EnviroPolitics Blog

Legislation in NJ prepares for a post-Christie energy era

A change in administration could offer an opportunity to reshape New Jersey’s clean-energy profile, from electric cars to distributed generation

Sen. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex)

Tom Johnson reports
for NJ Spotlight:

In a bid to reshape energy policy in the state, a multi-bill package is being pushed to promote electric cars, enhance energy conservation, and study the possibility of giving financial incentives to nuclear power as a carbon-free source of electricity.

The legislative package introduced yesterday by Sen. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex), the chairman of the Senate Energy and Environment Committee, would overhaul the state’s energy priorities, pushing policy toward ramping up efforts to improve energy efficiency and away from a reliance on fossil fuels.

Smith’s package incorporates many issues long advocated by clean-energy advocates, including adoption of an energy-efficiency portfolio, which would require utilities to curb energy usage by customers. The policy, adopted by many other states, is of concern to utilities because it ends up trimming their revenue. Smith has yet to introduce that bill, saying it is “under construction.’’

He also is working on a proposed constitutional amendment that would phase out over a five-year period the diversion of clean energy funds to other purposes. The practice, increasingly relied on by the Christie administration, has siphoned off more than $1 billion from a clean-energy fund financed by a surcharge on customers’ electric and gas bills.

For instance, Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year would allocate $152 million out of the clean-energy fund, primarily to pay the state’s and New Jersey Transit’s energy costs. In the past, the Legislature has griped about the diversions, but approved them.

The package also would propose a couple of measures aimed at installing smart thermostats — one would require the devices be put in new homes; the other would offer financial credits to install them in existing homes. Smart thermostats can lower energy use and bills for customers. A separate resolution in the package urges the state to take steps to have at least a half-million homes in New Jersey outfitted with smart thermostats by 2023.

The legislation also would direct the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, the agency responsible for implementing energy policy, to undertake a study of several emerging issues.

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Senate confirms Ryan Zinke for Secretary of Interior

Ryan Zinke

Darryl Fears reports for
The Washington Post:

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Ryan Zinke’s nomination to lead the Interior Department by a 68 to 31 vote.

Zinke will head a department that manages a fifth of the land in the United States, about 500 million surface acres, a total that doesn’t include millions more acres and natural resources underground. Interior has an enormous environmental footprint, with agencies that decide how resources such as coal are managed and which animals are eligible for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

Republicans called the former Montana congressman and Navy SEAL a strong choice for Interior, as an avid hunter with western roots who understands how federal regulations on the cultivation of coal, natural gas and minerals on public lands can hurt corporate revenue and reduce jobs.

“I believe Representative Zinke is a solid choice for this position,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that approved his nomination in a partisan vote more than a month ago. “While we may not agree on every issue … I believe he will work with us in a thoughtful manner that is reflective of a true partnership.”

[Ryan Zinke is one step closer to becoming Interior secretary]

Democrats were wary of Zinke despite his declaration that he believes humans contribute to climate change. “Man has had an influence,” he said under questioning by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Zinke’s assertion that the level of human contribution is unknown, despite the near unanimous opinions of climate scientists who say it’s overwhelming, didn’t help. Liberals worried that Zinke would open more land to exploitation at the expense of wildlife and their declining habitat.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) expressed concern that Zinke will support calls to rescind the Obama administration’s designation of 1.3 million acres in Utah as the Bears Ears National Monument, a status long pursued by Native American tribes and conservationists. At his hearing, Ryan told committee members that traveling to Utah was one of his priorities.

“I’m not convinced that Congressman Zinke is going to show the leadership on these issues that is necessary,” Cantwell, the committee’s ranking minority member, said in her floor speech. “We need someone who’s going to stand up and say the outdoor economy is worth it.”

Zinke’s confirmation came more than a month after the committee’s approval partly because of politics, and Murkowski and Cantwell’s speeches on the Senate floor reflected the broad partisan divide. Zinke was approved by a 16-6 committee vote largely along party lines. All of the committee’s 12 Republicans voted in Zinke’s favor.

Zinke told the committee that one of his first priorities would be to fix the crumbling infrastructure at parks under the National Park Service. He said President Trump’s ambitious infrastructure spending plans should “prioritize the estimated $12.5 billion in backlog of maintenance and repair” at hundreds of national parks such as Yosemite National Park, the Mall, Memorial Bridge and the George Washington Memorial Parkway.

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After a long slump, Pa’s steel industry is growing again

Dura-Bond pipe plant in Steelton Pa is seeing a steady rise in work thanks to new natural gas pipelines

Joseph N. DiStefano writes for Philly.com:

“It has been a brutal 20 years” for eastern Pennsylvania steelmakers, and now the industry’s growing again, says Wayne-based engineer James L. Barends, who built projects for Alcoa, DuPont, Merck and several of the region’s current and former steel plants, and headed the investment group that made a final effort to save the late Phoenix Steel Co. pipe mill on the Schuylkill in the 1990s.

“It is wonderful to see something go right for industry,” Barends told me, noting how government approvals of East Coast and Midwest pipeline projects — and President Trump’s order that they use American pipe — means jobs for Pennsylvania manufacturers like Jason Norris’ family-owned Dura-Bond, which my colleague Andrew Maykuth recently profiled here. See also here.

“The potential benefits that will ripple from the new pipelines in Pennsylvania are actually pretty large and wide spread,” and Dura-Bond, based in Duquesne, Pa., “is first in line,” since it has updated Bethlehem Steel’s former pipe mill in Steelton, between Harrisburg and the Pennsylvania Turnpike bridge over the Susquehanna.

Steelton “is the same pipe mill that provided the pipe for the Trans Alaska pipeline and hundreds of others projects over four decades,” notes Barends. “They are one of the biggest U-and-O-ing pipe mills in the world, and they have seen a steady rise in work” as gas and oil exploration returned to Pennsylvania. To make steel pipe, steel plate is pressed into a U shape, then sealed into an O.

The Steelton pipe mill “was idle, but sound and needed upgrades, when Dura-Bond took it over (2003). Dura-Bond modernized the facility and reopened it. They recently announced they are hiring 150 people for a second shift and will supply the line pipe for the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline.” Dura-Bond has also prepares pipe for Sunoco Logistics’ Mariner pipelines.

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Candidate for NJ governor seeks to chop Highlands logging

Tom Johnson writes for NJ Spotlight:

Sen. Lesniak moves to keep chainsaws, earthmovers, and wood chippers out of forested preserve, source of drinking water for millions of New Jerseyans

logging

The Legislature may throw a roadblock into plans to begin logging in the New Jersey Highlands.

Sen. Ray Lesniak (D-Union) yesterday said he will sponsor a bill to prohibit logging in the 860,000 acres of forested expanse and the source of drinking water for more than 6 million residents.

The legislation is designed to close a loophole in the original law establishing protections for the Highlands and also to shut the door on a pilot to allow limited logging on hundreds of acres of land at the Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area.

The project, pending before the state Department of Environmental Protection, has caused a sharp rift between New Jersey Audubon and most of New Jersey’s environmental organizations, who view it as undermining one of the key provisions of the Highlands law, preserving mature forests.

“It’s something that shouldn’t happen in the Highlands,’’ said Lesniak, referring to the plan to allow trees to be felled at the Sparta Mountain. He added the bill might prevent the project from moving forward.

“It is designed to do that, for sure,’’ said Lesniak, a candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination this June. “We’re hoping it will send a message to the DEP to slow down what they are doing.’’

The controversy surrounds a stewardship plan put together by New Jersey Audubon and the DEP that would allow trees to be logged at the wildlife management area, a 3,4000-acre preserve straddling Morris and Sussex counties and four townships.

About 10 percent of the forested area would be cut, a plan proponents argue would allow the young forest to develop and enhance wildlife diversity while at the same time protecting water resources. The plan expands a smaller effort to create a habitat for the golden-winged warbler, a songbird experiencing rapid declines in its population in the state.

Lesniak’s proposal drew praise from environmentalists who joined him at a press conference in the State House.

“We support this legislation to protect our forests from logging in the name of stewardship,’’ said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “Our forests were bought for all of us to protect the environment, preserve habitat for important wildlife species, and safeguard clean water.’’

Besides the logging ban, Lesniak also is sponsoring another bill that would designate all state-owned lands as adhering to the so-called Landscape Project. The program, overseen by the DEP, is designed to help preserve and protect endangered plant species found in New Jersey.

“There is a real danger from the equipment that would be used in logging that would go through wetlands and other sensitive, ecologically important areas,’’ Lesniak said.

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EPA ‘ditch’ protections will soon become states’ problem

COURTESY OF DNREC WETLAND MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT PROGRAM

A photo of a Delmarva bay in spring shows the wetland flooded. In summer and fall this same wetland is dry.Under Obama’s Waters of the U.S. Rule this isolated wetland would be protected, if Trump withdraws the rule,it would not be protected under the Clean Water Act.

Susan Phillips reports for StateImpact:

On the campaign trail, President Trump promised to get rid of regulations, especially those designed to protect the environment. One of those regulations has to do with water. In fact very small bodies of water. It’s often referred to as the Waters of the U.S. Rule (WOTUS), or the clean water rule, and it’s the Obama administration’s attempt to define which isolated wetlands, or intermittent streams, are regulated under the Clean Water Act, passed in 1972.

The Trump administration is expected to announce this week a reversal of the rule, which was challenged in court soon after it was enacted in 2015 and has since been blocked from enforcement.

When Congress passed the Clean Water Act 25 years ago, it defined waters that would need some protection from pollution as “navigable.” For most of us that means big enough to float a boat. But when it comes to pollution sources, the need to provide clean water extends upstream of large river systems.

“Everyone agrees it doesn’t strictly mean navigable anymore,” says Owen McDonough, with the National Association of Home Builders – one of the industry groups that opposes WOTUS. “We’re not talking about, for instance, things like the Susquehanna River, or Chesapeake Bay. But as you get farther and farther upstream, into headwaters of streams, that’s been a pretty difficult line to draw.”

McDonough says the gray area included intermittent or ephemeral streams, those that may not flow unless there’s a heavy rain, or isolated wetlands, or ponds. Those areas that are sometimes land, sometimes water.

Over the years, Congress tried and failed to clarify the rule. Past administrations tried and failed as well. And the courts seemed to add to the confusion over what among these tiny waterways deserved protection from pollution discharge and run-off, and what didn’t.

This photo shows the same Delmarva Bay as above but in summer. These coastal plain wetlands are seasonally wet, fed by groundwater and rain.

COURTESY OF DNREC WETLAND MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT PROGRAM

This photo shows the same Delmarva Bay as above but in summer. These coastal plain wetlands are seasonally wet in winter and spring, fed by groundwater and rain. They become dry in summer and fall.

Everyone said they wanted clarity

In 2015, Obama Administration tried once and for all to define exactly what would be regulated under the federal Clean Water Act. After several years of research, including analysis of 1,200 peer-reviewed studies. the EPA defined a tributary as having a “bed, banks and ordinary high water mark,” which flowed downstream. It defined “adjacent wetlands and waters” as those “within a minimum of 100 feet and within the 100-year floodplain to a maximum of 1,500 feet of the ordinary high water mark” to the regulated tributaries or waterways.

And it included protection for isolated wetlands, like Prairie potholes out west, coastal prairie wetlands in Texas and what’s known locally as Delmarva bays. These are isolated, small wet areas fed by groundwater and seasonal rain. There are more than one thousand of these wetlands in Delaware, where they serve as nurseries for frogs and salamanders.

“They’re really unique and contain rare plant species,” says Mark Biddle, an environmental scientist with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. Biddle says Delaware itself doesn’t regulate non-tidal wetlands, so without the federal clean water rule, the Delmarva bays would not be protected from pollution discharges.

Industry has long pushed for clarity on these waters. In the absence of clear definitions, it was up to different regional offices of the Army Corps of Engineers to decide what required a permit and what didn’t. But when the EPA announced the rule in 2015 it garnered criticism from the oil and gas industry, builders, and farmers who think it goes too far.

The Farm Bureau began what it called the “Ditch the Rule” campaign, criticizing the regulation as causing even more confusion for farmers who feared they would need a permit to discharge into every ditch or puddle on their farm.

COURTESY OF DNREC WETLAND MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT PROGRAM

An aerial view of a coastal plain ponds in Delaware, also known as Delmarva bays. If the Trump administration scraps the Waters of the U.S. Rule, these waters would not be protected from pollution discharges.

Don Parrish with the American Farm Bureau Federation says the EPA did a bad job listening to their concerns.

“I think as much as anything the administrator really belittled a lot of farmers concerns, the administrator called some of our concerns silly and ludicrous,” he said.

Parrish says the threats to farmers are very real, because not getting a permit carries heavy fines or even jail time. He says the way the rule was written, it made it very difficult for farmers and ranchers to know if they would be breaking the law.

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Congressman from NJ tries again to get Trump tax return

Congressman Bill Pascrell (D-New Jersey)

Herb Jackson reports from The Record‘s Washington Bureau:

Continuing in his quest to examine President Trump’s tax returns, Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. tried unsuccessfully Monday night to use a legislative maneuver to force the House to exercise powers granted in a 1924 law.

“The American people have the right to know whether or not their president is operating under conflicts of interest related to international affairs, tax reform, government contracts or otherwise,” said Pascrell, D-Paterson.

Pascrell’s “privileged resolution” tried to compel the Ways and Means Committee to use its power to obtain Trump’s tax returns and make them available to the full House, which would in effect make them public.

Pascrell used a provision of the rules that lets members raise questions of privileges affecting the entire House, and Pascrell said his measure fit that description because it involved Congress serving to check on the power of the executive branch. But Rep. Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican presiding in the chamber, ruled that Pascrell was trying to direct a committee to meet, and that did not meet the standard. Pascrell appealed, and the majority tabled his appeal in a largely party-line vote of 299-185-2.

Pascrell said he was pleased that two Republicans voted “present” rather than with the majority, and one of them, Mark Sanford of South Carolina, agreed to sign a letter Pascrell is preparing to send to the chairmen of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees seeking disclosure.

“This is going to be a slow process,” Pascrell said. “I knew it when i got in.”

Pascrell’s resolution noted that there are nearly 1.1 million signatures on a petition on a White House website calling for the immediate release of Trump’s tax returns along with necessary information to etermine whether he is violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which bars federal officials from receiving gifts or things of value from foreign governments.

A 1924 law used twice before in history allows the chairmen of the House and Senate committees that write tax policy to compel the Treasury Department to provide copies of any citizen’s confidential tax information. Pascrell on Feb. 1 asked the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Texas Republican Kevin Brady, to invoke the power. Brady rejected the request, and he was backed up by fellow Republicans in a party-line committee vote on Feb. 14.

In offering a privileged resolution, Pascrell argued that his measure deserved to be brought up ahead of measures posted for votes by the majority. The maneuver was used last year by House conservatives to force a vote on impeaching the director of the Internal Revenue Service, but a last-minute deal prevented an impeachment vote.

The “privileged resolution” is more often used by the minority party, currently the Democrats. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tried to force a vote on a change to gun control policy in 2015, for example, and her effort had the same result as Pascrell’s.

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