Christie income tax decision will spoil Labor Day cookouts for thousands on both the NJ and PA sides of the Delaware


Dave Foster reports in the Trentonian:

In a decision that will most likely send shivers up the spines of many Pennsylvania residents working in New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie has decided Friday to end the reciprocal tax agreement with his neighbor.
“Today’s action was made necessary by the legislature irresponsibly creating a $250 million state budget hole in June,” the Republican governor said in a statement. “They assumed public employee health insurance savings but did not give me the tools to make those savings real. I will not raise state taxes, cut property tax relief, reduce aid to education or our hospitals, or reduce the state’s record pension payment to cover for this blunder by the legislature.”
New Jersey Treasury informed Pennsylvania of the decision on Friday to end the agreement that has been in place since 1977.
What it means, come Jan. 1, many Pennsylvania residents working in New Jersey will end up paying more in income tax.
Currently, Pennsylvanians who work in New Jersey pay income taxes in their home state and vice versa for New Jersey residents.
With Christie’s decision, Pennsylvania employees working in New Jersey would have to pay the Garden State’s income tax rate, which fluctuates between 5.525 percent to 8.97 percent for those earning more than $40,000. Pennsylvania’s income tax is a steady 3.07 percent.
Christie’s stance will also hit low-income New Jersey residents working in Pennsylvania. Since New Jersey’s rates are lower than Pennsylvania’s at 1.75 percent for income from $20,000 to $35,000, the taxpayer would get a credit for taxes paid at home but then pay some fraction to Pennsylvania.
Assembly Majority Leader Louis Greenwald (D-Camden/Burlington) said Friday he was “extremely disappointed” with the governor’s decision.
“Ending this agreement will cost South Jersey residents working in Philadelphia, hurting families and raising taxes on hardworking individuals,” Greenwald said. “The governor’s decision to focus on turning a quick buck instead of finding sustainable solutions to our budget problems continues to hurt our state and our residents. New Jersey’s already high cost of living already causes residents to flee our state, it makes no sense to needlessly raise taxes on working families.”
In an attempt to sway Christie, Pennsylvania State Rep. Steve Santarsiero (D-Bucks) dropped off 3,516 petitions to the governor’s office on Wednesday afternoon urging Christie to keep in place New Jersey and Pennsylvania’s income tax agreement.
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Global warming already taking a toll on U.S. coastal cities



Scientists’ warnings that the rise of the sea would eventually
imperil the United States’ coastline are no longer theoretical.

Justin Gillis reports today for The New York Times:

NORFOLK, Va. — Huge vertical rulers are sprouting beside low spots in the streets here, so people can judge if the tidal floods that increasingly inundate their roads are too deep to drive through. 

Five hundred miles down the Atlantic Coast, the only road to Tybee Island, Ga., is disappearing beneath the sea several times a year, cutting the town off from the mainland.

And another 500 miles on, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., increased tidal flooding is forcing the city to spend millions fixing battered roads and drains — and, at times, to send out giant vacuum trucks to suck saltwater off the streets.


GRAPHIC

A Sharp Increase In “Sunny Day” Flooding

Global warming and rising seas are increasing the amount of tidal flooding on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.






For decades, as the global warming created by human emissions caused land ice to melt and ocean water to expand, scientists warned that the accelerating rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States’ coastline. 


Now, those warnings are no longer theoretical: The inundation of the coast has begun. The sea has crept up to the point that a high tide and a brisk wind are all it takes to send water pouring into streets and homes.

Federal scientists have documented a sharp jump in this nuisance flooding — often called “sunny-day flooding” — along both the East Coast and the Gulf Coast in recent years. 


The sea is now so near the brim in many places that they believe the problem is likely to worsen quickly. Shifts in the Pacific Ocean mean that the West Coast, partly spared over the past two decades, may be hit hard, too.

These tidal floods are often just a foot or two deep, but they can stop traffic, swamp basements, damage cars, kill lawns and forests, and poison wells with salt. Moreover, the high seas interfere with the drainage of storm water.

In coastal regions, that compounds the damage from the increasingly heavy rains plaguing the country, like those that recently caused extensive flooding in Louisiana. Scientists say these rains are also a consequence of human greenhouse emissions.

“Once impacts become noticeable, they’re going to be upon you quickly,” said William V. Sweet, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Silver Spring, Md., who is among the leaders in research on coastal inundation. “It’s not a hundred years off — it’s now.”

See the full story here

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On the Road With EnviroPolitics – Day 3



A bridge that once carried freight trains over the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, NY
(then a bustling industrial town) today carries joggers, walkers, baby-carriage-pushers and thousands of tourists looking for a dramatic view of the river.

Our editor continues his late-summer road trip up the Hudson with eastward moves ahead.

Previously: 


On the Road with EnviroPolitics – Day 2 
On the Road With EnviroPolitics – Day 1  

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NJ Open Space advocates see $70M for projects in 2017

Senator Bob Smith, D-Middlesex, talks during a State House news conference in Trenton on Wednesday about the passage of the Preserve New Jersey Act, which specifies how Open Space funds approved by voters in 2014 are to be distributed.

Open Space advocates say they expect about $70 million will be available next year for green and blue acres projects plus historic and farmland preservation under a bill signed into law in June by Governor Christie.

John C. Ensslin of the Record’s State House Bureau reports:

 The advocates gathered with lawmakers at the State House Wednesday to celebrate passage of the “Preserve New Jersey Act” which specifies how open space revenues approved by the voters in a 2014 constitutional amendment should be divided up.
“It also does something incredibly important by removing us from the boom and bust cycle that we’ve seen for so many years…and allows us to have regular, reliable and transparent funding,” said Kelly Mooij, coordinator of Keep It Green, a coalition of groups that pushed for the legislation.
A constitutional amendment was approved by the voters in 2014 that set aside four percent of the state’s corporate business tax revenue for open space purposes, but there were disputes over how the money should be spent.
Mooij said that under the bill about $70.8 million that will go to the Garden State Preservation Trust in 2017.
Of that amount, 60 percent or about $42.5 million will go toward Green Acres projects such as acquiring and developing open space. Another 31 percent or about $21.9 million will go toward farmland preservation and stewardship programs.
Five percent or about $3.5 million will go toward historic preservation while four percent or about $2.8 million will for blue acres projects in which flood prone buildings are purchased, demolished and turned back into open space.
The bill was a last minute compromise reached just as the Senate was prepared to override Christie’s earlier conditional veto of the measure.
Instead both the Senate and Assembly approved a revised bill that included the Blue Acres funding on June 27 and Christie signed it three days later.
The prime sponsor of the bill, Sen. Bob Smith, D-Middlesex, said the law represents an important moment in the push for open space in New Jersey.
“I hope everybody realizes the really historic nature of this,” Smith said. “A stable source of funding for open space has been the holy grail of the environmental movement in New Jersey for the past 10 years.”
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On the Road With EnviroPolitics – Day 2

Today we visit Tarrytown, NY, made famous by early American writer Washington Irving, and get a look at how construction of the new Tappan Zee Bridge is coming along.

Next stop: Beacon, NY, where folk singer and environmentalist Pete Seeger lived and sailed the Hudson River, calling public attention to its pollution. Did you know that legendary Notre Dame University basketball coach Digger Phelps coached junior varsity basketball in Beacon? We didn’t until we visited the town.

Final stop on Day 2: Peekskill, NY, where a nuclear power plant is leaking radioactive material into the Hudson but another environmental story is making bigger headlines.

Previously:
On the Road with EnviroPolitics – Day 1

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On the Road with EnviroPolitics – Day 1

As summer dwindles down, and the news-flow dwindles with it, we offer something a bit different.

Editor Frank Brill is headed north, by trusty 188,000-mile SUV, and will be reporting on sights and conversations with an environmental and political flavor. At least, that’s the plan.
Catch Frank’s takeoff video below.
We will continue to publish our daily EnvirPolitics paid-subscription news editions this week but will take a one-week break starting next Monday.

Enjoy!

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