Here’s the latest on two major issues in Trenton




If you’re wondering what’s going on (or not) in Trenton on two big issues–Transportation Trust Fund and the state worker pension ballot question–you’ll find a good update on both below. It was sent by Tony Russo (CICNJ’s man in Trenton) to members of the Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey.
_____________________________________________________

Good morning:

Here is the latest from Trenton…….

Transportation
Trust Fund (TTF) (i.e., gasoline tax)
·       The stalemate continues over a proposed increase in the
gasoline tax.  Last week, the Senate Budget & Appropriations Committee
cleared legislation which would do the following:
  
1.     Raise the gasoline tax an additional
23 cents per gallon bringing the total per gallon to 37.5
cents (diesel tax would also increase)
2.   
Phase out the estate tax over a four year period.  Taxable
threshold in 2017 would be raised to $2 million (from $675,000)
3.   
Raise the earned income tax credit to 40% of federal benefit
4.   
Allows veterans to exempt $3,000 of personal income from
state income tax
5.   
Allows for a $250 income tax credit for those earning less
    than $100,000…called the personal motor fuel tax deduction
6.   
Increases the pension & retirement income exclusion from state income
taxes to $100,000
·       The Senate version does not include the 1% sales tax cut supported by
the Governor and Assembly in June…..Meaning the Assembly would need to
vote again on the measure and as of today no Assembly session has been
scheduled and
·      The Governor is already on record saying the measure is
“dead on arrival”.  He wants more “tax fairness” in
the bill
·       So the issue becomes whether the Senate and Assembly
have the votes to override a veto by the Governor.  The magic numbers are
27/40 votes in Senate and 54/80 votes in Assembly.  Not sure the votes are
there to override a veto
To view the Senate version of the
measure see here
Pension
Question Amendment
·        If the Senate does not act by August 8th on a resolution to add a question to November’s
ballot about mandating pension payments, the measure will be delayed for
another year
·        If the measure makes the ballot, voters will be
asked to amend our state constitution to require quarterly pension
payments
·     While CIANJ supports funding our state pension system, we do
not support amending our State Constitution to accomplish the goal. 
CIANJ believes doing so will lead to higher taxes and cuts in
services
Miscellaneous
·        The Senate cleared legislation allowing for
unemployment compensation during labor disputes. The measure now heads to
the Assembly for consideration.  CIANJ opposed the measure.  To view
the bill see here
·        On August
8, Senate Committees will focus on
higher education, the environment and hand guns.  The focus on higher ed
will be college loans while the Senate Environment & Energy Committee will
focus on regulating recycling industries.  A public hearing will be held dealing
with the issue of carrying hand guns in New Jersey.
As always, I am
available to discuss any of these matters in more detail.  Enjoy your
summer and thanks for your membership.

Anthony
Russo
Executive Vice President- Government Affairs & Communications
Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey
61 South Paramus Road
Paramus, New Jersey 07652
Phone # 201-368-2100
Fax # 201-368-3438
Cell # 908-415-4597
arusso@cianj.org www.cianj.org 



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Learning how to prevent those fracking earthquakes


Using a growing body of research –– and trial and error ––
scientists and state regulators are gradually getting closer to pinpointing the
cause of the startling increase in earthquakes near fracking operations
in the Central and Eastern U.S., and how to prevent them.
In Stateline.org, Jen
Fifield writes:
After restricting oil and natural gas operations in certain
hotspots, Oklahoma is feeling an average of about two earthquakes a day, down
from about six last summer, and Kansas is feeling about a quarter of the
tremors it once did.
The general cause,
scientists have found, is not drilling, but what happens after, when operators
dispose of wastewater that comes up naturally during oil and gas extraction.
The operators inject the wastewater into disposal wells that go thousands of
feet underground, which can increase fluid pressures and sometimes cause faults
underneath or nearby to move.
Since March 2015, Kansas
and Oklahoma have limited how much wastewater each operator in certain areas
can dispose of at a given time.
To gather more data,
Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Texas are expanding their seismic monitoring systems
this year, placing permanent stations across the states and moving temporary
stations to new hotspots. And Oklahoma and Texas hired more staff or are
contracting with scientists to study the geology of areas where earthquakes are
occurring, the details of the quakes that happen, and the oil and gas activity
that may be associated with them.
About 7 million people in
the Central and Eastern U.S. are at risk of man-made earthquakes powerful
enough to crack walls, according to a one-year United States Geological Survey
forecast released in March. The report outlined the risk from man-made
earthquakes for the first time, listing the states with the highest risk in
order as Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico and Arkansas.
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New EPA rules to protect farm worker pesticide exposure



Brenda Flanagan has the story for NJTV News in the video above,


The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday announced the first update in 24 years of rules to protect farm workers from pesticide exposure.

The announcement was made at a media event held at the Atlantic Blueberry Company in Hammonton, NJ.      


Regional EPA Administrator Judith Enck says the goal of the rules is to achieve both prosperous farms and healthy farm workers. 


The updated regulations will increase costs for farmers but larger operations like Atlantic Blueberry say they already are meeting most of what is called for in the new rules.


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Below are two videos produced by the EPA on the updated Worker Protection Standards.

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Oyster projects, like their subjects, looking to grow

At  locations along the Jersey shore, IN New York Harbor, on Chesapeake Bay and in other states, volunteer organizations have joined with university researchers and shellfish businesses to test the best ways to restore the oyster to at least a fraction of its former bounty.


Associated Press writer Wayne Parry has this update on these promising efforts:

LITTLE EGG HARBOR, N.J. – Oysters were once so abundant in New Jersey that vacationers would clamber off trains, wade into the water and pluck handfuls to roast for dinner. Their colonies piled so high that boats would sometimes run aground on them, and they were incorporated into navigation maps. Even earlier, Native American tribes would have oyster feasts on the banks of coastal inlets.
But over the centuries, rampant development, pollution, overharvesting and disease drastically reduced the number of oysters, here and around the country; many researchers and volunteer groups estimate oyster populations are down 85 per cent from their levels in the 1800s.



In this July 20, 2016, photo, Nate Robinson, a staff member at Stockton University’s marine field station, cuts open metal cages of whelk shells with tiny oysters growing on them in Little Egg Harbor, N.J. Efforts to restore once-abundant oyster populations are underway throughout the United States, and researchers and volunteers say they are optimistic the small-scale efforts will pave the way for a major comeback of oysters, whose populations have dwindled drastically from levels seen in the 1800s. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

That has sparked efforts throughout the coastal United States to establish new oyster colonies, or fortify struggling ones. Though small in scale, the efforts are numerous and growing, and they have a unified goal: showing that oysters can be successfully restored in the wild, paving the way for larger-scale efforts and the larger funding they will require.

While a main goal is increasing the numbers of succulent, salty shellfish bound for dinner plates, oysters also serve other useful purposes. They improve water quality; a single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day. They also can protect coastlines; the hard, irregular oyster beds serve as speed bumps that obstruct waves during storms.
“It’s many years and millions of dollars away, but it is attainable,” said Steve Evert, assistant director of the Marine Science and Environmental Field Station at New Jersey’s Stockton University, one of hundreds of organizations working to start or expand oyster colonies.
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Most of the projects are small-scale, funded by government grants and volunteer donations. Helen Henderson, of New Jersey’s American Littoral Society, which is growing an oyster reef in Barnegat Bay, hopes successful demonstration projects can lead to an exponential increase in funding for bigger projects.

“Nature has shown us this can be done; we’re just giving it a kick-start,” she said. “Hopefully funding will flow from that once we can show successful outcomes, and we can really make a difference on a much larger scale.”
The Barnegat Bay Partnership put up $52,000 for the oyster project Stockton is undertaking in New Jersey; matching funds came from the university, the Littoral Society, and a shellfish business that has invested many times that amount on equipment and oyster seedlings.
Fledgling oysters need to attach themselves to a hard surface in order to grow, preferably a three-dimensional one with plenty of nooks and crannies.
The projects usually involve dumping shells onto the sea bed, where free-floating oyster seed attaches to them, though some projects pre-load the shells with tiny oyster seedlings before dumping them at a reef site. Some involve transporting more mature oysters from established colonies to new sites.
Oyster restoration projects are underway or have recently been completed in San Francisco Bay; Puget Sound near Seattle; New York Harbor and the Hudson River; in coastal salt ponds in Rhode Island and the state’s Narragansett Bay; in the Carolinas, as well as Florida and the other Gulf Coast states; New Hampshire; and particularly in Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Virginia, where some of the nation’s biggest oyster restoration programs have been underway for years.

Read the full story here

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