What’s this? Trump supporting wind energy?

Interior secretary calls wind part of administration’s
‘all-of-the-above’ energy policy, wants to gauge interest
in shallow waters between NJ and Long Island



Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:


In a step to bolster the tapping of wind resources off the Eastern Seaboard, the Trump administration is planning to open more areas in the Northeast to build offshore wind farms.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke appeared at a conference in Princeton on offshore wind Friday and announced plans to hold lease sales for two additional areas off Massachusetts and to gauge interest in new leases along the New York Bight, the shallow waters between Long Island and New Jersey.


Unlike past administration energy initiatives, such as the widespread opposition to new oil and gas drilling off the East Coast, the offshore wind development largely reflects aggressive state plans to chart a big new future for offshore wind in New Jersey’s coastal waters.


‘America dominance’
“The Trump administration supports an all-of-the-above energy policy and using every tool available to achieve American dominance,’’ Zinke said. Later, he told reporters state laws to block drilling off their coasts could hinder new oil and gas exploration there. One such bill is on Gov. Phil Murphy’s desk.


In contrast, Murphy wants to develop 3,500 megawatts of offshore wind capacity along the coast, enough to supply 1.5 million homes. Two developers have spent nearly $2 million buying leases from the federal government to build offshore wind farms. Those projects are still in the study phase.


So far, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees the process for the Department of the Interior, has awarded 13 commercial wind-energy leases off the Atlantic coast, including the two in New Jersey. Another lease off of Delaware is expected to be only 16 miles from of Cape May in the Delaware Bay.


There is tremendous interest in offshore wind, a technology that has flourished in Europe for decades. Zinke’s announcement concluded a three-day conference in Princeton attended by more than 800 people. There is only one offshore wind farm operating in the United States, a 30-megawatt project off of Rhode Island.

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Gun control bills to get a rare hearing in Pennsylvania

The Morning Call’s Tim Darragh reports :

With the memory of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., still fresh, state lawmakers from across Pennsylvania will on Monday start the first of two weeks of hearings on bills related to firearms.


Advocates for a variety of gun bills say it’s a rare opportunity to air out arguments for — and against — bills on a topic that stirs deep passions.


“I’m thrilled just to even have the conversation,” said State Rep. Mike Schlossberg, D-Lehigh, who will testify Tuesday. To his memory, “it’s the first time we’ve ever had any hearings on any gun proposals for or against.”


Seven Republicans and seven Democrats are lined up to testify Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, said Ron Marsico, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. The hearings will be held in Room 140 in the state Capitol, and resume April 16 and 17, with the possibility of a sixth day April 18.


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In his haste to roll back rules, Scott Pruitt risks his agenda



Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman report for the NY Times:


WASHINGTON — As ethical questions threaten the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt, President Trump has defended him with a persuasive conservative argument: Mr. Pruitt is doing a great job at what he was hired to do, roll back regulations.


But legal experts and White House officials say that in Mr. Pruitt’s haste to undo government rules and in his eagerness to hold high-profile political events promoting his agenda, he has often been less than rigorous in following important procedures, leading to poorly crafted legal efforts that risk being struck down in court.


The result, they say, is that the rollbacks, intended to fulfill one of the president’s central campaign pledges, may ultimately be undercut or reversed.


“In their rush to get things done, they’re failing to dot their i’s and cross their t’s. And they’re starting to stumble over a lot of trip wires,” said Richard Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard. “They’re producing a lot of short, poorly crafted rulemakings that are not likely to hold up in court.”


Six of Mr. Pruitt’s efforts to delay or roll back Obama-era regulations — on issues including pesticides, lead paint and renewable-fuel requirements — have been struck down by the courts. Mr. Pruitt also backed down on a proposal to delay implementing smog regulations and another to withdraw a regulation on mercury pollution.


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Nonprofits can now qualify for federal brownfieds grants

By Frank Brill
EnviroPolitics Editor


A numer of important changes to the brownfields cleanup program were adopted with the recently-enacted federal funding law. Attorney David J. Freeman reports on several lesser-known provisions in the Gibbons law firm’s Real Property & Environmental Law Alert:

David J. Freeman
The recently-enacted Consolidated Omnibus Appropriations Act made headlines in extending funding for federal government programs through September 30, 2018. Less widely noted were the myriad changes wrought by the Act to the administration of many federal programs. Among the programs affected was the federal brownfields program.

The major substantive change in the Act was the expansion of the Bona Fide Potential Purchaser (BFPP) protection for lessees of properties. BFPP status exempts from Superfund liability parties who become owners or operators of facilities after the discharge of contaminants, so long as they are unrelated to parties responsible for the discharge, conduct “all appropriate inquiries” (e.g., a Phase I environmental site assessment) prior to closing, and observe certain other protocols post-closing.


Until now, lessees were precluded from qualifying as a BFPP unless the property owner was also a BFPP.


Now, if a lessee performs the required actions, it can obtain BFPP protection irrespective of whether its landlord is similarly exempted. This change will have a major impact on the liability exposure of lessees, particularly those who are developing and operating properties under long term ground leases.


Most of the Act’s other brownfield-related provisions concern the funding of federal brownfield grants. Non-profit organizations are now eligible for such grants. The eligibility of grants for petroleum-related sites has been expanded. The maximum grant size has been increased from $200,000 to $500,000, with EPA having the ability to waive that limit up to $650,000. 

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Trump’s tariff on Canadian newsprint could cripple or kill some struggling newspapers in the northeast

One of the (hopefully unintended) consequences of President Trump’s recent tariffs is that print newspapers in the northeast, already hurt by a changing economy, will suffer a new blow that could prove fatal to some of them.


By Frank Brill
EnviroPolitics Editor


David Chavern, president and CEO of the News Media Alliance, explains:


Every day at the News Media Alliance headquarters, a stack of newspapers arrives for myself and the staff. But with the Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission currently considering tariffs on Canadian newsprint, those days of screen-free reading could be coming to an end.

The fact that newsprint is being threatened is the work of one newsprint mill in the Pacific Northwest, NORPAC. In August 2017, NORPAC petitioned the United States Department of Commerce to begin applying tariffs to newsprint imported from Canada, claiming the imported paper was harming the U.S. newsprint industry. But NORPAC is not acting in the best interests of newsprint consumers or the U.S. paper industry at large — they are acting in their own interest and no one else’s.

The buying and selling of newsprint has always been regional without regard for the border. Consumers of newsprint — from newspaper and book publishers to telephone directory manufacturers — tend to buy newsprint in their region, close to their printing operations. The printers who typically utilize Canadian newsprint are those in the northeast and Midwest, where there are currently no U.S. mills operating.


But those regions are not newsprint deserts because of unfair trade by Canadian paper mills. Rather, newsprint mills shut down or converted to producing other, more profitable paper products when the demand for newsprint fell, something that has been happening steadily for decades. Since 2000, the demand for newsprint in North America has dropped by 75 percent.

But affordable Canadian paper has helped keep the printed news alive and flourishing well into the 21st century. With new tariffs, many smaller newspapers will feel their belts tightening. The combination of preliminary countervailing and antidumping duties increases the cost of imported newsprint by as much as 32 percent, and a number of newspapers have already experienced price increases and a disruption in supply. If the International Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce make these tariffs permanent in the coming months, it could lead some small local publishers to cut their print product entirely — or even shut their doors.

Some, like NORPAC, may argue that by imposing duties on Canadian imports we’re saving American jobs and boosting our own economy, but while that may sometimes be true for other industries, the opposite is true of newsprint.



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Former Christie attorney joins Cullen and Dykman law firm

Cullen and Dykman today announced that Andrew McNally has joined the law firm as Partner.

McNally served as Senior Deputy Chief Counsel in the administration of former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. 


He  provided legal, legislative and policy advice on a full range of matters, with a focus on energy and environmental issues. 


He also served as Chief Counsel to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, where he counseled the Board on utility regulation and energy policy. Prior to joining State government, he was a litigation associate at the law firm of Patton Boggs in Newark.

In addition to his legal practice, McNally serves on the Board of Trustees of Raritan Valley Community College, and is a member of the New Jersey Clean Air Council and Garden State Preservation Trust. 


McNally is a graduate of Boston College and Seton Hall Law School. He and his wife and two children live in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.

He will practice with the Firm’s Litigation, Environmental and Utility practice groups.

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