What Explains NJ Senate Delay In Confirming Murphy’s Acting DEP Commissioner McCabe?
Senate President Sweeney has yet to release the hostage
Sweeney “squeezes the juice” out of Murphy and McCabe
Is he still holding McCabe hostage in exchange for his wetlands enforcement intervention?
(L-R) Senate President Sweeney; Acting DEP Commissioner McCabe; Assemblyman Burzichelli (Source: YouTube)
[Update: 2 days after this post, McCabe was confirmed by the full Senate on June 7, 2018.]
It is June 5 and Acting Commissioner McCabe STILL has not been confirmed by the full NJ Senate.
McCabe testified before and was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee almost a mont ago (May 14).
This is the longest Senate hold on a DEP Commissioner in my 33 year experience with NJ DEP.
It could be the longest ever.
What does Sweeney want? What’s the holdup?
He already got Murphy to sign his PSEG nuke bailout and limit the expansion of renewables.
He already got Murphy to sign his Dupont fracking wastewater OK. Gov. Murphy answered NJ Spotlight’s question with a big wet kiss.
He already got Murphy to sign a cover bill that appears to promote wind, but retains the poison pill “cost test” that authorized BPU to kill wind based on a fatally flawed cost – benefit methodology.
That law derailed a prior bill that would have repealed the OWEDA “cost test” that was the poison pill Sweeney got duped on by Gov. Christie in the Off Shore Wind Act (OWEDA).
Likely due to Sweeney pressure, McCabe’s DEP folded and walked away from assuming control on the long delayed and partial Dupont “cleanup” of their Pompton Lakes site.
Likely due to Sweeney pressure, Murphy did not support calls for a Coastal Commission Sweeney opposed.
Murphy has done nothing at the Pinelands Commission, likely to appease Sweeney who worked with Gov. Christie to corrupt the Commission and ram new gas pipelines and power plants through the regulatory process.
Remarkably, McCabe testified that she was “unfamiliar” with the DEP’s “Category One” (C1) program that Sweeney opposed when DEP originally adopted regulations and Sweeney cut a deal with Christie/Martin to avoid a legislative veto of DEP rules that rolled back C1 buffer protections.
Likely due to Sweeney pressure, Murphy and McCabe folded on stopping the bear hunt.
Murphy appointed Bob Gordon, a moderate former Senate Democrat to the BPU, likely as a result of Sweeney lobbying. Gordon is smart, but he failed to follow through on many things, including BPU implementation of flawed cost – benefit methodology to kill wind.
Sweeney got his former Senate aid, Eric Wacther, installed as McCabe’s Chief of Staff.
Is he still holding McCabe hostage in exchange for his wetlands enforcement intervention?
What else does Sweeney want? He’s already got a LOT of concessions.
Maybe even more concessions, perhaps on an MCL or for Dupont liability for PFOA, PFOS, PFC’s?
Is Sweeney seeking a weak RGGI cap? in RGGI negotiations?
Is Sweeney seeking continuance of NJ law’s RGGI loopholes to protect Big Oil and the carbon polluters in his District?
Approval of the Pinelands and PennEast gas pipelines?
Is Sweeney pressuring Murphy to retain Gov. Christie’s regulatory policy expressed in Christie executive orders that benefit the big polluters in his District?
Does Sweeney want Murphy to help accelerate privatization of public water and sewer systems? (see:
Sweeney is acting like Gov. Christie’s – “squeezing the juice” out of a weak DEP Commissioner and a spineless Governor.