EP Podcast: #19 – Week in Review – April 10-15, 2017


Our podcast is back with a New Episode (#19) in which we review some of the interesting political and environment stories featured in the past week in our daily subscription newsletter, EnviroPolitics or its free companion–EnviroPolitics Blog.


Stories like:

  • Pa mine fire that’s been burning for decades. Yes, decades
  • Key federal approval for gas pipeline that’s opposed in Pa and NJ
  • New York State’s second rejection of a Marcellus gas pipeline 
  • Big, expensive cleanup of a NJ lake polluted by a DuPont munitions plant
  • An effort to bring back the Bobwhite quail
  • Ozone pollution in Delaware
  • Gas and chemical industries joining with seniors to fight nuclear bailout 
…and more


Click to listen to Episode 19  

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See and hear all 19 episodes 

Questions? Email: frankbrilljr@gmail.com or 609-577-9017


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Industry sends Trump list of regs to cut with EPA on top


Juliet Eilperin reports for The Washington Post:

Just days after taking office, President Trump invited American manufacturers to recommend ways the government could cut regulations and make it easier for companies to get their projects approved.
Industry leaders responded with scores of suggestions that paint the clearest picture yet of the dramatic steps that Trump officials are likely to take in overhauling federal policies, especially those designed to advance environmental protection and safeguard worker rights.
Those clues are embedded in the 168 comments submitted to the government after Trump signed a presidential memorandum Jan. 24 instructing the Commerce Department to figure out how to ease permitting and trim regulations with the aim of boosting domestic manufacturing. 
The Environmental Protection Agency has emerged as the primary target in these comments, accounting for nearly half, with the Labor Department in second place as the subject of more than a fifth, according to a Commerce Department analysis.
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Trump restoring jobs? Don’t ask the U. S. tourism industry


Airplanes sit on the tarmac at San Francisco International Airport. San Francisco is one city expected to lose tourism dollars this year after President Trump promoted a travel ban. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The Washington Post reports:

The toll of the president’s proposals has been swift on the nation’s tourism industry, with tour group organizers saying that people suddenly have an unsettling sense that the United States isn’t as welcoming a place as it once was. One industry expert pegs the projected lost revenue for 2017 at $7.4 billion. Read the full story

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EPA chief Pruitt wants U.S. to exit Paris climate agreement

Marianne Lavelle reports for Inside Climate News:
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said on Thursday that the United States should exit the Paris climate agreement. The comments are his strongest yet on a question that has divided the Donald Trump administration, even as it seeks to roll back the nation’s commitment to act on climate change.
“Paris is something we need to look at closely. It’s something we need to exit in my opinion,” Pruitt said in an interview on the Fox & Friendsmorning news program.
“It’s a bad deal for America,” he said. “It’s an ‘America second, third or fourth’ kind of approach.”

The White House has said it expects to flesh out the administration’s official position on Paris in a month or so.
Pruitt’s statement puts him at odds with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the former chief executive of ExxonMobil, who said during his confirmation hearing that it was important for the U.S. to “maintain its seat at the table.”
Even some big U.S. coal companies have taken a similar position. They have argued in recent weeks that the pact offers their best chance to advocate for coal in the world’s future energy mix, perhaps by promoting technology to capture emissions and store them underground.
Other Trump supporters have said that even if the U.S. stays in the Paris process, it should abandon its pledges to cut emissions, which probably cannot be met if the administration succeeds in killing Obama-era pollution control rules.
But Pruitt said the United States “frontloaded all of our costs” under the Paris accord, while “China or India had no obligations under the agreement until 2030.” In fact, the Paris agreement is the first climate pact that requires emissions-cutting commitments from all of the more than 190 nations that signed it, although each commitment is different, determined by individual countries.
The treaty was not mentioned in the March 28 executive order that called for repealing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan and took steps to roll back other U.S. climate policies. 
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Maserati says toot toot to New Jersey, Hello Michigan

Maserati is moving its North American headquarters ()


Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced plans internally Tuesday to move the North American headquarters of its Italian luxury auto brand Maserati from Englewood Cliffs to the former Walter P. Chrysler Museum on the grounds of FCA’s headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan.


“The idea is to bring us into Auburn Hills while remaining distinct and separate from the other FCA brands,” Tom Shanley, head of Maserati North America, said in a statement to The Detroit Free Press while attending the New York International Auto Show. “We have our separate office space; we will be sharing that office space with Alfa Romeo.”

Moving headquarters to the Auburn Hills campus will save Fiat Chrysler Automobiles money and cut down on executive travel despite the fact that year-over-year sales for Maserati were up 13.2 percent in October.

Shanley did not say how many people would be moving to Michigan, but he stated that only a few positions would remain in Englewood Cliffs.

“We will have limited operations (in New Jersey) from the technical side of our business,” he said in a statement.

Maserati, headquartered in Modena, Italy, has had its North American headquarters in Englewood Cliffs since 2002.

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More New Yorkers than ever contesting property tax bills


Advocate Steinberg helps homeowners fight to reduce their tax bills. (Photo:Buck Ennis)



Aaron Elstein reports for Crain’s:


Springtime means the start of baseball season. It’s the time to put away winter coats and plan a seder or Easter egg hunt. It also marks the beginning of an increasingly popular pastime in New York: fighting property tax bills.

Last week the city began holding hearings at which people can argue that their home or office building is not worth as much as assessors say. A record 55,000 tax appeals have been filed this year, and though the rules say no hearing is supposed to last more than 15 minutes, it nevertheless is likely to take until November for the 20 hearing officers at the city Tax Commission to clear the dockets.

“It’s a long, long season,” Myrna Hall, the commission’s operations director, said with a sigh.

The season has grown even longer in the past decade as more people protest their ever-rising property tax bills.

These days about 35% more appeals are filed each year than were filed a decade ago. That’s more than triple the growth rate of new properties on the tax rolls. Property taxes are the city’s largest source of income, and revenue from them has doubled in the past 10 years, reflecting a surge in real estate values and rents.

There’s no end in sight. The de Blasio administration is forecasting property tax revenue will rise by more than 5% annually for the foreseeable future.

Read the full story here



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