Jersey-Philly boys enjoying the company at Mar-a-Lago

George Norcross (left) and Bruce Toll are paying members of Trump’s
                    Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla.,

Julie Shaw reports for Philly.com

George E. Norcross III, the South Jersey Democratic power broker and insurance tycoon, and Bruce E. Toll, co-founder of Horsham-based luxury home-builder Toll Bros., are among the nearly 500 members of President Trump’s posh Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., the New York Times reported Saturday.

It now costs $200,000 to be a member, a price tag that was doubled shortly after Trump took office.

Trump is there this weekend, his third weekend in a row. Last week, he hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the club, the so-called winter White House.

The Times reviewed membership lists and found that most of the paying members were part of the club before Trump’s presidential campaign. A few memberships are still available, it says.

Norcross, 60, who chairs insurance firm Conner Strong & Buckelew, and Trump are longtime friends.

When Norcross and his wife bought a $10.9 million home on luxurious Everglades Island in Palm Beach more than a decade ago, he had asked Trump for his opinion on the purchase, according to an article in the Palm Beach Daily News.

“I wanted lakefront and deepwater, and Everglades Island has great views,” Norcross told the newspaper. “I took Donald to this house; we walked through three properties. He said it was spectacular, an exquisite location.”

Toll, 73, retired from the Toll Bros. board of directors last year. He is a principal at Horsham-based BET Investments, which owns, manages, and develops office buildings, retail complexes, and apartment buildings.

He told the Times for its article that he owns a home near the Mar-a-Lago Club and often sees Trump at the club. The two have talked about national issues, such as Trump’s plans to increase spending on highways and other infrastructure projects, Toll said.

“Maybe you ought to do this or that,” Toll said of the type of advice Trump received from club members.

Neither Toll nor Norcross could be reached Saturday by the Inquirer for comment.

For his part, the president on Saturday called Mar-a-Lago his Southern White House.


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Climate change leaving Mexico City parched and sinking

Climate change is threatening to push a crowded capital toward a breaking point. 

Michael Kimmelman reports for The New York Times:

MEXICO CITY — On bad days, you can smell the stench from a mile away, drifting over a nowhere sprawl of highways and office parks.

When the Grand Canal was completed, at the end of the 1800s, it was Mexico City’s Brooklyn Bridge, a major feat of engineering and a symbol of civic pride: 29 miles long, with the ability to move tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater per second. It promised to solve the flooding and sewage problems that had plagued the city for centuries.

Only it didn’t, pretty much from the start. The canal was based on gravity. And Mexico City, a mile and a half above sea level, was sinking, collapsing in on itself.

It still is, faster and faster, and the canal is just one victim of what has become a vicious cycle. Always short of water, Mexico City keeps drilling deeper for more, weakening the ancient clay lake beds on which the Aztecs first built much of the city, causing it to crumble even further.


It is a cycle made worse by climate change. More heat and drought mean more evaporation and yet more demand for water, adding pressure to tap distant reservoirs at staggering costs or further drain underground aquifers and hasten the city’s collapse.

In the immense neighborhood of Iztapalapa — where nearly two million people live, many of them unable to count on water from their taps — a teenager was swallowed up where a crack in the brittle ground split open a street. Sidewalks resemble broken china, and 15 elementary schools have crumbled or caved in.

Much is being written about climate change and the impact of rising seas on waterfront populations. But coasts are not the only places affected. Mexico City — high in the mountains, in the center of the country — is a glaring example. The world has a lot invested in crowded capitals like this one, with vast numbers of people, huge economies and the stability of a hemisphere at risk.

Changing Climate, Changing Cities
The first in a series of articles about how climate change is challenging the world’s urban centers.

One study predicts that 10 percent of Mexicans ages 15 to 65 could eventually try to emigrate north as a result of rising temperatures, drought and floods, potentially scattering millions of people and heightening already extreme political tensions over immigration.

The effects of climate change are varied and opportunistic, but one thing is consistent: They are like sparks in the tinder. They expose cities’ biggest vulnerabilities, inflaming troubles that politicians and city planners often ignore or try to paper over. And they spread outward, defying borders.


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Today, America turned from green to coal-and-oil black

President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt

After years of contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to congressional Republicans, hoping to reverse decades of environmental progress in the nation, the fossil fuel industry today won their battle as the United States Senate voted to confirm Scott Pruitt as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.


Coral Davenport reports for The New York Times: 


WASHINGTON — The Senate on Friday confirmed Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agency, putting a seasoned legal opponent of the agency at the helm of President Trump’s efforts to dismantle major regulations on climate change and clean water — and to cut the size and authority of the government’s environmental enforcer.  


Senators voted 52-46 to confirm Mr. Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general who has built a career out of suing to block the E.P.A.’s major environmental rules, and has called for the dissolution of much of the agency’s authority. One Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, crossed party lines to vote against Mr. Pruitt, while two Democrats, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp, both from coal-rich states where voters generally oppose environmental rules, voted for him.  


Senate Democrats railed all night on the Senate floor against Mr. Pruitt and urged Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, to delay the confirmation vote until after next Tuesday, when the Oklahoma attorney general’s office is under order to release about 3,000 of Mr. Pruitt’s emails related to his communications with the fossil fuel industry. 


But the effort did little but deprive Democrats of sleep.


Democrats, environmental groups and even current E.P.A. employees have harshly criticized Mr. Pruitt’s record of fighting the mission of the agency he will now lead, as well as his close ties with the fossil fuel industry he will now regulate. Both opponents and supporters of Mr. Pruitt say he is well positioned to carry out Mr. Trump’s campaign trail promises to dismantle the agency and slash its ranks of employees. Mr. Trump vowed to “get rid” of the agency “in almost every form.”


A 2014 investigation by The Times found that energy lobbyists drafted letters for Mr. Pruitt to send, on state stationery, to the E.P.A., outlining the economic hardship of the environmental rules. Many of the coal, oil and gas companies represented by those lobbyists were also some his largest campaign contributors. Mr. Pruitt also worked jointly with those companies in filing multiple lawsuits against major E.P.A. regulations.


Democrats say the emails to be released on Tuesday could reveal more, and possibly disqualifying, information about those relationships.


“I reminded my colleagues that the release of these documents could be imminent and that we would be wise wait to vote on Mr. Pruitt’s nomination until we had the opportunity to review them — and shame on us if we didn’t,” said Senator Thomas R. Carper of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. 


“Mr. Pruitt has been nominated by a man who, as a nominee, as a president-elect, and now as president, has made clear his goals to degrade and destroy the E.P.A.,” Mr. Carper said. “Like many things President Trump says, we ask ourselves, ‘Did he mean it?’ With the nomination of Mr. Pruitt, it’s clear he did.”


How Senators voted on the Pruitt confirmation


Read the full story here


Tell us what you think in the comment box below. Do you agree that this is a truly shameful day for America or are we Pruitt critics out of touch. Are you starting to think that your anti-Hillary vote might not have been worth the consequences, or do you believe that reigning in the EPA is necessary to make America great again?  If you can’t get the comment box to work, please post on our Facebook page.


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Maybe your kids will get to use that new bus terminal

Port Authity’s budget includes $70 million to jumpstart planning process for new terminal, but completion of this critical part of project could extend to 2030 or beyond

foye and degnan

Pat Foye (left), the Port Authority’s executive director, and John Degnan, the chairman of the board of commissioners
John Reitmeyer reports
for NJ Spotlight:


The Port Authority’s commissioners approved a $32 billion capital plan yesterday that includes significant funding commitments for top New Jersey priorities like the Gateway trans-Hudson rail-tunnel and the long-awaited replacement of the bistate agency’s aging midtown Manhattan bus terminal.
The commissioners also authorized spending $70 million immediately to help jumpstart the planning process for the new terminal, something state lawmakers identified in recent days as being vital to ensure that red tape — and uncooperative New York officials — don’t stall the project from the start.
But even with those steps, the capital plan lacks the full funding that will be needed to complete those top-priority projects over the next 10 years, a cause of concern for transportation advocates. Some potentially thorny planning issues with the New York officials have also yet to be fully worked out.

Read the full story here


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Good thing Scott Pruitt isn’t counting on NJ to run EPA

Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump’s pick to become the next EPA Administrator

The fossil fuel industry’s good buddy Scott Pruitt, who is President Trump’s choice to run and neuter the Environmental Protection Agency, will need almost every Republican in the U.S. Senate when his confirmation vote is taken.  Chances are he’ll get them. 


An wide majority of the members of the New Jersey Assembly would vote NO if they only they could.






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Pa. Gov. Wolf says he did not influence pipeline approval

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf

Tony Romeo reports for CBS Philly:

HARRISBURG (CBS) — Governor Wolf denies applying any political pressure in the Department of Environmental Protection’s approval of the controversial Mariner East 2 statewide pipeline project, which will run through parts of Chester and Delaware Counties.
Environmentalists immediately appealed the Department of Environmental Protection’s approval of the Sunoco Logistics Mariner East 2 pipeline, which will transport natural gas liquids through 17 Pennsylvania counties to Sunoco’s Marcus Hook facility in Delaware County.
Governor Wolf denies allegations of political pressure, but does admit that he held DEP to a timeline.
“I asked them what their timetable was and then, let’s do it. As a CEO, I was the same way,” said Wolf. “You say you’re going to do something, let’s get it done. And if you tell me you’re going to take two weeks to do it, then get it done in two weeks. If you’re going to take four weeks, do it in four weeks. That’s not political pressure, that’s actually trying to manage an organization.”
The governor says he believes DEP did its due diligence in vetting the project, which he says he supports in order to ensure that gas that comes out of the ground in Pennsylvania can be used to the advantage of the Commonwealth.

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