ISIS must love Pennsylvania’s gun laws, such as they are

A gun violence memorial marking each fatality in the city in 2012.

It’s perfectly legal to buy an assault weapon in Pennsylvania with a high capacity magazine so you can blast off multiple rounds in seconds. No registration or permit is required.

In the wake of the Orlando massacre, is this likely to change? Don’t count on it. The only gun-related bill that Pennsylvania lawmakers are poised to consider is one that would weaken the state’s law governing background checks. 


ISIS must love this. They are no longer encouraging their deranged followers around the globe to travel to the middle east to sign up for jihad but, rather, to stay at home and conduct bloody attacks–not on military targets– but on crowded civilian locations.  

Ironic,isn’t it? All the flag-wavers at the National Rifle Association are now helping ISIS by blocking laws that would prevent nut jobs from arming themselves to the teeth with assault rifles and ammo.

Billy Penn has an informative rundown today on Pennsylvania’s gun laws and why Philadelphia, which suffers the greatest from gun violence, can’t do anything to tighten them. Read it here 


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Plan to cut N.J. forest land splits environmentalists

A plan to help endangered birds by cutting down dozens of acres of state forest on Sparta Mountain represents a radically different approach to land management for New Jersey — and has bitterly divided New Jersey’s major environmental groups.

James M. O’Neill reports in The Record:

The plan, developed by the New Jersey Audubon Society for the state Division of Fish and Wildlife, would clear-cut small patches of forest totaling up to 210 acres to simulate a young-growth forest in the 3,500-acre Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area in Sussex and Morris counties. An additional 185 to 465 acres would be subject to less aggressive, selective tree removal to open the forest canopy and allow more sunlight to spur quicker growth of mature trees to imitate an old-growth forest.

John Cecil, vice president for stewardship with New Jersey Audubon, showing a stand of trees near Sparta Mountain that has been cleared to help develop some younger growth forest.

TOM STEPHENSON
The tiny golden-winged warbler is losing habitat in New Jersey.

Cutting down trees to help wildlife may sound counter-intuitive, especially after decades of activism to save the spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest by protecting swaths of forest from logging.

But the point is to create more young forest with low, shrubby growth surrounded by large, mature trees — the landscape that certain at-risk species, such as the golden-winged warbler, prefer as breeding habitat.

It’s a relatively new form of public land management being used by many northern states, including New Jersey. For instance, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation worked recently with Passaic County to develop a small area of young forest for golden-winged warblers in Tranquility Ridge County Park on the Ringwood-West Milford border.

“People think we’re killing off nature, but we’re bringing life back by reinvigorating the forest,” said Sharon Petzinger, a senior zoologist with the Division of Fish and Wildlife.

John Cecil, New Jersey Audubon’s vice president for stewardship, agreed. “By diversifying the age of the forest, it will help make it more resilient to pests and disease and provide more resources for wildlife,” he said. “It’s low intensity — nothing like what a big timber company would do.”

Critics, however, say the plan has many flaws, and that using logging equipment on Sparta Mountain could harm one of the most healthy, mature forests in New Jersey. They say the trucks would compact the soil, and that the clear-cuts would cause erosion, kill off rare plant species and allow invasive species to spread.

They say it is no way to treat a vital swath of forest bought by the state in the 1990s with public Green Acres money for the purpose of preserving it. The state purchased the area in part because it is in the Highlands, a key source of drinking water for millions of New Jersey residents.

Read the full story here

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I’ll ‘I’ll f—ing kill you!’ A NJ senator’s chilling account

Both houses of N.J.+Legislature vote on a state budget
Sen. Kevin O’Toole (R-Essex) speaks during a voting session in Trenton on June, 25, 2015. (Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Star-Ledger editor and columnist Tom Moran writes today:

When you hear about death threats, the backdrop is usually a power struggle in the mob, or a really bad marriage.
As of this week, add New Jersey politics to that list.
“Did I fear my life? You bet I did,” says Sen. Kevin O’Toole. “Look, politics is a rough business. And we use colorful language in Essex County. But this really struck home.”
Pull up a chair, please. Because in nearly 30 years of covering New Jersey politics, this is the darkest story I’ve ever heard.
It was first reported by Matt Friedman at Politico Thursday morning, and is here flushed out with ugly details and quotes from all the key parties.
O’Toole (R-Essex) says the threat was made in 2005 by Paul DiGaetano, then a leading Republican assemblyman dreaming about a long-shot bid for governor. 
3 TRPAUL18 YEPELLOFormer Assemblyman Paul DiGaetano in a 2004 Star-Ledger photo. 
“He calls me in March and says ‘I’ve got see you immediately,'” O’Toole says. “He said, ‘I need the line in Essex. If I get that, I can really win this thing.”
The “line” is the endorsement of the county organization, which gets a candidate the best ballot position and a decisive advantage.
But O’Toole never liked DiGaetano. They were rivals fighting over the same sandbox. So O’Toole, sitting in his law office in Nutley, shot down DiGaetano hard, on the spot. No way.
Here’s O’Toole’s version of what happened next. Needless to say, DiGaetano denies every scrap of it:
DiGaetano, furious, made an explicit and terrifying threat.
 “You know me,” he said. “I will f…ing kill you if I don’t get this.”
“Excuse me?” O’Toole said.
“I’m going to kill you. You know the people I hang out with. You hear me? I want the f…ing line!”
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Deadline nears on NY bill to help Hoosick Falls victims

PFOA in Hoosick Falls drinking water has been traced to two local factories. (Daniel Case/Wikimedia Commons)

PFOA in Hoosick Falls drinking water has been traced to
two local factories. (Daniel Case/Wikimedia Commons)


ALBANY, N.Y. – Environmentalists are asking the state Legislature to extend the time limit facing those made ill by contaminants in the water at Hoosick Falls.

Rare and aggressive forms of cancer and thyroid disease are unusually common in Hoosick Falls. Tests have identified more than 2,000 people with high levels of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, in their blood. The chemical, used in local factories owned by Saint-Gobain and Honeywell International, is in the town’s drinking water.

Under current law, said Liz Moran, water and natural resources associate for Environmental Advocates of New York, those victims have only three years from the time they became sick to file a claim for damages.

This
story was provided by Public
News Service – NY

“They discovered that they were sick maybe many years before they even knew that their water was polluted with this contaminant that was likely causing their illnesses,” Moran said.

A bill to extend the deadline for filing a claim passed in the state Assembly by an overwhelming majority, but has stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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According to Moran, the bill, if passed, would establish a time limit to sue those responsible for the contamination that’s based on the identification of the environmental hazard rather than on the date of a medical diagnosis.

“It extends the statute of limitations for three years past designation of a Superfund site,” she said. “So those people, who now know what may have caused their personal injury, can go after Saint-Gobain and Honeywell.”

However, with the current legislative session scheduled to end next week, time to pass the bill this year is running out. Although the bill was written specifically to address the situation in Hoosick Falls, Moran said there are federal and state Superfund sites across the state.

“What this bill does is allow communities recently designated as Superfund sites, they have the opportunity to sue the polluter for personal injury,” she said.

Since the contamination was identified in Hoosick Falls, PFOA has been found in water systems in another nearby town, as well as towns in southern Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Details of the legislation, Assembly Bill A.9568A, are online at nysenate.gov.


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Farm groups fear Dow-DuPont merger will raise prices

Three agriculture advocacy groups
have urged the U.S. Office of the Attorney General to challenge the
proposed merger between DuPont and Dow because of possible antitrust
violations.
Jeff Mordock reports in The News Journal:

The
American Antitrust Institute, Food & Water Watch and the National Farmers
Union last week sent a letter to U.S. Principal Deputy Attorney
General Renata Hess. The three groups alleged the merger would consolidate
an already shrinking industry, diminishing innovation, raise prices and reduce
choices for farmers and consumers.

“AAI,
F&WW and NFU believe that additional merger activity, including Dow-DuPont,
could harm innovation competition in two fundamental ways: by eliminating
head-to-head competition in important parallel-path R&D and by reducing the
field of rivals needed for pro-competitive stacking,” the organizations
wrote.
DuPont
spokesman Dan Turner said the company expects regulators will thoroughly review
the deal because of its size and complexity.

Read the full story here

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Ag, Energy and Enviro bills in committee today in Trenton

Below are the agendas for three committees taking up Agriculture, Energy and Environment bills today in the New Jersey Legislature.


Interested in following the discussions? You can listen live or following the meetings via the state legislature’s website.

NOTE: Access to the hearings is only available via Internet Explorer. The Chrome or Microsoft Edge browsers won’t get you there. We don’t know about Apple’s Safari. We’re Windows watchers. Let us know if it works for you.

SENATE ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

10:00 AM
Committee Room 10, 3rd Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ
For consideration:
S-909  Rice, R.L. (D-28)
Exempts person who remediates property in environmental
opportunity zone from remediation funding source requirement.
Related Bill: A-2688
     
S-2276  Smith, B. (D-17); Bateman, C. (R-16)
Establishes NJ Solar Energy Study Commission and
modifies State’s solar renewable energy portfolio standards.
    
S-2287  Bateman, C. (R-16); Smith, B. (D-17)
Changes submission and notice requirements for
short-term and long-term financing for environmental infrastructure projects.
      
 S-2292  Greenstein, L.R. (D-14); Kyrillos, J.M.
(R-13)
Authorizes New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure
Trust to expend certain sums to make loans for environmental infrastructure
projects for FY2017.
      
S-2293  Whelan, J. (D-2); Gordon, R.M. (D-38)
Appropriates funds to DEP for environmental
infrastructure projects for FY2017.
      
SCR-109  Smith, B. (D-17)
Approves FY 2017 Financial Plan of NJ Environmental
Infrastructure Trust.
     
For discussion only:
SCR-66  Lesniak, R.J. (D-20); Smith, B. (D-17)
Prohibits adoption of DEP’s proposed rules and
regulations to revise its Flood Hazard Area Control Act Rules, Coastal Zone
Management Rules, and Stormwater Management Rules.
Related Bill: ACR-160

     


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___________________________________________________________________________


ASSEMBLY AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES
Committee Room 15, 4th Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ
For consideration:
A-2426  McGuckin, G.P. (R-10); Wolfe, D.W. (R-10);
Vainieri Huttle, V. (D-37); Taliaferro, A.J. (D-3); Benson, D.R. (D-14)
Regulates tethering and confinement of, and proper
shelter for, dogs.
Related Bill: S-1013
A-3052  Andrzejczak, B. (D-1); Space, P. (R-24);
Taliaferro, A.J. (D-3); Dancer, R.S. (R-12)
Establishes Dept. of Agriculture cooking contest.
A-3053  Houghtaling, E. (D-11); Dancer, R.S. (R-12);
Andrzejczak, B. (D-1); Space, P. (R-24); Taliaferro, A.J. (D-3)
Directs the Div. of Travel and Tourism to publish on
its website information of farm-to-table restaurants.
A-3054  Dancer, R.S. (R-12); Andrzejczak, B. (D-1);
Houghtaling, E. (D-11); Space, P. (R-24); Taliaferro, A.J. (D-3)
Establishes NJ “Farm to Restaurant” awards
program.
     Jun 6, 2016    – Posted: Assembly
Agriculture and Natural Resources
A-3125  Dancer, R.S. (R-12)
Establishes New Jersey Eco-Ag Tourism Council.
A-3152  Andrzejczak, B. (D-1); Land, R.B. (D-1)
Establishes failure to provide certain specific
protections from weather and during emergencies for domestic companion animals
as animal cruelty.
Related Bill: S-1640
A-3154  Andrzejczak, B. (D-1); Land, R.B. (D-1)
Establishes cruelly restraining a dog as a criminal and
civil animal cruelty offense.
Related Bill: S-1642
A-3283  Dancer, R.S. (R-12)
Implements reporting requirements for agricultural
tourism pilot program; creates task force.
     Jun 6, 2016    – Posted: Assembly
Agriculture and Natural Resources
A-3682  Kennedy, J.J. (D-22)
Permits animal facilities to use artificial turf in
outdoor enclosures.
Related Bill: S-2080
      
A-3732  Space, P. (R-24); Andrzejczak, B. (D-1)
Directs Dept. of Agriculture to authorize and advise
food hubs.
AJR-98  Space, P. (R-24); Taliaferro, A.J. (D-3)
Designates June of each year as “Native Plant
Appreciation Month.”

______________________________________________________________________

ASSEMBLY ENVIRONMENT AND SOLID WASTE

2:00 PM
Committee Room 9, 3rd Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ
For consideration:
A-1826  Conaway, H. (D-7); Singleton, T. (D-7);
Spencer, L.G. (D-29); McKeon, J.F. (D-27)
Authorizes Drinking Water Quality Institute to study
and recommend maximum contaminant level for 1,2,3-trichloropropane to DEP.
A-1954  Coughlin, C.J. (D-19); Benson, D.R. (D-14);
Spencer, L.G. (D-29)
Makes changes to funding provisions for financial
assistance and grants from Hazardous Discharge Site Remediation Fund.
Related Bill: S-1237
A-2417  Eustace, T. (D-38); Zwicker, A. (D-16);
McKeon, J.F. (D-27)
Requires large food waste generators to separate and
recycle food waste and amends definition of “Class I renewable
energy.”
Related Bill: S-771

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