WolfeNotes.com

DEP Response: “It depends on what the definition of “shall” is”

Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan Due This Week Delayed Until Fall or Later
Trenton — The Corzine Administration has failed to meet its first major statutory milestone in implementing the emission reduction goals of the highly touted Global Warming Response Act, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). A June 30th legal deadline for producing a plan identifying the legislative and regulatory “measures necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” will not be met until September at the earliest.
The Global Warming Response Act was signed by Gov. Jon Corzine last July, on the eve of a concert at the Meadowlands attended by former Vice President Al Gore. The Act mandates a 20% reduction in current greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020 and an 80% reduction by 2050. Environmentalists have praised the goals of the New Jersey law as among the strongest in the nation.

Since then, Gov. Corzine has participated in a series of high profile global warming events, including a trip to Portugal to sign an international declaration and, this past April, an appearance at Yale University to sign the Governors’ Declaration on Climate Change partnership.
At a meeting this week with New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson, we were informed that the June 30th deadline was not close to being met and that the new estimated goal for circulating a draft greenhouse gas control plan for public review is mid-to-late August. A minimum 30 day comment period would push delivery of a plan to the Legislature back until September or early October.

“The concern is that when it comes to global warming the Corzine administration may be all hat and no cattle,” stated New Jersey PEER Director Bill Wolfe. “At a time when scientists are calling for quicker and deeper emissions reductions, the sense of urgency among our state officials has vanished.”

There may be further delays, however, due to other actions by the Corzine administration. DEP may not be in a position to implement any ambitious greenhouse gas control plans since the Governor’s budget slashes agency funding, imposes a hiring freeze, and relies on an early retirement program that could cost DEP more than 300 positions (out of a 3,200 total workforce). These cuts, which are far deeper than those imposed during the Whitman administration, will hamstring detailed planning for, let alone implementing, any bold new initiatives at DEP.

At the same time, Gov. Corzine is poised to sign “The Permit Extension Act” which would exempt thousands of projects from any new energy conservation, energy efficiency, building codes, or other requirements to install solar heating or other renewable energy that may ultimately be required by the Global Warming Response Act. PEER has asked the Governor to veto the bill.
“Since there will not likely be coherent federal action for at least two years, people who are counting on the states to take effective steps on global warming now should be disappointed in New Jersey,” Wolfe added. “Stumbling this badly coming out of the blocks does not bode well for how we will run the race.”
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Read the Global Warming Response Act (GWRA)
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2006/Bills/PL07/112_.PDF
Look at Gov. Corzine’s GWRA signing statement
http://www.nj.gov/governor/news/news/approved/20070706.html
View the Governor’s Yale conference statement
http://www.nj.gov/governor/news/news/2008/approved/20080417b.html
Read the PEER veto request on the Permit Extension Act
http://www.peer.org/docs/nj/08_2_7_permit_extension_veto_request.pdf
[Closing note to the spin wizards in the DEP Press Office who called the June 30 deadline a "target" - here's what the GWRA mandates - Just what don't you understand about the word "shall? "How long will reporters keep misreporting your spin as fact?]:
“6. a. The department, …shall evaluate policies and measures that will enable the State to achieve the 2020 limit, shall make specific recommendations on how to achieve the emission reduction targets, including measures that reduce emissions in all sectors of the economy including transportation,housing, and consumer products, and shall evaluate the economic benefits and costs of implementing these recommendations. The department shall coordinate its evaluation of greenhouse gas emission reduction policies and measures with the work of the Energy Master Plan Committee established pursuant to section 12 of P.L.1977, c.146 (C.52:27F-14).
b. No later than June 30, 2008, the department, and any other State agencies, as appropriate, shall prepare a report recommending the measures necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to achieve the 2020 limit. The report shall include specific recommendations for legislative and regulatory action that will be necessary to achieve the 2020 limit. The report shall be transmitted to the Governor, to the State Treasurer, to the Legislature pursuant to section 2 of P.L.1991, c.164 (C.52:14-19.1) and to the members of the Senate Environment Committee and the Assembly Environment and Solid Waste Committee.”

New Jersey PEER is a state chapter of a national alliance of state and federal agency resource professionals working to ensure environmental ethics and government accountability

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.
~~~ Groucho Marx

[Update: 7/20/08 - "Am I the only one who finds it strange that our government so often adopts a so-called solution that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem it is supposed to address?"
Al Gore 7/18/08
http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/304/

"The regulatory relief provisions of the bill are totally unrelated to the causes of the economic problems the bill purports to address."
Bill Wolfe 6/30/08

It's no secret that thousands of NJ working families are struggling just to make ends meet. The recent housing finance crisis - caused by Wall Street fraud and greed - is forcing thousands of families into mortgage foreclosure and lost hopes and dreams. Thousands of small business - particularly the small home builders - are being driven towards bankruptcy. Credit crunch and high debt levels are causing record rates of bankruptcy filings.

So what do our political leaders in Trenton do to respond?
They grandstand and cynically blame environmental protections and enact a meaningless "solution", the "Permit Extension Act".

That law, while rolling back environmental protections, does absolutely nothing to address the underlying causes of serious economic problems.
Worse, few realize (because the issue has not been reported in the press coverage) that the Permit Extension bill treats urban NJ residents like second class citizens and will severely hamper NJ's ability to achieve Governor Corzine's highly touted global warming emission reduction goals.

Below is my "Dear Jon" letter to Corzine asking for a VETO of this fraud - reach out to the Governor and let him know how you feel - 609-292-6000.

June 30, 2008
The Honorable Jon S. Corzine
State House
Trenton, New Jersey 08625
Via hand carry
Re: request to Veto the "Permit Extension Act" A2867[2R]/S1919[2R]

Dear Governor Corzine:
On behalf of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), I am writing to request that you issue a Veto of “The Permit Extension Act” which passed both houses on June 23, 2008. PEER is a national support group for professionals in environmental agencies that seek enforcement of environmental laws and ethics.
The premises and provisions of the bill are fatally flawed. These flaws cannot be corrected by the series of narrowing amendments negotiated by Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson, or the issuance of a Conditional Veto on your part.
The bill provides no economic stimulus whatsoever, or other valid economic relief for the national economic recession and collapse of the housing market, the purported justifications for the legislation. As such, the bill represents a cruel hoax upon New Jersey residents suffering real economic hardship.
The regulatory relief provisions of the bill are totally unrelated to the causes of the economic problems the bill purports to address. The bill would apply to an unknown universe of thousands of DEP permits and municipal approvals. It is simply reckless to enact legislation whose impacts have not been even crudely analyzed.
Implementation of the bill would undermine environmental protection by exempting prior approvals from changes in environmental standards and community preferences reflected in municipal land use planning and zoning. This is a fatal blow to core principles of environmental and land use law. Principles known as “time of decision” and “technology forcing” seek to assure that technology and markets adapt to meet changing environmental laws and standards that have evolved to meet changing conditions and new scientific knowledge, and that economic activities reflect those changes.
The bill would frustrate the ability of NJ to implement and meet the emission reduction goals of your signal accomplishment, The Global Warming Response Act. For example, thousands of projects would be exempt from any new energy conservation, energy efficiency, building codes, or other requirements to install renewable energy. This alone is sufficient policy grounds to kill this bill.
The amendments that carve out the Highlands, Pinelands, and “environmentally sensitive areas” under the State Plan would sacrifice urban areas and result in de jure and de facto differential and unequal protection of urban New Jersey. This would violate fundamental principles of environmental justice. As succinctly stated by South Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance Co-Chair Roy Jones:
“Separate and unequal … dates back to slavery” (Asbury Park Press, June 26, 2008).
We strongly urge you to Veto this bill and uphold your Constitutional obligation as Governor of all people of New Jersey, urban, suburban and rural, and not provide favors to special interests.
Sincerely,
Bill Wolfe, Director

NJ PEER

Contaminated soils poison community and the Hackensack River

THis is what happens when there is little DEP oversight and no enforcement. Yet instead of increasing oversight and strenghening enforcement of our toxic site cleanup laws, the Corzine Administration is proposing to privatize the program.
Do you trust the polluters to voluntarily cleanup sites and police themselves?
DEP enforcement is not the only one asleep – this site is located less than a mile from the HQ of a major metropolitan newspaper.
Maybe if journalists and editors just went outside and looked around, they might find some very interesting stories.

Lots of Jobs cleaning up the environment, not building new sprawl

Why don’t construction unions and the business community ever talk about all the jobs and economic activity created by environmental programs?
In this case, well paid construction jobs were created by DEP clean water requirements.
Upgrading environmental infrastructure and compliance with environmental laws creates thousands of jobs.
Germany recently created 170,000 well paid high technology jobs in just one segment of the solar industry -
NJ could create hundreds of thousands more jobs and thousands of new small businesses right here in NJ in we got serious about investing in and regulating a transition to an energy efficient, renewable energy, high environmental quality economy.
I never hear the lobbyists or officials in Trenton say that. I never read that in the newspaper.

Wonder why?

Sleep well at night – pictures don’t lie. Regulatory enforcement is strong and there’s nothing like a fresh coat of paint to make the old new again

They say you can’t go home – but this picture essay of home town landscapes that shaped my life suggests otherwise. A Falkner character once said that the “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” The more I reflect on my own past and the wonderful 1960’s period of limitless possibilities, the more saddened I become about the collapse of our democracy, the endless Bush war, the escalating war on the natural environment, and our seeming inability to learn from recent history.
Come join me on this tour – where landscapes, architecture, mystery, memory, institutions, politics, and meaning are one.
This is my home – a place called “Glenville”, a small working class neighborhood just outside of the historic Hudson River town of Tarrytown, NY. My mom grew up here. Her dad was living there raising chickens (and dying at home) at the time we moved in 1962 when I was 5. It was a move “to the country” from Yonkers, where I was born.

We lived directly (50 feet) behind the Glenville firehouse – the siren was so loud it literally knocked me out of bed! As kids, we had a blast playing on the antique fire engine while the adults played cards, tossed horseshoes, and drank beer. Of course, there were regular clam bakes, softball games, Bingo, and carnivals.

Glenville sat in a valley just below hilltop Axe Castle and Hackley prep school. Axe was a real castle – the gargoyles were mysterious and terrifying – more so than that scene from the Wizard of Oz where the flying monkeys kidnap Dorothy. We would explore the woods around the castle and evade the British troops that guarded it.

The Hackley school campus provided endless woods and athletic fields. I spent countless hours rambling in those woods and playing on those fields. The school’s architecture, prep school atmosphere, and discipline of the Athletic Director Mr. Picket who was a mentor and father figure, made a huge impact on me. I deeply resented the wealth and snobbish elitism of the kids, but I was jealous of their opportunity and the quality faculty, coaches, and facilities.

I fell in love with my fisrt grade teacher, Ms. Vera Vradenberg. She was beautiful and a friend of Charles Schultz – we had Snoopy everywhere in our classroom. She instilled a love of learning – I would do anything to impress her, so of course I finished all my reading “SRA workbooks” before most kids even got started and got gold stars and Snoopy smiles. She cried talking about the assassination of President Kennedy – I had never seen an adult cry before then.

Tappan Hill school overlooked the Hudson River – views of the newly built Tappan Zee Bridge were stunning – and nearby Marymount College Campus. 15 years later, I met my first real love who attended Marymount. Don’t tell the nuns, but we made love in that dome – and I’ll be damned, just like the sappy Dan Fogelberg song, she really did marry her an architect who “keeps her warm and safe and dry”. I don’t know if she would agree with the rest of the Folgelberg lyric: “She would have liked to say she loved the man. But she didn’t like to lie.” I always feared we would meet in a scene from Harry Chapin’s “Taxi” – words that still sting:
There was not much more for us to talk about,
Whatever we had once was gone.
So I turned my cab into the driveway,
Past the gate and the fine trimmed lawns.
And she said we must get together,
But I knew it’d never be arranged.
And she handed me twenty dollars,
For a two fifty fare, she said,
“Harry, keep the change.”

I went to 3rd & 4th grade at Pierson School. Every day we were reminded by that WWI statue on the front lawn that war was hell -note that the soldier’s head is bowed, exactly the opposite demeanor and message of our current “bring it on” “Commander in Chief” permanent war culture. But seeing a statute of a soldier at school wasn’t the only place we learned that war is hell. LBJ had just sent troops to Vietnam – my best friend’s cousin Frankie served there. When he came back, us kids couldn’t figure out why he would sit on the stoop all day nodding off and drooling, but we sensed that something was badly wrong that he never spoke about (he returned from the war a heroin junkie). “Urban renewal” demolition tore out a core of the housing and small businesses in our town, and the place just never recovered. Later that year, we were on our family’s annual vacation pilgrimage to Lake George when I watched national TV coverage of the Chicago police beat hell out of kids protesting the war at the Democratic Convention. I never really came to closure with my mom on her support of Hubert Humphry and I never forgot about police violence or the importance of protest and dissent.

The Pierson school was next door to a protestant church, whose bells were a daily reminder of history and religion. Although I attended (and hated going to) the local Roman Catholic church, unlike our current right wing cultural warriors, religion was never a source of arrogance, hatred, intolerance, or conflict. Peace, compassion, love, respect, individual human dignity, and tolerance were stressed.

Pierson School was right downtown – Almost every Saturday, after going either to the library to hear readings of the tales of Washington Irving or to the YMCA for swimming or basketball, we would go to the Music Hall to see a movie. Rip Van Winkle, Natti Bumpo, Leatherstocking, Tom Sawyer – these were our heroes. It was a wonderful small town Main Street experience – Roy’s deli provided lunch (Roy’s son was the HS football coach). Candy came from Whelan’s, a family owned drug store, and real ice cream sodas and milkshakes were served at “Pinkies”. I opened my first bank account, which received a small share of my weekly paper boy’s pay. I grew up in what we now call “Smart Growth”, but we can’t begin to imitate it because the politics, culture, and economy that supported that scene have been lost. As a result, we are now building Potemkin Places. Architecture and planning have severe limitations and are critically dependent on culture, politics, and economics. Although ironically my mom worked for architect’s and prominent tweed jacketed pipe smoking city planners I was just dying to emulate (Raymond, Parish & Pine), this is something I would learn many years later studying regional planning in graduate school at Cornell.

But Main Street wasn’t all fun and games – this building – now a chinese restaurant for the upscale – used to be a cleaners. My grandmother used to work there pressing shirts. Overworked to exhaustion, she passed out at her press, shattered her kneecap, and was permanently disabled.

For 5th-6th grades, we headed to North Tarrytown (recently renamed by status conscious residents as “Sleepy Hollow”) for WL Morse School. My horizons were literally expanded. Morse was located on Beekman Avenue, the main thoroughfare that led to the (now closed) GM auto plant. It had a working class and urban culturally diverse feel. There was no grass on the school grounds. Other languages were spoken within earshot. Cars full of GM workers double parked while visiting the many bars and liquor stores. We could sneak out at lunchtime and eat real pizza in a family owned joint right across the street from the school (thankfully, it is still there).

On the school bus ride to Morse school, we passed the Board of Education building (my mom was school board member and president for many years) and the statue at the site where Revolutionary War spy and traitor Major Andre’ was captured. We were spoon fed the myths of the revolution – no Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the US”, views of the anti-federalists, Daniel Ellsberg Pentagon Papers disclosures, or Noam Chomsky books were available to us at that time.

At Washington Irving Junior HS, we had teachers who opposed the war and smoked pot! We all left school to protest on the first Earth Day – teachers and students together! I can still remember my biology teacher (Ms. McCarthy) who turned me on to science, and the social studies class where we spent virtually the entire year on “critical thinking skills” and how to interrogate illegitimate arguments or unjust exercises of power and authority. Could you imagine that being taught in 7th grade today?

In Sleepy Hollow HS, I was both a hippie and a jock. Earned 11 (out of a possible 12) varsity letters and had a pony tail almost down to my butt. The only academic work I recall was my 11 and 12th grade english teacher (Peg Warren), who turned me on to Kurt Vonnegut and en entire realm of literature and writing on science, technology and society that still interests me today. Thank goodness for GOOD TEACHERS!

Use your imagination for the rest of the pictures – this is stuff you don’t tell your HS age kids about.

Don’t let Bush Expand the War and Attack Iran

Corzine Administration Caves on Governor’s Signature Environmental Issue
Chemical Industry “Commends” DEP for Voluntary Rules
Despite Governor Corzine’s repeated campaign pledges to mandate new strong chemical plant safety rules, the Department of Environmental Protection has adopted voluntary chemical plant safety regulations, according to internal agency documents posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). These state rules were warmly praised by the chemical industry and condemned by unions representing plant workers in formal comments.
Promulgated under the state’s Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act, the rules were supposed to implement Governor Jon Corzine’s pledge to require the use of “inherently safer technology” (IST) to prevent catastrophic chemical accidents or acts of terrorism at an estimated 100 chemical plants throughout the state. Widely praised by environmental and labor groups, IST is supposed to require that industry adopt practices eliminating use of dangerous chemicals so as to reduce risks.
The regulations, which will appear in the next New Jersey Register, the state’s official legal publication, have three major weaknesses that are drawing criticism:
1) Implementation of IST is voluntary. The rules only require industry to conduct an IST review but do not require industry to take any action based on that review;
2) The IST reviews are deemed secret and therefore not subject to public or worker scrutiny; and
3) The chemical industry is allowed to base IST feasibility decisions on economic grounds, thus subjugating public health and safety to industry profit margins.
“‘Inherently safer technologies’ was supposed to be the most effective solution for managing the safety, security, and health risk associated with chemical plants, but what New Jersey produced is only a faint echo of what should have been enacted,” stated New Jersey PEER Director Bill Wolfe. “This is like the IRS requiring people to fill out tax forms but making actual payment of taxes voluntary.”
Not surprisingly, the Chemistry Council, representing industry, submitted comments in which it “commends the Department for not mandating the implementation of IST in this rule proposal and limiting the scope of IST to completing reviews…” By contrast, the New Jersey State Industrial Union Council, representing plant workers, blasted the secrecy of the IST reports.
As the nation’s most densely populated state with a large petrochemical industry, New Jersey has been in the national spotlight on chemical plant safety. Reflecting fears of stringent state regulation, the chemical industry recently battled in Congress to block states from going beyond minimum federal Homeland Security requirements. That battle allegedly ended in December with a mixed result.
“Experience has shown that voluntary compliance does not work, and due to the huge stakes, chemical safety is the last program that should be made voluntary,” added Wolfe, pointing to studies showing that a chemical accident or terrorism event at even one of 15 chemical plants could kill more than 100,000 people who live nearby. “If New Jersey’s chemical plant safety rules are going to be this weak, why should anyone care if they are preempted?”
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Read the new chemical plant rules
http://www.nj.gov/dep/rules/adoptions/adopt_080505a.pdf
Read the PEER analysis of those rules
http://blog.nj.com/njv_bill_wolfe/2007/12/chemical_plant_safety_decision.html
Look at the praise from the chemical industry
http://www.peer.org/docs/nj/08_13_5_chem_industry_letter.pdf
View the State Industrial Union Council objections
http://www.peer.org/docs/nj/08_13_5_union_letter.pdf
Revisit the Corzine campaign pledge for “tough mandatory” chemical plant rules
http://www.corzineforgovernor.com/i/pdf/plan_environment.pdf
New Jersey PEER is a state chapter of a national alliance of state and federal agency resource professionals working to ensure environmental ethics and government accountability.