Obama’s final green hours: Take the money and fund

From Grist:

Reuters / Carlos Barria
Obama is spending another $500 million to fight climate change before Trump can stop him.

 

The State Department announced Tuesday that it will
send the money to the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund, which helps developing nations shift to cleaner energy and adapt
to climate change.


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NJ panels take up environmental, agriculture bills – Jan 19



Action scheduled on environmental and agriculture bills
in the New Jersey Legislature on Thursday, January 19.


ASSEMBLY MILITARY AND VETERANS’ AFFAIRS
10:00 AM
Aide: (609) 847-3890
Room 13, 4th Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ
A-4454  Tucker, C.G. (D-28); Andrzejczak, B. (D-1)
Appropriates $300,000 from General Fund to New Jersey
Agricultural Experiment Station at Rutgers University.
     
_________________________________________
ASSEMBLY AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES
1:00 PM
Aide: (609) 847-3855
Room 15, 4th Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ

A-4488  Andrzejczak, B. (D-1); Taliaferro, A.J. (D-3)
Appropriates $3 million from General Fund to Dept. of
Agriculture for financial assistance to farmers whose crops have been affected
by Dickeya dianthicola disease and for related research.
      
A-4489  Andrzejczak, B. (D-1); Zwicker, A. (D-16);
Space, P. (R-24); Houghtaling, E. (D-11); Mazzeo, V. (D-2); Taliaferro, A.J.
(D-3); Dancer, R.S. (R-12)
Directs Dept. of Agriculture to develop and implement
beginning farmer mentoring program in cooperation with certain agricultural and
educational organizations and entities.
     
A-4490  Andrzejczak, B. (D-1); Zwicker, A. (D-16);
Houghtaling, E. (D-11); Taliaferro, A.J. (D-3)
Provides corporation business tax and gross income tax
credits to persons hiring beginning farmers to perform custom farming.
     
A-4491  Andrzejczak, B. (D-1); Zwicker, A. (D-16);
Houghtaling, E. (D-11); Mazzeo, V. (D-2); Taliaferro, A.J. (D-3); Dancer, R.S. (R-12)
Establishes “New Farmers Improvement Grant
Program” to provide matching grants for farm improvements to beginning
farmers.
     
A-4492  Andrzejczak, B. (D-1); Zwicker, A. (D-16);
Houghtaling, E. (D-11); Space, P. (R-24); Taliaferro, A.J. (D-3); Dancer, R.S.
(R-12)
Requires NJEDA to establish loan program to assist
beginning farmers in financing capital purchases.
     
A-4493  Andrzejczak, B. (D-1); Zwicker, A. (D-16);
Mazzeo, V. (D-2); Houghtaling, E. (D-11); Taliaferro, A.J. (D-3); Dancer, R.S.
(R-12)
Establishes Garden State Young Farmers Loan Redemption
Program in Higher Education Student Assistance Authority.
      
A-4494  Andrzejczak, B. (D-1); Zwicker, A. (D-16);
Dancer, R.S. (R-12); Houghtaling, E. (D-11); Taliaferro, A.J. (D-3)
Provides corporation business tax and gross income tax
credits to persons leasing agricultural land to beginning farmers.
     
AR-206  Mazzeo, V. (D-2); Houghtaling, E. (D-11)
Urges National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
to conduct new summer flounder assessment before implementing catch limits for
2017.
     
__________________________________________
ASSEMBLY ENVIRONMENT AND SOLID WASTE
2:00 PM
Aide: (609) 847-3855
Room 9, 3rd Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ
A-1484  McKeon, J.F. (D-27); Jasey, M.M. (D-27);
Eustace, T. (D-38)
Requires installation of operational automatic rain sensor
on lawn sprinklers as condition of sale and on lawn sprinklers on commercial,
retail or industrial property and in common interest communities within
specified time frames.
      
A-2081  Mukherji, R. (D-33); Pintor Marin, E. (D-29);
Muoio, E.M. (D-15)
Provides for priority consideration, by DCA, DEP, DOT,
and municipalities, of permit applications for green building projects.
      
A-3945  Gusciora, R. (D-15); Conaway, H. (D-7);
Chiaravalloti, N. (D-31)
Prohibits certain possession, sale, offering for sale,
trade or distribution of shark fins.
Related Bill: S-2044
     
A-4395  Schaer, G.S. (D-36)
Requires continuing identification and remediation of
waste tire sites.      
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On climate change, even forefront states are falling short

When Indian Point nuclear power plant north of New York City closes by 2021, New York State will lose almost a  quarter of its zero-carbon energy.  Credit Uli Seit for The New York Times



Eduardo Post writes for The New York Times:

Is there a more environmentally conscious state than California? It has been at the forefront of climate policy for decades — from demanding stringent fuel economy and emissions standards to wholeheartedly embracing renewable energy from the sun and wind.

It has fighting words for the incoming administration of Donald Trump. “We will not deviate from our leadership because of one election,” the State Senate leader, Kevin de Leon, told The New York Times. Last fall, the state legislature committed to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below their 1990 level by 2030. “California is doing something that no other state has done,” proclaimed Gov. Jerry Brown.

State policies were always bound to play a central role in the decarbonization of the American economy. But with a president-elect who has asserted that climate change is a Chinese hoax, promised a bright future for fossil fuels and vowed to undo President Obama’s climate strategy, their choices have become more important than ever.


And yet for all the pluck of the Golden State’s politicians, California is far from providing the leadership needed in the battle against climate change. Distracted by the competing objective of shuttering nuclear plants that still produce over a fifth of its zero-carbon power, the state risks failing the main environmental challenge of our time. 

Read the full story here

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Kim Guadagno, NJ’s #2, enters the race to become #1




Phil Gregory reports for newsworks:


The woman who’s been New Jersey’s lieutenant governor for seven years, has kicked off her campaign to replace her boss in 2018.


In her first campaign speech, Kim Guadagno told supporters Tuesday in Keansburg that she wants to be governor because she believes the state can do better.


“You want your governor to be committed to making New Jersey a place for families, who strives to do better, who answers the phone, who is there in a crisis, who walks in your shoes, who cares fearlessly and without exception about you, and only you,” she said.

If she gets the Republican nomination and is elected in November, Guadagno said, she’d cut taxes, eliminate wasteful spending, and fund schools in an equitable way.


“We need a governor who will make tough choices to bring economic stability to our state. We need a governor who will fight the Democrats’ knee-jerk reaction to raise your taxes.”


Analysts say voter dissatisfaction with Christie could negatively affect Guadagno, but believe she can be an effective campaigner.

Without mentioning him by name, she criticized Christie’s proposed $300 million Statehouse renovation plan.


“We simply do not have the money to turn the Statehouse into the Palace of Versailles,” she said.


In another contrast to Christie, Guadagno said she did not use the State Police helicopter for official travels around the state.

She expects her campaign will be hard and challenging, but told supporters she’s all in.


Guadagno faces a field of several other declared and potential Republican candidates in the June 6 primary.


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Hudson tunnel project lurches forward in New Jersey

Construction of a rail tunnel at the Hudson Yards redevelopment site. | AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews

Ryan Hutchins writes in Politico

A plan to build a new rail tunnel inking New York and New Jersey took a major step forward Thursday when the Gateway Program Development Corp. held its first public meeting, formally establishing a central clearinghouse for planning and funding the project.

The board of the new agency — a partnership between NJ Transit, Amtrak, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the U.S. Department of Transportation — will be headed by Richard Bagger, a former New Jersey state senator who served as Gov. Chris Christie’s chief of staff. Bagger is also a Port Authority commissioner.


In its first action, the board of trustees approved a resolution allowing the corporation to enter into an “emerging projects agreement” with DOT. The arrangement will allow for continued technical assistance from federal transportation officials and sets up a process by which the corporation can access federal loans.

“The emerging projects agreement will codify that work and formalize that kind of assistance — technical assistance — to move the project forward,”


John Porcari, the interim executive director of the corporation, said at the meeting in Newark. “It also, from the Gateway development perspective, lays down a marker for federal loan programs, with the explicit recognition that up to $6 billion of federal loan capacity will be needed for these projects.”

Previously, the exact amount of the loans that the corporation will be seeking had not been discussed. The Port Authority is also planning to include $2.7 billion in its 10-year capital program to support debt service.



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Opinion: Pa. bill eases the way for more toxic emissions

                                                                                                                                     Pittsburgh Post-Gazette photo

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Brian O’Neill opines:
It’s not often we see legislation that eases the way for the emission of methane and other volatile organic compounds we’d be better off not breathing, but America’s Largest Full-Time State Legislature is considering just that.
The idea is to make federal Environmental Protection Agency regulations the maximum, not the minimum, to protect oxygen-breathing life forms in Pennsylvania, a group you and your children are likely among.
The 10 Republican senators co-sponsoring the Pennsylvania bill all have been amply compensated with campaign contributions from the natural gas drilling industry, but let’s save details on that impressive cash outlay until later.
Senate Bill 1327 seeks to amend a state air pollution bill dating to 1960. The amendment would bar the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection from imposing any air pollution standards “more stringent than those promulgated’’ by the EPA. This would happen just as the new Donald Trump administration appears keen to relax those EPA restrictions.
Letting the feds provide the ceiling rather than the floor here would be a curious move for a citizenry that has this passage in the Declaration of Rights atop our Pennsylvania Constitution:
“The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.”
One can be pro-drilling, as I am, and still be baffled by how many current lawmakers seem never to have played a hand of poker. There is no need to fold to the gas industry when Pennsylvania is the heart of the largest natural gas field outside of Iran. That gives us the cards to make reasonable demands, one of which is surely this: Don’t leak so much damned methane.
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