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Liberal Engagement and Liberal Denial

The Epitome of The Death Of The Liberal Class 

I spent the weekend at a surprisingly wonderful event: the Tucson Festival of Books. Don’t you just love that Coyote logo? (ignore the pink background!)

There was a huge turnout at the University of Arizona campus, with many good writers, great panel topics, and even national outlets like NPR and CSPAN book TV.

They did a great job of attracting serious writers, many readers, panelist pundits, and science exhibits, with plenty of food, dance, music and fun interactive stuff for the kids. Bravo!

But, aside from the fact that there were only a handful of people at the panels I attended that were under 60 years old, at an intellectual level, all was not so well (and I won’t even get into the discussion during the panel “Art, Resistance, and Survival” – I left after the acceptance of the need for “trigger warnings”.)

I went to the first panel discussion, Saturday morning at 10 am in a place called Science City, titled, “Storm & Stress: Our Changing Climate and the Human Ecology

Authors and panelists spoke about the implications of climate change, Colorado basin water resources, and immigration issues.

I’ve been experiencing all of these issue daily and writing EXACTLY about them here recently, including

• They Policed Paradise and Put Up An AeroStat 
• Bear Canyon, Coronado National Forest – Miller Peak Wilderness

At that first panel, I enjoyed and had similar experiences and perspectives as author Franciso Cantu’s wonderful presentation of his first book “The Line Becomes a River” (highly recommended).

But, I found more established fellow panelist David Owen’s work weak and derivative:  “Where the Water Goes: Life and Death along the Colorado River“.

Owen did not even come close to the story.

The real story emerged clearly in my mind after re-reading the 1986 classic on the Colorado river and western water, “Cadillac Desert. After reading that book, and “Water and the West” by Norris Hundley Jr. back in May 2017, I wrote this (see: Rio Grande – Off The Wall):

Also, I am reading and writing less. Just finished re-reading Roderick Nash’s classic “Wilderness and the American Mind”. Visited an excellent local bookstore here in Flagstaff and picked up a copy of another classic I never read: “Water and the West” by Norris Hundley Jr. about the history of the Colorado River Compact. I’m only on Chapter 4, but there are echoes and huge ironic historic parallels between early 20th century advocacy for an “All American Canal” and the current debate over Trump’s Wall.

So, I was not impressed with Owens’ tepid effort to rewrite the classics – which were far more analytically sophisticated and policy savvy – and his failure to mention the Colorado compact and its history.

After listening to that and another panel, on my walk back for lunch, I was asked take part an NPR interview, where they asked me about my favorite book and how it related to the Tucson festival and my daily life.

I had just left a panel on “The future of western liberalism”. There was an excellent discussion of the threats to liberal democracy, rule of law, and science, but I came away frustrated by the lack of any criticism of Democratic and liberal betrayals and little focus on corporate power, capitalism and the US’s gross and increasing wealth/income/power disparity.

After that talk, I was unable to engage a conversation with panelist and writer John Nichols, who was too busy responding to elderly sycophants. During his presentation, he seemed unwilling to link finance capitalism to globalization and the Democrats’ (starting with Bill Clinton) embrace of the Wall Street finance, global capitalist Neoliberal project. Surely these play a role in the current xenophobic reaction, bordering on a rise of Fascism.

[I would have loved to ask him to respond to Hedges’ arguments about the role of the liberals to serve as a “reform” relieve valve from pressure created below from Communist, Socialist, and organized labor – and the betrayals by the liberal class, democrats and institutions Hedges savages. The entire panel’s self-righteous discussion was the epitome of that. Nichols did make one good point though, that Trump’s cabinet was not stupid and had accomplished more of a right wing agenda than other Republicans.]

So, after that shutout by Nichols, in response to the NPR interview question, I said my favorite was Chris Hedges’  book “Death of the Liberal Class”. (I wonder if the local NPR affiliate will broadcast it? They made me sign a release form allowing them to do so).

I related Hedges to some of the political resentments driving the rise of the reactionary “populist right” mentioned at the panel as a threat to democratic institutions and science, rationality, rule of law, Constitutional democracy, and the cosmopolitan liberal tradition.

The interview went well.

During the Festival, there were a few similarly focused panel, e.g. see this excellent presentation: Backlash against Immigration and the Fate of Western Democracy.

After that presentation (I highly recommend the book!), I managed to ask the author the first audience questions (see the author’s CSPAN interview). I asked:

1) I want to follow up on your comments about “electoral success” in Europe. Steve Bannon has been in Europe, both before and after the recent elections. That is not random.  Are you familiar with Josh Green’s book where he provides in depth material about Bannon’s work in the US with billionaire Robert Mercer and the electoral tactics, Big Data algorithms, and the social media propaganda campaign they deployed in the 2016 election? Has something similar been done in Europe?

2) How much of the European reaction and xenophobia is organic and how much is manufactured by the likes of Bannon et al? Is there evidence of a European Bannon propaganda machine? (I failed to mention he US media’s obsession with the Russian electoral manipulation scandal. What Bannon and the billionaire Mercer pulled off in 2016 in swing states was far more sophisticated, had far more resources, and was very likely far more effective than the Russian campaign.)

I wanted to mention, but was unable to weave it into my question these points: a) the US media is obsessed with Russian meddling in the 2016 election via social media. In contrast, they have completely failed to report the Bannon-Mercer very similar project to manipulate US public opinion and elections. b) the media has failed to report on the key disclosure in the Steele Dossier: that Putin’s strategic objective was “Putin desires a return to 19th C. “Great Power” politics anchored on countries’ interests rather than the ideals based International order established after WW2″. 

That Putin goal is totally consistent with – and could help explain – the rise of European xenophobic nationalism, Brexit, and fractures in NATO and the western liberal alliance.

I didn’t get a satisfactory answer. But the author was family with Bannon’s work – but not the billionaire Mercer’s and social media PR campaign – manipulation of of public opinion and electoral tactics.

There were other panels on climate, as I noted above, the first was on Colorado river water policy, and border wall stuff – all of which I am experiencing and thinking about daily.

Finally, being the obnoxious asshole that I am, I managed to engage more than 4 debates among the literati who had set up tents at the Festival:

1. I came upon the the folks in the “western literature” tent and said that I had just read a Wallace Stegner essay in “The Sound of Mountain Water“, regretting that there was no western literary tradition, and that it was all nostalgia and myth. Their reply? They never heard of Stegner!

2. At closing I came across “C-SPAN book TV”. I complimented host Peter Slen and praised their courage to give Chris Hedges a platform. The producer, standing by side, replied: “how about our broadcast of Milo Yanopolis (Nazi). Slen then interjected: “Do you think he should be treated differently than Hedges?”. I told them – being a supporter of ANTIFA’s “No platform” –  that it was their responsibility to establish a context and to warn viewers of the different moral universes of Hedges and Yanoplis. An extended debate followed, with CSPAN host Slen dismissing me to “Go to CNN for that”. Unreal. No senses of intellectual responsibility. None. Would they have given Hitler a platform in 1930?

3. I came across a tent for The Nature Conservancy.

So I took the opportunity to blast their conservation model. Huge debate ensued.

4. I visited a “Tucson Historic Preservation” tent (hit their link and wait for the “magic Carpet” page, its the second one).

Seeing an Art Deco book about historic Arizona billboard displays, I asked them if they had any photos of billboard remnants that had been cut down by Ed Abbey and his monkeywrenching crew.

Contrary to the western literature tent, at least they knew what I was driving at – but they did not appreciate the humor!

Can’t make this stuff up.

It’s a beautiful day here in the deserts of Arizona (80 degrees and sunny) and I’m dying to get outside this Starbucks (WiFi), so I will be very brief with this note.

Jim O’Neill of the Bergen Record (is it still called that?) wrote a story today on the Natural Resource Damage issues associated with Dupont Pompton Lakes.

I’m reluctant to provide a link and drive traffic there, but I must do so to make my point, so see:

 Feds seeking payout for impact of DuPont pollution on wildlife in Pompton Lakes

I broke this story and have written about it several times, including detailed analyses – using US FWS documents – which show major failures by Dupont, EPA, DEP and the Bergen Record coverage, mostly by Mr. O’Neill. I’ll dig up all those links later – in the interim, readers should feel free to use the word search function in the upper right corner of this page. (or check out my Twitter feed, where I tweeted links to most of that stuff in response to prior “Toxic Secrets” coverage).

For now, I will note the following to summarize the major issues that were ignored, what  I call a “whitewash”.

O’Neill failed to mention that:

1. USFWS was severely critical of Dupont’s science (that EPA signed off on) and

2. USFWS criticized the EPA approved cleanup plan because it left significant amounts of mercury in the lake and likely downriver.

3. Despite a written pledge by EPA Region 2 Administrator Enck in a letter to me, EPA violated RCRA regulations because those regulations require that EPA consult with US FWS BEFORE approving the cleanup plan.

EPA failed to do that and only consulted with US FWS AFTER they approved Dupont’s flawed plan.

4. Although O’Neill mentions the prior DEP NRD dirty deal (which residents and local Councilpersons Lisa Riggiola and Ed Meakem broke with my help), and notes that it could be re-opened by DEP (a quote I made years ago in O’Neill’s the Record’s original story I think by Alex Nussbaum), he fails to provide the corrupt context for that deal.

That context was a STATEWIDE deal with Dupont executed by former DEP Commissioner Brad Campbell.

These are very serious factual omissions in the story.

These facts are omitted because they:

1) destroy the Record’s narrative as conducting brave investigative journalism – with O’Neill and Fallon speaking truth to power (NOT! gag me!)

2) because they undermine the Record’s praise of EPA Administrator Enck,

3) because they would expose the fact that the Record MISSED or DOWNPLAYED these issues when it mattered;

4) because it would prove that they IGNORED MY WORK BREAKING THE STORY AND EXPOSING THESE ISSUES.

5) because they show that the Record (O’Neill & Fallon) were either lazy, stupid, arrogant, lap dog, risk averse, or flat out intimidated by Dupont, EPA, DEP and local officials to write the story correctly the first time, and therefore disrespected their readers and gave those responsible a huge pass by not criticizing them when it matter (like I did)

One of these days I’ll write a critique of their entire “Toxic Secrets” series on Dupont, when I get the time.

In the interim, take my word for it –

they are so full of shit in blowing their own horn on a story they missed for many years, that they downplayed, and that they were intimidated by Dupont and gave EPA and DEP and local officials a huge accountability pass.

They should go back and read Dusty MacNichol and Kelly Richmond’s award winning “Open For Business” series – and consider that those real investigative reporters were brave enough to expose the corruption of Gov. Whitman’s core policy, at a time she was hugely popular.

They didn’t write some after the fact, self promoting, whitewash.

Will Murphy Serve Privilege and Power or Justice and Truth?

Personnel Is Policy

As we previously wrote, NJ Senate President Sweeney is blocking the Senate confirmation of NJ Gov. Murphy’s nominee for DEP Commissioner, Catherine McCabe. McCabe has yet to name her management team at DEP or purge Gov. Christie and Commissioner Bob Martin’s partisan hacks.*

[* Note: our sources tell us that Murphy and McCabe are listening to the Beltway national groups, e.g. NRDC & corporate market driven EDF – Murphy’s wife Tammy is on NRDC Board – and have ignored and dissed key NJ groups. This is a formula for failure. McCabe might want to call former DEP Commissioner Brad Campbell and ask him how his reliance on NRDC’s “Big Map” initiative worked out. It put him, as the NY Times wrote, “under siege”, and destroyed his credibility and legacy. In contrast to that NRDC failure, the McGreevey Administration’s legacy accomplishments – the Highlands Act, the C1 stream buffer program, and termination of the EDF backed “Open Market Emissions Trading” (OMET) program – were the product of NJ “radicals” – myself, Jeff Tittel and Curtis Fisher. See update below for detail on the history of OMET. ~~~ end Note]

In an effort to pressure Sweeney to relent and frame policy issues for that eventual confirmation hearing, we laid out 40 policy questions.

While we were successful in forcing the resignation of former Gov. Christie’s BPU President Richard Mroz, thus far, we have had no discernible impact on pressuring Sweeney to remove his confirmation block or prompting the Murphy administration to begin the necessary public process of laying out a detailed policy reform agenda to restore NJ leadership on environment and climate.

In fact, our Trenton sources tell us that Sweeney is now blocking Gov. Murphy’s replacement of Christie installed BPU Commissioner Mroz, who recently resigned.

So today, we expand on the key policy issues to recommend personnel. People are often policy.

Given that Murphy and McCabe have little history in NJ environmental circles, we suggest a set of longtime NJ environmental leaders for appointments in the Murphy Administration.

If the Gov. and DEP Commissioner are serious and have the leadership to back their reform rhetoric, here are the people that they should put in policy positions.

Murphy leaders

Governor’s Environmental Policy Aide – Rick Engler

Environmental Prosecutor – Dante DePirro

BPU Commissioner – Curtis Fisher

Pinelands Commission

• Rich Bizub, Executive Director
• Jeff Tittel Commissioner
• Carleton Montgomery Commissioner

Highlands Council

• Tracy Carlucchio, Executive Director
• Scott Olson Commissioner (or Director of Planning)
• Dave Peifer – Commissioner
• Robin O’Hearne – Commissioner
• Note: Maybe Tom Borden will come back from his Rhode Island gig as ED?

Department of Environmental Protection

• Assistant Comm Enforcement – Maya VanRossum
• Assistant Comm Environmental Regulation – Dena Mottola
• Assistant Comm Communications and Legislative Affairs – Kate Millsaps
• Press Office – Kirk Moore
• Assistant Comm Site Remediation – Bob Speigel
• Assistant Comm Natural Resources – Emile DeVito, PhD
• Director Parks and Forestry – Sam Pesin
• Office of People’s Parks – Mary Penney
• Director of Fish and Game – Benson Chiles
• Director of Local Government Coordination – MaryLou Ferrara
• State Hydrogeologist – Matt Mulhall
• Assistant Comm for Climate, Policy, Science & Regulatory Affairs – Bill Wolfe
• Director of Science and Research – Mike Kennish
• Director Office of Env. Health – Steve Fenichel, MD
• Director Office of Urban Affairs  – Nicky Sheets
• Director Office of Environmental Justice – Roy Jones
• Director Office of Environmental Rights – Olga Palmar
• Director Office of Land Use Planning – Bill Neil
• Director Office of Outdoor Recreation and Public Involvement – Margo Pellegrino
• Director Office of Climate Change – Mike Aucott, PhD
• Director of Citizen Engagement – Doug O’Malley
• DEP Ombudsman – Lisa Riggiola (North), Georgina Shanley (South)
• Director Division of Coastal Management, Planning and Engineering– John Miller
• Director Division of Watershed Management – Bill Kibbler
• Director Office of Materials Management, Source Reduction and Recycling  – Marty Riesinger
• Director of Office of Pollution Prevention – Zoe Kelman
• Director of Legal Affairs – Bill Potter
• Director of Renewable Energy – Lyle Rawlings
• Director of OPRA – Theresa Lettman

External Advisory Bodies to review and solicit candidates for fresh blood

• Clean Water Council
• Clean Air Council
• Environmental Justice Advisory Council
• Water Supply Advisory Council
• D&R Canal Commission
• Solid Waste Advisory Council

GO TO PUBLIC SOLICITATION FOR NEW BLOOD – Make subject to State level FACA process

Terminate funding for the following organizations and do not hire people from the following organizations or those that received funding from Dodge Foundation, William Penn Foundation, or Duke Foundation:

• NJ Audubon
• NJ Future
• Sustainable NJ
• Rethink Energy NJ
• Barnegat Bay Partnership
• Clean Ocean Action
• American Littoral Society
• Wildlife NJ
• Local Watershed Groups
• NJ LCV
• Trust for Public land
• Mike Catania – Duke Foundation
• EDF
• NRDC
• Citizens Campaign
• Passaic River Coalition
  NY NJ Baykeeper
• Delaware Bay Partnership
• NJ Env Federation –Clean Water Action
• Jeanne Herb and Marjorie Kaplan.

Institutions To Create

• Delaware Bayshore Commission
• Coastal Commission

Institutions and and policy initiatives to Abolish

• Science Advisory Board
• Office of Economic review
• Office of Dispute resolution
• Office of Permit coordination
• Culture change – transformation plan
• Administrative Orders
• Executive Orders #1, #2, #3 #4 and Privatization (EO#17?)
• Delaware Bay, Barnegat Bay, and NY NJ Harbor Estuary programs

Commissioner’s Driver Team – Jim Benton, Sarah Blum, NJBA, NJBIA, Chamber of Commerce, and Farm Bureau

DEP Building Maintenance – Senator Oroho

[Update on OMET’s demise:

Outrageously, my former employer PEER scrubbed my name from their OMET press releases and inserted Jeff Tittel’s name (that is OK, because I was working at DEP at the time of the second press release. But it is not OK  because I was not at DEP when the first PEER press release was issued or when the OMET analysis was done and comments were submitted to EPA.

PEER also removed my name from the EPA comments and letters I wrote, so to get the facts, and confirm my role, please read an Environmental Law Reporter review article on OMET’s demise. 

My quote in the Bergen Record article excerpted below is additional supporting evidence. No way the Record or Jeff Tittel would let me get the quote if he had done anything on the OMET issue (and it sure is beyond curious to be named in a law review article while my name was excised from PEER’s press releases and EPA letters. In fact, as I recall, Jeff Ruch of DC PEER simply put his name on the EPA Tinsley letter I wrote, which was based on the prior comments I submitted to EPA Region 2. Unreal. Down the memory hole again.) Per the ELR article linked above:

50. Bill Wolfe, Comments to EPA Region2 on the Proposed Approval of  New Jersey’s Open Market Emissions Trading State Implementation Plan Revision, N.J. State Chapter of the Sierra Club, Trenton, N.J. (Mar. 11, 2001).

66. Letter from Jeff Ruch, Executive Director, PEER, and Bill Wolfe, Policy Director, New Jersey Sierra Club, to Nikki Tinsley, IG, U.S. EPA (2001) (on file with EPA). ~~~ end Note]

After more than 5 years of behind the scenes bureaucratic warfare with US EPA, on Feb., 2002, Alex Nussbaum then with the Bergen Record wrote:

The federal Environmental Protection Agency gave preliminary approval to the plan last year, but it has yet to make the decision final a move that could clear the way for the New Jersey plan to be replicated elsewhere in the country. Now, the approval could be held up by the review of the EPA’s inspector general, an independent watchdog within the agency.

A bad report could be a rebuke for EPA chief Christie Whitman, New Jersey’s governor until she joined the Bush administration. She ushered in the trading program while in Trenton and has said she wants to use similar market-based efforts in other environmental areas.

Environmentalists, though, say the Open Market Emissions Trading plan could be a blueprint for avoiding controls on pollutants linked to smog, cancer, ***and global warming. The program relies on companies to report their own reductions, but it has no serious mechanisms to prove that the reports are accurate, the critics say. …

Critics who requested the audit last year welcomed the scrutiny.

“I think we raised significant and valid concerns about how the program originated and some of the flaws, and how New Jersey companies illegally used credits to violate the Clean Air Act,” said Bill Wolfe, policy director for the state Sierra Club.

**** If the public understood this and environmental groups had any vision or integrity, they would have understood and used this huge win – the McGreevey Administration termination of a market based tool – and blocked the passage of RGGI, which is a flawed market based trading scheme similar to OMET. ~~~ end update]

Former Gov. Christie’s BPU President Steps Down – Avoids Ethics Review

Resignation submitted just days after petition for removal

Just days after we filed a formal request with NJ Gov. Murphy’s Attorney General, the State Ethics Commission, and formal petition to BPU to remove BPU Commissioner Richard Mroz for gross conflicts of interest, NJ Spotlight reports today that Mroz submitted his resignation, see:

• MROZ TO STEP DOWN AT BPU, FREES MURPHY TO SLOT IN DEMOCRAT AT AGENCY

By resigning, Mroz avoids an embarrassing ethics review and potential removal.

[Note: Mroz previously dodged these issues when the Legislature turned a blind eye, see:  Legislators Asked To Probe BPU Sweetheart Deal For BL England Power Plant]

Mroz issued the standard resignation letter which not surprisingly makes no reference to the pending ethics review or the propriety of his role as a former fossil energy lobbyists and lawyer. According to NJ Spotlight, Mroz’s resignation letter stated:

Mroz cited his accomplishments in the letter. “We advanced emerging technologies, renewable energy and invested in energy efficiency,” he wrote. “And we made decisions balancing the interests of the companies we regulate, ensured reliable and resilient services, all while ensuring that customers pay reasonable rates.”

President Trump’s economic advisor Gary Cohen resigned with a similar familiar cover story, just days after he lost a tariff fight and Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

So, we understand why Mroz dodged the ethics challenge and issued the standard “nothing to see here” cover story.

But we can not understand why NJ Spotlight bought Mroz’s spin and even provided a sham cover story excuse – suggesting that the Mroz resignation came in the context of:

Ironically, his resignation has been made public at a time of heightened criticism of the utilities’ responses to the latest storm, a nor’easter.

NJ Spotlight reporter Tom Johnson surely knows that is bullshit and had nothing to do with Mroz’s reason for resigning.

Given that I’m a critic of Spotlight – specifically on the issue of Mroz – of course, Spotlight ignored our ethics petition and never reported on Mroz’s gross conflicts, which we first raised publicly long ago, way back in September 2015,  see:

• Sham Energy Markets Governed By Energy Industry Lobbyists

Our ethics review petition and removal request came just days after we criticized NJ Gov. Murphy for a lack of resolve, failure to appoint his own people, and exercise leadership to rein in Mroz’s partisan attacks, see:

• It’s March 1st – Do You Know Where Gov. Murphy’s Environmental Team Is?

We’ll take credit for this one, despite being ignored once again by NJ media.

But our readers know that they frequently get the right story and often way before mainstream NJ media and NJ Spotlight gets around to it.

We take no prisoners and don’t negotiate with climate terrorists!

[End Note: couldn’t resist posting this apt classic comment from a friend and reader:

Reminds me of wizard of Oz with the vaporization of the wicked witch  when Dorothy threw water on her.

DEP Assistant Commissioner Who Cut Deal Went To Work For Trump Campaign

Trump Blames “Partner” NJ Audubon for Violations

[Update below]

In a superb investigative piece – that I helped with but had little influence on – today Propublica reports on exactly how corrupt politics, lax regulation, gross revolving door abuses, and an AWOL press corps combine to undermine regulatory enforcement of environmental laws, read the whole thing:

• The Six Stages of Trump’s Resistance

Unfortunately, while these are difficult and complex issues to report on, the narrative focus on Trump and detailed reporting leaves out crucial environmental, natural resource, and policy context – while glossing over current controversies regarding DEP’s “Forest “Stewardship” and actively distorting the enforceability of DEP’s program- and it downplays or misses some critical implications of the facts the story documents.

First of all, while it is well known, the story fails to even mention NJ Governor Chris Christie. Christie was a close Trump advisor during the DEP enforcement sellout, and later head of Trump’s Transition Team.

Second, not only is the Trump – Christie relationship ignored, so are Gov. Christie’s “regulatory relief”, “red tape” and “voluntary compliance” enforcement policies, as well as Christie DEP Commissioner Bob Martin’s “culture change” anti-regulatory agenda.

These Christie – Martin policies are what explain exactly how and why Trump succeeded in frustrating DEP enforcement and got a sweetheart deal.

Third, Propublica reports the facts, but missed (or got  spun) on the implications of DEP Commissioner Martin’s personal involvement.

Clearly unhappy about the situation, Trump got personally involved. In October 2012, he called DEP Commissioner Robert Martin to discuss the matter. What Trump said is unknown, but a letter that Martin sent him afterwards alluded to the discussion: “The location of this golf course with respect to the availability of water supply is very challenging,” Martin wrote Trump. The commissioner urged him to fulfill the conditions spelled out in the water permit. “That may be the best way for you to manage through the costs of this project,” Martin wrote.

Having seemingly not gotten what he wanted, Trump chose to ignore the restrictions. For five consecutive years starting in 2011, Trump National Colts Neck blew past its annual water limits. “Once he was caught going over, it’s not like he stopped and waited until he got more allocation,” said Timothy Anfuso, township planner for Colts Neck. “He kept using the water the whole time.”

Martin’s personal involvement in a routine wetlands violation is extremely unusual, highly improper, and devastating evidence that politics drove DEP’s lax enforcement response (as badly, or worse than the egregious revolving door abuse Propublica documents).

Fourth, Propublica downplays and buries the lead on an extraordinarily egregious example of revolving door abuse.

The DEP Assistant Commissioner for Enforcement that handled the case went to work for the Trump campaign!

On April 9, Russo, Trump’s environmental consultant, met with John Giordano, the agency’s assistant commissioner for compliance and enforcement, who had overseen both matters since his appointment two years earlier.

The logjam finally came unstuck. Russo promised to take steps to “alleviate” the agency’s “compliance concerns” at both Trump National properties, according to a “Dear Ed” letter summarizing the meeting that Giordano sent afterwards. “The Department appreciates your willingness to voluntarily undertake these actions thereby making an adversarial relationship unnecessary,” Giordano wrote. “I look forward to continuing this cooperative relationship as the most efficient and effective means to address the Department’s concerns.” …

A few months later, in August 2016, Giordano left DEP to join the Trump campaign. He then became deputy general counsel to the presidential transition committee and later joined an administration “landing team” at the U.S. Energy Department. Giordano then went to work at a Philadelphia law firm and was subsequently considered for appointment as a U.S. attorney for the region, according to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Revolving door abuse doesn’t get any worse than that – and Giordano served under the Christie- Martin “regulatory relief” and “culture change” regime.

Fifth, the story fails to mention the highly sensitive environmental context.  The Bedminster wetlands and stream encroachment violations occurred in the environmentally sensitive Highlands Region. The Colts Neck water allocation violations occurred in a region with serious groundwater deficits in Monmouth County. Both these sensitivities raise the significance of Trump’s various violations of environmental regulations that protect wetlands, stream buffers and groundwater supplies and justify stiffer fines and more aggressive enforcement response by DEP.

Sixth, the Propublica reporter relied on former high level DEP sources (ironically, I recommended them). That could be what explains what amounts to uncritical acceptance of DEP claims – here’s just one of several:

The Trump Organization received annual notices of its violations, warning of “substantial monetary penalties” — up to $50,000 per day per offense. In theory, that meant the organization could’ve been fined millions (though “cooperative” violators would unlikely face fines of that magnitude, according to the DEP, since the agency’s goal is to bring violators back into compliance and restore any damage).

Seventh, the story ignores the green cover provided by the NJ Audubon – Trump partnership.

How is it possible – at a time when we were exposing the corrupt nature of that partnership (we broke the story in March 2016) and demanding that NJ Audubon repudiate it – that NJ media, the Clinton Democrats, NJ environmental groups, and the national political media either knew nothing about all this or said nothing publicly about it? How could no-one in DEP leak this story?

Consider that at the same time NJ Audubon was “partnering” with Donald Trump, they were involved in a DEP enforcement case for cutting down trees and destroying wetlands under a sham forest management plan. At the time, Trump was running for President. Textbook GREEN COVER

Now let’s highlight the good stuff.

1. As I’ve written many times and many subjects, the NJ press corps again was AWOL:

Both disputes were resolved during his presidential campaign and went unnoticed in the press.

2. Propublica cites my friend, recently deceased investigative reporter Wayne Barrett:

Trump deployed those tactics again and again in his titanic real estate battles in New York, and his mega-dollar fights over casinos in New Jersey, according to Wayne Barrett’s biography, “Trump: The Deals and the Downfall.”

3. Enforcement of environmental laws by DEP was weak – particularly during the Christie Administration:

In the end, Trump paid just a fraction of the penalties that state law allows [$147,000].

4. DEP regulators are frequently “captured” by regulated corporations, often with the intent of seeking high paid jobs in exchange for lax oversight and sweetheart deal:

… the key regulator, who helped negotiate the generous terms, signed on to a job in the Trump campaign.

5. DEP enforcement policy provides incentives to violate NJ’s environmental regulations and invites abuses. The so called “self disclosure immunity” policy was never intended to be used in cases of significant environmental damage of highly sensitive natural resources, as was the case here:

On May 29, 2009, Edward Russo, then Trump’s environmental consultant, “self-reported” damage to 4.34 acres of wetlands, open waters and wetland transition areas. In doing so, the Trump Organization was seeking forgiveness under a DEP policy that allows as much as a 100 percent reduction in fines for offenders who voluntarily disclose violations “in a timely manner” and correct them promptly.

6. It pays to lie and DEP fails to increase enforcement sanctions for lying to DEP regulators:

It didn’t help that Trump’s representatives sometimes dissembled. In August 2009, for example, a state inspector discovered that trees had “suspiciously” been removed from protected wooded wetland corridors near eight Bedminster golf holes — coincidentally, just where it would be necessary to allow golfers to play through.

7 Even DEP’s own scientist admit that wetlands mitigation and restoration don’t work!. For many years, DEP has failed to strengthen DEP wetlands regulations and enforcement policies to reflect this scientific fact.

8. We’ve repeatedly urged NJ Audubon too abandon their partnership with Trump and that so called DEP approved NJ Audubon “mitigation” and “restoration”, “Forest Stewardship” and creation of certain bird habitat is a sham.

Here’s another reason to do so – Trump blamed them for the violations:

Time kept slipping away and by 2013, Trump’s consultants made a new attempt to avoid responsibility, this time by shifting blame. They fingered two improbable culprits, according to a chronology later prepared by the state: the New Jersey Audubon Society and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Trump’s team insisted, in a May 2013 meeting, that considerable environmental damage had occurred at the direction of those institutions, which were collaborating with Trump to create grassland bird habitat on the property.

Remarkably, NJ Audubon refused to comment on the record for this story.

I told the Propublica reporter that John Parke, who was NJ Audubon’s staffer involved in the project that DEP found violations, is a forester by training who is not sensitive to environmental regulatory compliance and had abused DEP regulations in several controversial NJ Audubon logging projects.

Will NJ Audubon CEO Eric Stiles sit back and let a national story suggest that hi partnership with Trump contributed to environmental abuses and Trump blamed his organization for act?

[Update – here is the comment I posted in the story:

Good reporting, but the NJ specific political context and policy aspects are weak.

Readers should know that NJ Audubon formally partnered with Trump at the Bedminster Golf course, that this course is located in the water supply watershed and highly protected NJ Highlands region, this warrants far more aggressive DEP enforcement, and that Gov. Christie’s personal relationship with Trump and his anti-regulatory policies and his unqualified corporate consultant installed DEP Commissioner Bob Martin are what led to this kind of corrupt deal.

Additionally, the reporting misrepresent DEP enforcement policies (e.g. self disclosure immunity) and the severe problems with loopholes in DEP wetlands and stream buffer regulations awithbrespect to DEP approved “Forest Management Plans”. Those issues are controversial right now in NJ Audubon sponsored logging plans for forests in the Nj Highlands region (google “Sparta mountain wildlife among,metn area”).

I explained this all to the reporter, but none of it was included in the story.

Find the backstory and policy issues at my website wolfenotes.com