Legislation calls for 80% non-fossil energy for NJ by 2050

**Updated at 4:20 p.m. to add NJ Spotlight story. See ‘Related’ below**


Eighty percent of all electricity sold in New Jersey would have to come from renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power if a bill that cleared a Senate committee Monday becomes law.

John C. Ensslin of The Record reports today:

The measure mandates that starting with 11 percent by 2017, the percentage of renewable energy increases 10 percent every five years until it reaches 80 percent, a schedule the bill’s sponsor Sen. Bob Smith called “pretty aggressive” but not when compared to what other states are doing.

“New Jersey needs to be a leader in renewable energy because we are so impacted by global climate,” Smith, D-Middlesex, said shortly after the Senate Environment and Energy Committee he chairs voted unanimously to refer the bill for a vote by the full Senate.

“The truth is that renewables are becoming cheaper and cheaper,” Smith added. “It’s good public policy. It’s good for the rate payers. It’s good for our health and it helps reduce global climate change.”

Critics of the measure, however, predicted the bill would drive up already high bills by forcing utilities to buy more costly wind and solar power rather than rely on coal or natural gas and a free-market approach.


Related: 
NJ Spotlight provides an intro to the bill, S-1707 
NJ Spotlight’s Tom Johnson covers the hearing 



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Forced e-mail disclosure provides glimpse at high-level reaction to GWB scandal; Wildstein seen a PA ‘cancer’

New York’s top appointee to the Port Authority and his chief of staff went to great lengths to investigate, control and limit damage from the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal, according to a trove of emails released in response to a lawsuit filed by The Record.

An in-depth look at the scandal over the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge and related aftershocks. Click here to launch.
In a story published on February 27 and updated on February 28, Record reporter Paul Berger writes:

David Garten, working on behalf of Port Authority Vice Chairman Scott Rechler, probed the New Jersey side of the agency, reviewed emails before they were turned over to a legislative committee investigating the lane closures, and provided talking points to the agency’s executive director, Pat Foye, ahead of Foye’s testimony before that committee.

“We were trying to do our best to navigate trying times while still ensuring the agency could accomplish its mission for the public,” Rechler told The Record on Friday. “We didn’t want the agency to be paralyzed while this was going on.”

The emails show the deep divide between commissioners and employees appointed by the governors of New Jersey and New York.

As early as Sept. 18, 2013, five days after the lane closures were reversed, Garten wrote to Rechler that he was concerned about the influence of David Wildstein, an aide to Governor Christie at the agency who was at the heart of the lane-closure scandal. In particular, he was concerned about Wildstein’s influence over Brian Simon, a New York appointee who was then the agency’s director of government and community relations.

“The NJ side knows he’s weak and he’s not in the loop and they use him to plant seeds against us,” Garten wrote about Simon.

The following day, Rechler responded that Wildstein had to be neutralized as quickly as possible.

“His power base seems to be expanding and his actions are getting more and more outrageous,” Rechler wrote. “We need to move quickly to expose him but we also need to make sure that our first shot is powerful because he is not going to go down easily.”

Simon, who now works in the private sector, did not respond to a request for comment, and Garten declined to comment.

Rechler said: “It was my view that David Wildstein was a cancer to the agency and really his presence struck a sense of fear into many of the staff members and created a lot of dysfunctionality.”

Wildstein, who resigned from the Port Authority three months after the scandal broke, did not respond to a request for comment. He pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to close two of three access lanes to the bridge to punish the mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing Christie’s 2013 reelection bid. The closures caused debilitating traffic jams in Fort Lee over five mornings and the resulting scandal plagued Christie’s failed presidential campaign.

Two Christie associates, his former deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, and the Port Authority’s former deputy executive director, Bill Baroni, are due to stand trial in May for their alleged roles in the conspiracy.

Rechler’s and Garten’s emails were released late Thursday in response to a lawsuit filed last month by North Jersey Media Group. The suit contends the Port Authority violated public records laws by denying two freedom of information requests late last year.

In response to the suit, the Port Authority released almost 900 pages, many of which were redacted in total or in part, while withholding other documents. Jennifer Borg, general counsel for North Jersey Media Group, said Friday: “We are reviewing the documents that the Port Authority provided to us last night as well as the index it provided explaining why certain material was redacted and why other records were not produced at all.”

Borg added: “The fact that records were provided only the day before the authority’s court deadline shows how the lawsuit was the catalyst for the production of records.”





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Enviro bills doing the Jersey jump on Leap Year Monday




Two New Jersey Senate committees are taking advantage of the Leap Year to schedule hearings on Monday,
February 29.




Here are their agendas:                                     


SENATE ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY                  
10 AM
Aide: (609) 847-3855
Committee Room 10, 3rd Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ
For consideration:

S-166  Bateman, C. (R-16); Doherty, M.J. (R-23)

Establishes Hunterdon-Somerset Flood Advisory Task
Force.
      
S-311  Van Drew, J. (D-1); Kyrillos, J.M. (R-13)
Increases amount annually credited to Shore Protection
Fund to $50 million.
Related Bill: A-2954
      
S-762  Smith, B. (D-17); Bateman, C. (R-16)
Authorizes creation of stormwater utilities for certain
local government entities.
     Feb 29, 2016   – Posted: Senate Environment
and Energy
For discussion only:
S-771  Smith, B. (D-17); Bateman, C. (R-16)
Requires large food waste generators to separate and
recycle food waste and amends definition of “Class I renewable
energy.”
     
_________________________________________________________________________ 
SENATE BUDGET AND APPROPRIATIONS
1 PM
Aide: (609) 847-3835
Committee Room 4, 1st Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ
The Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee will hold a public
hearing on SCR-1 (1R) immediately following the committee meeting.
For consideration:
S-969  Smith, B. (D-17); Bateman, C. (R-16)
Implements 2014 constitutional dedication of CBT
revenues for certain environmental purposes; revises State’s open space,
farmland, and historic preservation programs.

     
________________________________________________________________________


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On Ringwood, NJ, Superfund site, did the EPA fail again?



In an editorial today, The
Record ripped the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the latest in a
series of public relations embarrassments related to withheld or delayed public
notice of contamination findings at a Superfund site in Ringwood, NJ.
On February 22, Record reporter Scott Fallon disclosed that:
A chemical that is likely to cause cancer has been discovered at almost 100
times the state standard in the groundwater of the Superfund site in Ringwood
where Ford Motor Co. dumped tons of toxic paint sludge decades ago.

The chemical — 1,4-dioxane — had not been identified before at the highly
polluted site. It was found deep under the Peters Mine area by engineers for
Ford, according to documents obtained by The Record.

Its discovery is one of the reasons more test wells are being dug this month to
assess whether that chemical or others are migrating from the site, which sits
above the Wanaque Reservoir, a drinking source for 3 million people.


U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials, who are overseeing the work,
didn’t mention the chemical when asked about the new test wells two weeks ago.
They said the wells were to be drilled to “assess benzene contamination” — one
of the more widely found pollutants at the site — along with other chemicals
that the agency didn’t name.

A spokesman said at the time the EPA team assigned to Ringwood would share
specific information at a public meeting scheduled for March 1.

From
today’s editorial:
WHEN IT
comes to the Ringwood Superfund site and the federal response to what has been
a decades-long environmental nightmare for local residents, trust has been all
but eroded. This week those residents were once more forced to wrap their heads
around an instance where they were misled, or not given relevant information in
a timely manner, about toxic chemicals in their midst.
As Staff Writer Scott Fallon reported, environmental regulators
knew three months ago that a chemical that likely causes cancer was found for
the first time at the Superfund site. The chemical — 1,4-dioxane — was
discovered in late November at almost 100 times the state standard in the
groundwater of the Superfund site where Ford Motor Co. dumped tons of toxic
paint sludge decades ago.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “should have
called an emergency meeting,” said Vincent Mann, chief of the Ramapough
Turtle Clan, a Native American tribe that has made the mountain its home for at
least 200 years. “I keep saying it over and over and over again, they are
leaving the human element out of the management of this site.”
EPA officials elected not to inform residents
of the finding immediately, they said, because they do not consider the amount
of the toxic solvent discovered to be an imminent health threat. Even if you
take that explanation at face value, federal officials might have considered
total transparency to be good policy, considering that the people who live in
and around Upper Ringwood have been dealing with this contamination crisis for
50 years, and have been misled many times before. 



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LCV cites NJ’s best and worst in Congress on green issues

** Updated to include score for NJ Congressman Donald M. Payne**

The New Jersey League of Conservation Voters today gave the highest score (100 percent) to four members of the state’s congressional delegation for their 2015 voting records on environmental issues, while lambasting the lowest-scoring for being “complicit in extreme attacks on important environmental laws and more recent progress to protect our air, water, public lands, and wildlife.”

“Despite last year being the hottest year on record, members like Congressmen (Scott) Garrett and (Rodney) Frelinghuysen put polluters’ agenda ahead of the health of New Jerseyans, safeguarding the environment, and climate action,” said New Jersey LCV Executive Director Ed Potosnak. 


“Fortunately, New Jersey’s strongest environmental allies like Senators (Bob) Menendez and (Cory) Booker and Congress Members (Frank) Pallone and (Bonnie) Watson Coleman consistently stood up to these radical attacks,” Potosnak added.



The New Jersey scores were part of the national League of Conservation Voters (LCV) 2015 National Environmental Scorecard for the first session of the 114th Congress.
The LCV said it included “the most votes ever scored and reveals the most anti-environmental Congress in our history.” 

“Both chambers seemingly left no environmental issue untouched in 2015, with assaults on the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Antiquities Act,” the organization said in its report. 
“It includes 35 House votes, which ties the record for the most votes scored in the House for the fourth time in five years, and 25 votes in the Senate, the second highest number ever included.”
“The good news,” according to the LCV, is that the Scorecard also includes “many votes led by environmental allies who stood up for climate change science, clean energy, public lands, and wildlife protections, among other issues. Thanks to President Obama and environmental champions in Congress, virtually all of the legislative attacks on the environment and public health were defeated.”

In New Jersey, 7 House members and both Senators earned a score of 91 percent or greater on the 2015 Scorecard, while 4 House members earned “an abysmal score” of 11 percent or less. The average House score in 2015 for New Jersey was 52 percent and the average Senate score was 100 percent.   (See map for scores of all delegations)


Scores of the New Jersey Delegation
Senate:
Senator Menendez, 100%
Senator Booker, 100%
House:
Congressman Frelighuysen, 3%
Congressman Garrett, 3%
Congressman Lance, 11%
Congressman LoBiondo, 23%
Congressman MacArthur, 6%
Congressman Norcross, 91%
Congressman Pallone, 100%
Congressman Pascrell, 97%
Congressman Payne, 77%
Congressman Sires, 94%
Congressman Smith, C., 23%
Congresswoman Watson Coleman, 100%

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High level of cancer-causing chemical in water at NJ site


A chemical that is likely to cause cancer has been discovered at almost 100 times the state standard in the groundwater of the Superfund site in Ringwood where Ford Motor Co. dumped tons of toxic paint sludge decades ago.


Scott Fallon reports in The Record today:

The chemical — 1,4-dioxane — had not been identified before at the highly polluted site. It was found deep under the Peters Mine area by engineers for Ford, according to documents obtained by The Record.
Its discovery is one of the reasons more test wells are being dug this month to assess whether that chemical or others are migrating from the site, which sits above the Wanaque Reservoir, a drinking source for 3 million people.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials, who are overseeing the work, didn’t mention the chemical when asked about the new test wells two weeks ago. They said the wells were to be drilled to “assess benzene contamination” — one of the more widely found pollutants at the site — along with other chemicals that the agency didn’t name.

A spokesman said at the time the EPA team assigned to Ringwood would share specific information at a public meeting scheduled for March 1.


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