‘Chairman’s Flight’ grows more costly for United Airlines


The “chairman’s flight” will cost United Airlines another
$2.4 million.
Ted Sherman reports for NJ.com:

The airline, in an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Friday, settled charges in connection with a money-losing direct flight between Newark Liberty International Airport and South Carolina launched to curry favor with then-Port Authority Chairman David Samson–who wanted a quicker way to get to his vacation home.

The airline has already paid more than $2.2 million in fines as part of the criminal investigation into the special flight.
Samson, a former state attorney general and confidante of Gov. Chris Christie, pleaded guilty to bribery charges in July, admitting he used his clout to coerce United to put the route back on its schedule.
The flight from Newark Liberty International Airport to Columbia, S.C., was restarted in 2012 after Samson became chairman of the Port Authority and became known as “the chairman’s flight.” It was canceled within days after he resigned in 2014.
“United disregarded the books and records and internal accounting controls provisions of the securities laws while casting aside its normal decision process to re-enter one of its hub’s poorest performing markets,” said Andrew Ceresney, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.
A spokeswoman for United said only the company was “pleased to resolve this matter.”
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Judge says no to special prosecutor for Christie complaint



You saw this coming, didn’t you?

Any prosecution of Gov. Chris Christie for failing to stop the ‘traffic study’ on the George Washington Bridge will have to be brought by the state Attorney General’s Office and the Bergen County Prosecutor, not a special prosecutor.

NJTV NEWS correspondent Brenda Flanagan has the story.

Related news stories:

Judge Denies Request for Special
Prosecutor  
No special
prosecutor for ‘Bridgegate’ complaint
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Legislation seeks to protect enviro-settlement funds in NJ

Scott Fallon of The Record reports on legislation in New Jersey that seeks to guarantee that money awarded in environmental damage law suits is used for the intended purpose–cleaning up the local problem that caused the suit to be filed.

When the Christie administration announced the first of a series of multi-million-dollar settlements with Passaic River polluters in 2013, local officials and environmentalists were elated that so much money was going to help restore one of the nation’s most contaminated waterways.

The joy was short-lived.

Of the $355.4 million recovered by New Jersey, about $288 million was taken by Gov. Chris Christie to balance the state budget. Likewise, only $50 million from the state’s $225 million settlement with Exxon Mobil last year, for contamination of properties in Linden and Bayonne, is slated for environmental purposes, with the bulk going to the budget.

Now state lawmakers are trying to block Christie and future governors from diverting environmental court settlements.

Legislation is making its way through Trenton to put a statewide referendum question on the 2017 ballot that would ensure the vast majority of money won in court would be used to restore polluted areas. The bills in the Senate and Assembly would bypass the governor’s veto pen by asking voters to amend the state constitution, much as they did two years ago to ensure the state’s open-space program is consistently funded.

The Senate passed a similar bill last year, but no action was taken in the Assembly. That has led some to question whether Assembly leaders, including Speake

Vincent Prieto, would back the current bill. A spokesman for the Assembly Democrats, who have a majority in that house, did not respond to a request for comment.

Although governors from both parties have taken money from environmental programs to plug budget holes, Christie has brought it to a level never seen before. Along with the court settlements, he has taken more than $1 billion from the state’s popular clean-energy program for the general fund since becoming governor in 2010.

“The fact that the money is stolen regularly by every administration, it is critically important we keep it safe and use it appropriately,” Kelly Mooij, vice president of the New Jersey Audubon Society, told a Senate panel recently.

The Christie administration has a long-standing policy of not commenting on pending legislation.

Read the full story here

Related news coverage:
Making sure pollution settlements go to restoring natural resources 

State hopes to establish prices for natural-resource damages

Environment NJ’s Doug O’Malley on enviro-settlement
money use SCR 39  (Video)


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Can the U.S. Become an Energy Superpower in 2017?

Dave Merrill and Christine Buurma report for Bloomberg:
For decades, America depended on the world for energy. Today, it’s becoming a global supplier of oil and natural gas in its own right. This year, for the first time ever, the U.S. started turning gas from prolific shale formations into liquefied natural gas (LNG) and sending it overseas. In 2017, the country may be exporting more of the heating fuel than
it imports for the first year since the 1950s.
Refurbished pipelines and terminals will come online next year to help unleash the U.S. shale gas boom into the world. But risks still loom. It remains costly to ship U.S. gas to major consumers in Europe and Asia, and President-elect Donald Trump’s trade priorities could make U.S. LNG more expensive than supplies from other producers around the world.

Caught off guard by the shale boom

Just a decade ago, gas supplies from conventional wells were drying up. Major energy companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp., BP Plc and Chevron Corp. were planning to spend billions on gas import terminals to offset the decline. The technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, changed everything for gas drillers, allowing them to pull the fuel out of layers of shale rock and touching off the U.S. shale revolution.


Creating a modern pipeline system

America’s frackers are pulling 18 billion cubic feet of gas per day from the Marcellus shale formation in the eastern U.S., more than any other domestic shale deposit. But the U.S. pipeline system was designed only to move gas from the Gulf Coast to cities in the Northeast—not the reverse.
In order to get the gas to the Gulf Coast, where export terminals are being built to send the fuel overseas, pipelines are being re-engineered to flow south. Thousands of miles of bidirectional pipelines are slated to be online in 2017.


Opening the spigot

Among other sources, Cheniere Energy Inc. has contracts with several bidirectional pipelines to receive fracked gas from Marcellus. Cheniere won approval from U.S. regulators to export LNG in 2010, years ahead of competitors. Cheniere’s Sabine Pass terminal is currently the only operational export terminal in the lower 48 states. That’s about to change, though, as four more terminals are forecast to become operational by 2018 and at least a dozen more have been approved or are pending certification.
 
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New York’s nuclear subsidy attracts New Jersey attention

PSEG chairman and CEO Ralph Izzo (AP photo by Mel Evans )

David Giambusso reports for Politico:


New York’s gargantuan nuclear subsidy is attracting the attention of utility leaders and policy advocates across the river in New Jersey.


Ralph Izzo, the chairman and CEO of PSEG, New Jersey’s largest utility which owns much of the nuclear generation in the state, laid out his vision in June for zero emission credits for nuclear power to keep it competitive with natural gas while also crediting it for not emitting greenhouse gases. Shortly after, New York announced it would give upstate reactors $1 billion in ZEC’s over two years to keep struggling upstate plants afloat.


In an interview with POLITICO New Jersey, former New Jersey governor and administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Christine Todd Whitman said New Jersey should consider doing the same.


“Our Board of Public Utilities is looking very closely at the New York model and the potential for adopting it,” said Whitman, who now works for the pro nuclear group, the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. “When you think about the outsize role that nuclear plays in clean air … it’s a huge part of it.”


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Lost in Fla. 3 years ago, pet dog found in Paterson, NJ


Katie Sobko reports this heartwarmer for NorthJersey.com.

“Bill Gerstein let his Maltese Pomeranian mix out that day near his law office in Florida as he did most days. He turned his back to answer a phone call, and when he remembered to go out and check on Bella, she was gone.

“Nearly three years later, they were reunited more than 1,200 miles from home at the Paterson Animal Shelter. The dog wound up back in her owner’s arms Tuesday thanks to a microchip.”

To read the full story (and who could resist?) click here


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