Energy, environment bills sent to NJ Gov. Christie’s desk


As New Jersey’s current, two-year legislative session draws to a close, there has been a rush to pass bills and send them on to Governor Chris Christie for what sponsors hope will be his signature.


Energy and environment bills receiving final legislative approval on Thursday, January 7 included:

A-4763  Pinkin, N.J. (D-18); Smith, B. (D-17);
Bateman, C. (R-16)
Revises “Electronic Waste Management Act.”
     Jan 7, 2016     – Posted: Senate
     Jan 7, 2016     – Substituted for another
bill: S2973
     Jan 7, 2016     – Passed by the Senate
(30-7)
     Jan 7, 2016     – Passed by both Houses
(Sent to the Governor)

S-1414  Smith, B. (D-17); Bateman, C. (R-16);
Eustace, T. (D-38)

Concerns low emission and zero emission vehicles;
establishes Clean Vehicle Task Force.
     Jan 7, 2016     – Posted: Senate
     Jan 7, 2016     – Passed by the Senate
(23-14)
     Jan 7, 2016     – Passed by both Houses
(Sent to the Governor)

S-2491  Smith, B. (D-17); Danielsen, J. (D-17);
Pinkin, N.J. (D-18)  

Establishes position of State Oceanographer.
     Jan 7, 2016     – Posted: Senate
     Jan 7, 2016     – Passed by the Senate
(38-0)

     Jan 7, 2016     – Passed by both Houses
(Sent to the Governor)


S-2711  Smith, B. (D-17); Whelan, J. (D-2); Mazzeo,
V. (D-2); DeAngelo, W.P. (D-14) 
Permits BPU to approve qualified wind energy project;
requires BPU to provide application periods for those projects.
     Jan 7, 2016     – Posted: Senate
     Jan 7, 2016     – Passed by the Senate
(29-8)
     Jan 7, 2016     – Passed by both Houses
(Sent to the Governor)

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Trenton rushing to restore DEP waterfront access rules

Beach  restoration project at the Jersey Shore – NJ Advance Media
It is not often that the
Democrat-controlled New Jersey Legislature and Republican Gov. Chris Christie‘s
Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) work harmoniously (and
expeditiously) to address an environmental issue, but Jersey beaches are special. 
On Thursday, none other than
the DEP’s top dog, Bob Martin, was appearing before the Senate Environment
Committee, asking for immediate action on just-introduced legislation that
would restore DEP public beach access rules that had been invalidated by a
state appeals court. The regulatory void is of particular concern since it may jeopardize federal funding for ongoing and time-sensitive, beach restoration projects.
The legislature is responding by fast-tracking a bill to fix the problem. Following the commissioner’s testimony, the
committee released S-3321.
The measure  is expected to receive Senate and Assembly approval on Monday (at the
Legislature’s final voting session of the current term) and be sent to Gov.
Christie for his signature.
Historically, the DEP
Commissioner, assistant commissioners, or department liaisons made frequent
appearances before the Senate and Assembly environmental committees to argue
their positions on a wide variety of bills. That all came to a screeching halt when
Christie became governor.
Since then, the committees have been treated as irrelevant if not
nonexistent by the DEP and the front office. The obvious but never-admitted
cold shoulder often leaves Senate committee chairman Bob Smith to publicly
bemoan: “Where’s the DEP on this bill? We’d sure like to know. Can someone
ask them to call or send a letter?” 
  
Following the committee
action, the Associated Press’s Wayne Parry reported:
Martin said after the
hearing that passage of the law would reinstate the same rules that were in
place before the court struck them down. Those rules were hotly contested by
environmental and coastal access groups who complained that they did not go far
enough to protect the public’s right to reach the water.
The
rules leave it up to individual municipalities to decide what level of public
access is suitable. Rules generated by former governor Jon Corzine, a Democrat, imposed
uniform access requirements along the shoreline, including access points every
quarter mile.

When Republican Gov. Chris Christie succeeded Corzine, the DEP rewrote the
rules to give communities more latitude in granting beach access. Martin said
those rules will remain the same, at least for now.

“We’re happy with the rules we have in place,” he said. “They’ve
worked extremely well.”

Jeff
Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, disagreed, saying the DEP could
do far more to enforce the Public Trust Doctrine, a legal concept dating to the
Roman Empire holding that the state’s waterways are owned by and reserved for
the use of the public.

“By rolling back beach access protections, the Christie administration
actually got rid of protections,” he said. “Their bad rules were
struck down by the court, and now we have none in place. Now we need the
legislature to fix that and come up with standards that will ensure the Public
Trust Doctrine gets implemented.”

Sen. Smith said he expects to appoint a committee later this year to
consider changes to the state’s beach access rules. But he said that would not
happen under the current bill.



Related:
Bill to give DEP authority over waterfront access clears committee
NJ court strikes down beach access rules, so what now?








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Nominees before NJ Senate Judiciary panel tomorrow

The following three individuals were added today to the list of gubernatorial nominees to be reviewed and voted on tomorrow by the NJ Senate Judiciary Committee.   


The following nomination has been ADDED and will be interviewed:
TO BE A MEMBER OF THE DELAWARE RIVER AND BAY AUTHORITY:
James Bennett, of Sea Isle City, to replace the Honorable Richard S. Mroz, resigned, for the term prescribed by law.
The following nominations have been ADDED and will be considered:
TO BE A MEMBER OF THE STATE AGRICULTURE DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE:
Walter Scott Ellis, of Hamilton, to replace Torrey Reade, resigned, for the term prescribed by law.
TO BE A MEMBER OF THE WATER SUPPLY ADVISORY COUNCIL:
David R. Specca, of Bordentown, to replace Steven R. Jany, resigned, for the term prescribed by law.

The committee will meet at 12:30 p.m. in Committee Room 6, 1st Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, New Jersey.






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Age-old recycling question: What goes in, what stays out?


“First time I’ve seen one of these,” said Jerome Sheehan, Burlington County’s director of solid waste management, of the nonrecyclable toilet seat he sorted.

     “First time I’ve seen one of these,” said Jerome Sheehan, Burlington County’s director of solid waste management,
      of the  non-recyclable toilet seat he sorted. CLEM MURRAY / Staff Photographer



















Let’s be honest.  Are you really sure that
all the items you’re putting into your recycling can belong there?  What
is recyclable, what is trash?|

To a large extent, the answer starts with where you
live or work. Are you in a town where residents and businesses are still
required to put out one curb container for newspaper and a second for bottles
and cans?

Or are you in Burlington
County, NJ where residents put all their ‘recyclables’ into one can and
workers at a recycling plant pluck the ineligible items from a fast moving
conveyor belt?

And even if you enjoy the luxury of such a ‘single-stream’
system, are you sure that the types of plastics or paper that you’re chucking
into the recycling can really belong there?

This month marks the
first anniversary of Burlington county’s conversion to a single-stream operation at its Robert C. Shinn Recycling Center in Westampton.


Philadelphia Inquirer
staffer David O’Reilly visited to see how things are going and found a
quiet-seeming brick building “where white trucks arrive each weekday to deliver
350,000 pounds of recyclable material – and some that is not…”

Inside, he discovered
“a roaring steel behemoth of conveyor belts and sorting equipment bearing names
such as “scalping screen,” “glass trommel,” “drum
magnet,” and “air drum separator” sorts a seething river of
refuse into wrapped bales of reusable material.”

He also learned a bit or two about what is truly recyclable
and what is not—at least in Burlington County, NJ.

See what Reilly learned here






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New Jersey law firm briefs – Jan. 5 2016

Philip McGovern
Connell Foley announced longtime real estate and commercial transactions partner Philip McGovern has been elected the law firm’s managing partner.
McGovern succeeds Michael McBride, who served in the role from 2010 through 2015, in accordance with the Roseland, NJ-based firm’s designated permissible terms.
See the full story in NJBIZ 
__________________________________________________________
Cole Schotz moves its New York City office

19th Floor, Avenue of the Americas, New York City

 _________________________________________________________





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New Jersey counties, municipalities reap what they recycle

Did you know that every time a load of garbage is dumped at a New Jersey landfill or waste-to-energy plant a portion of the tipping fee collected goes to help enhance local recycling programs?

How does it work?

State law requires that money to go into a fund that is distributed annually in recycling grants to counties and municipalities based on how much recycling they do. So the more attention you pay as an individual, family or business to removing recyclable materials from your garbage, the more your town stands to collect.


If your collection system is ‘single stream,’ you don’t have to separate recyclable paper, cans, certain plastics and glass from your garbage. It’s done for you at a separation plant. 


Reports sent by towns and recycling businesses on how much recycling they do in a given year gets collected at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The Department then calculates how much each participating governmental unit will be awarded in recycling grants.

2015 Recycling Grants, announced last week, are based on 2013 activity.


The big winners
According to a DEP news release, municipal programs receiving the highest grant awards for 2013 recycling efforts are: 

Newark (Essex County) $414,754  
Jersey City (Hudson County) $290,150
Brick (Ocean County) $280,093
Vineland (Cumberland County) $255,217
Secaucus (Hudson County) $228,216
Paterson (Passaic County) $219,495
South Brunswick (Middlesex County) $179,776


Toms River (Ocean County) $174,524
North Bergen (Hudson County) $172,451
Woodbridge (Middlesex County) $167,846
Clifton (Passaic County) $166,856
Hamilton (Mercer County) $144,115
Cherry Hill (Camden County) $139.961
Middletown (Monmouth County) $118,916
Bridgewater (Somerset County) $114,698
Old Bridge (Middlesex County) $114,045
Carteret (Middlesex County) $108,392
Logan (Gloucester County)  $106,705
Fair Lawn (Bergen County) $103,437
East Brunswick (Middlesex County) $102,397
Paramus (Bergen County) $101,810;  and 
Freehold (Monmouth County) $100,741.


State law prohibits recyclable materials from being land-filled or burned. The law does not only apply to residents. Businesses and schools also must recycle, although some still do not and local governments might turn a blind eye. If your school district or shops that you patronize are not recycling, inform them of their obligation and encourage them to get with the program. 




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