Legislature in 1999 when the NRA’s state lobbyist declared that the Scrub Jay ate the eggs of other birds. “That’s robbery and murder,” she declared.


As for all that hand-feeding? ‘“Begging for food isn’t sweet, she added.”It’s lazy and it’s a welfare mentality.”


Good thing the bird is native to the state or ICE might be rounding them up today for deportation.

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New managing partner for Fox Rothschild in Princeton

Gerard_Norton
Fox Rothschild attorney Gerard Norton

The Fox Rothschild law firm has appointed Gerard Norton as office managing partner for their Princeton location, effective April 1.


Norton succeeds Douglas Zeltt, who served a five-year term.


“Our office managing partners work tirelessly to ensure clients are getting the best service we can provide, while helping to draw in top legal talent across the county,” said Mark Morris, Fox’s firm-wide managing partner, in a statement. “Our outgoing leaders have done an exceptional job during their tenure in this role, and we are confident this new group of leaders will build upon that framework.”


Norton chairs Fox’s intellectual property litigation practice and previously chaired the intellectual property practice. He litigates matters involving patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and breaches of contract, as well as handling intellectual property portfolio protection and enforcement.

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Live in South Jersey? Unsure about buying an electric vehicle? Atlantic City Electric wants to reduce your anxiety


Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:

Atlantic City Electric is the first utility in the state to file a petition to broaden the scope of public and private plug-in vehicle-charging stations in its territory, a crucial first step that advocates consider key to achieving a cleaner transportation sector.


The utility, in a filing Friday with the state Board of Public Utilities, is seeking to spend $14.9 million to focus on barriers deterring customers from buying electric vehicles, most prominently range anxiety or the worry that their cars will run out of power without finding a place to recharge.


The petition, involving a suite of programs to incent customers to switch to plug-in cars, includes an innovative proposal to establish lower household-electricity rates for those who charge vehicles and defer other energy use to off-peak hours when costs are lower.


The transportation sector accounts for about 46 percent of the energy-related greenhouse-gas emissions in New Jersey. Without steep reductions in emissions from cars, the state will never achieve ambitious goals to reduce the carbon pollution that contributes to climate change, according to state officials.


Lack of public charging stations
The state’s four electric utilities have been encouraged by the BPU to come up with programs that help build out the infrastructure for electric vehicles. Clean-energy advocates say the lack of public charging stations hinders widespread adoption of electric vehicles.


“These programs both incentivize customers to pursue an EV (electric vehicle) option as their next vehicle purchase and provide them with the peace of mind that new charging options will be available to meet their fueling needs across South Jersey,” said Vincent Maione, Atlantic City Electric region president.


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