Spew the Big Lie that environmental protection hampers housing market – Builders attack clean water and toxic site cleanup safeguards
Bill WolfeFat cat lobbyists for the NJ Builders Association – the $600 suits – hog the front row before the Senate Legislative Oversight Committee hearing.
That Pastoral Mural in background is ironic, no?In an orchestrated attack that played on real economic hardship, lobbyists for NJ Builders Association lashed out at the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and clean water and toxic site cleanup regulations, before a Senate Legislative Oversight panel today in Trenton.
The spectacle was understandable, given economic distress over the recession in the home construction industry, caused by the home loan mortgage crisis and the bursting home equity bubble. But – even by Trenton’s dog and pony standards – the Builders’ show hit an all time low. So low in fact, that only 3 members of the Committee even showed up for the hearing – the no shows distancing themselves by avoiding the embarrassment [Note: error - the Cmte. has 5 members, only Sen. Lesniak was absent].
Bill WolfeHomebuilders – real people, not the $600 suits crowd – are shunted off to the side and rear meeting rooms at today’s hearing.In rhetoric unhinged from science, fact, or law, the Builders’ lobbyists attempted to make DEP and environmental regulations the scapegoat for the current economic recession. But the smear backfired, and in the process, the Builders’ lobbyists destroyed what little credibility they had. Their efforts were ineffective and a disservice to the little guys that make up the dues paying membership of the NJ Builders Association.
Here’s the story (listen to the full May 1 hearing here: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/media/archive_audio2.asp?KEY=SLO&SESSION=2008
DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson and Larry Baier, Director Of Watershed management, brief the Senate Legislative Oversight Committee on water quality management planning rules (AKA “swer rules”).DEP recently proposed two sets of regulations. The first, known as “sewer rules” are designed to protect water quality from sewer plant discharge and the impacts of development: http://www.nj.gov/dep/rules/proposals/052107a.pdf. The other, the “soil cleanup criteria” set minimum standards for toxic site cleanups to protect public health: http://www.nj.gov/dep/rules/proposals/050707a.pdf
Environmental advocates have criticized both rules as political compromises that are far too weak to address NJ’s toxic industrial legacy, assure clean water, curtail NJs overwhelming sprawl development pattern, or revitalize and cleanup NJ’s most disadvantaged urban communities.http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=832
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=910
Under the NJ Constitution, the Legislature has power to oversee regulations adopted by State Agencies, and may veto those regulations legally deemed “inconsistent with legislative intent”. Today’s oversight hearing focused on two DEP rules, the so called “sewer rules” and toxic site cleanup soil and groundwater standards.
At the outset of the hearing, Committee Chairman Sarlo made it clear that the hearing focus was NOT on a Legislative veto to strike down the DEP rules as inconsistent with legislative intent, and NOT a forum to bash DEP. To his credit, Sarlo was well prepared and substantively questioned DEP staff and environmental groups. At the same time, playing both sides of the fence, he teed up softball criticisms for the builders lobby.
Bill WolfeSenator Nia Gill (D/Essex) asked tough questions of builders lobbyists.Republican Senators Cardinale (R/Bergen) and Kyrillos (R/Monmouth) complained the DEP rules were “too complicated to understand” – but they both admitted that they had not even read the rules. In shameful pandering, both Kyrillos and Cardinale drank the cool-aid and criticized the DEP for harming the econony. Kyrillos claimed the rules “may not be workable” because they “look like Chinese – or Hebrew – something I don’t even understand” (without having even read them!).
Bill WolfeSenator Paul Sarlo (D/Bergen) Chairman was careful to emphasize that hearing was not intended to “bash DEP” or exercise the Constitutional Legislative Veto powerThe most thoughtful questions of the day came from Senator Nia Gill (D/Essex) who observed that the national economic recession was the cause of the problem. She asked Builders to document the claim that DEP regulations harmed the construction industry. Rejecting Builders’ attacks and defending environmental safeguards, Gill cut straight to the core:
“Command and control to me is as important as certainty is for the development industry”. Later, crystalizing the real policy conflicts, Gill said “What may be unacceptable to investors may be necessary to protect public health in my communities.”.
Bill WolfePanel representing NJ Builders AssociationIn over the top testimony, the Builders Association claimed that the DEP water quality and toxic site cleanup rules would cause “a devastating downward spiral” leading to a “full blown recession”. Yet they offered not one shred of evidence to support these claims or any legal analysis to support a claim that the DEP regulations were not authorized by or inconsistent with legislative intent.
Bill WolfeNJ Business and Industry Association lobbyist joins Builders’ attack on clean water and toxic site cleanup environmental safeguardsThe only surprise of the day was the support of the NJ Business and Industry Association (the Chamber of Commerce sat this one out). It was a surprise that NJBIA affiliated themselves with gross exaggerations and falsehoods, including the economic recession claims, and absolutely false scare tactics that the rules would impose a “development moratorium”.
This reckless rhetoric does not advance sound public policy.
Bill Wolfe
Yalies embrace “Governator” over Nobel Laureate
Bill WolfeYale’s Woolsey Hall is packed to the rafters.The Yale University community turned out for “The Governors Declaration on Climate Change” on Friday. The well promoted event was timed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of President Teddy Roosevelt’s landmark “Conference of Governors” in Washington DC.
Bill WolfePinchot is buried in Milford, Pennsylvania, along the Delaware River That 1908 event helped launch the conservation movement (precursor to today’s environmental movement). Roosevelt’s close advisor, first Chief of the US Forest Service and conservationist Gifford Pinchot, worked to establish the National Parks System and inspire State programs to protect land. In an historic debate that still rages, Pinchot’s “conservationist” views clashed with the “preservationist” orientation advocated by John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club.
Bill WolfeNobel Laureate Dr. R.K. Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), welcomes the warm reception.The event focused on the leadership of 18 Governor’s who signed the “federal partnership” declaration on global warming, but California Governor Schwarzenegger clearly won the hearts and minds of the Yale crowd. In remarks in which he took personal credit for forming the fitness “movement”, Schwarzennegger took the opportunity to ridicule environmentalists.
Bill WolfeSchwartzenegger speaks at Yale.Schwarzenegger characterized environmentalists as effete (gay? feminine?) elite proponents of a failed movement based upon shame, guilt, pessimism, government solutions, and limits to growth (you think the Ahnold can say “Malthusian”?).
Analogizing to what he described as the takeoff in today’s hugely popular personal fitness “movement” (a “movement” he took credit for having started with “Pumping Iron”, back in the day when weightlifters were considered nerds), Schwarzenegger advocated his new muscular macho brand of the “environmental movement”.
Bill WolfeSchwarzenegger and Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell sign Governor’s Declaration at Yale.This new “movement” he is leading is optimistic, exciting, cool, sexy, and most importantly, macho. It relies on capitalist market investment and trusts technological solutions, and is NOT antiquated government command and control driven.
The contrast with the humble Nobel Laureate scientist, Dr. Pachauri could not have been more stark.
But the Yale community absolutely ate Schwarzenegger up – his remarks were punctuated with applause and laughter. The crowd gave him a spontaneous standing ovation, which was far in excess of the response to Nobel Laureate and IPCC Chair Dr. Pachauri.
Frankly, I was embarrased for Yale – an elite University supposedly dedicated to the life of the mind and pursuit of Truth, not the promotion of political propaganda.
In my view, Schwarzenegger is a bully who blends certain retrograde cultural myths and machismo with uninformed market fundamentalist rhetoric. His public policy views may be informed by good speech writers, but he clearly is overly optimistic – bordering on utopian – in his advocacy of capitalism, private markets, and technology to provide a magic bullet to solve our environmental problems.
This is a very dangerous combination of attributes in a politician. But I’m sure the California folks who elected him are beginning to understand this “Hybrid Hummer environmentalism”.
Bill WolfeIn a wonderful historic gesture, grandsons of Gifford Pinchot and Teddy Roosevelt are special guests at Yale (from left).
“There will be no Fast Tracking”
Jon Corzine 4/5/08 – remarks at NJEF Annual Conference.
Bill WolfeDEP Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson.[Update #1: at 1:30 pm today, I received a call from Assembly Majority Office to advise that Tuesday's hearing will be limited to the following issues:
1) licensed professional program; 2) insurance; 3) remedy selection; and 4) repeal of Fast track law]
[Update: #2 – 6:00 pm – Site Remediation White Papers – just posted on DEP website. See: http://www.nj.gov/dep/srp/stakeholders/whitepapers/
Just days before the Legislature will hold joint hearings on April 15 to address much needed reforms to DEP’s broken toxic site cleanup program, DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson was out lobbying for highly controversial measures.
Pre-empting the legislative debate, Jackson supported more privatization and deregulation. Ironically, it is exactly those policies that created the debacles and failed to protect public health – such as Encap, Kiddie Kollege, Ford, – that have outraged citizens across the state, generated enormous bad press, and spurred the legislative reform efforts. (see: LEGISLATURE TO PROBE TOXIC COLLAPSE IN NEW JERSEY — Series of Cleanup Fiascoes Have Communities Feeling Betrayed and Vulnerable http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=694
Let me be specific and quote the reported remarks of Commissioner Jackson:
“We don’t want more regulation, we want less,” Jackson said. “We’re going from five checkpoints down to one — I call that efficiency.”
DEP chief Jackson addresses Urban Land Institute http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080409/REALESTATE/80409013
What is Jackson thinking with such knee jerk anti-regulatory rhetoric?
Perhaps worse, Jackson supported more privatization:
“The commissioner spoke primarily about a proposal to adopt a consultant licensing program that would allow environmental professionals from the private sector — rather than state employees — to facilitate remediation of contaminated sites. The licensing program, which would resemble a program in Massachusetts, would address the problem of delays caused by lack of DEP case managers due to budget cuts.”
Privatization of toxic site cleanups is a fools errand, where consultants and polluters have huge economic incentives to cut costs, violate regulations, and compromise public health and environmental protection.
In NJ, private certifications and lack of DEP oversight have caused major fiasco’s. The people in Hamilton learned the hard way in the WR Grace case. Grace certified the site was clean and DEP rubber stamped that certification without taking any soil samples. Later, high levels of toxic asbestos forced the US EPA to conduct an emergency removal of 15,000 cubic yards of highly contaminated soil. Or ask folks in Edison and central NJ about the Ford plant PCB fiasco. In that case, toxic PCB contaminated soil from that “cleanup” was used as clean fill at more than a dozen housing developments in central NJ. There are dozens of known and unknown similar cases where people and the environment are being poisoned due to failed cleanups.
In the Massachusetts program – held up by Jackson as a model – a State Audit found that three quarters of privatized cleanups were found to be deficient. see: STATE AUDITS FIND THREE-FOURTHS OF TOXIC CLEAN-UPS DEFICIENT — Many Privatized Hazardous Waste Removals Must be Done Over http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=628
For the implications of privatization at DEP, see NEW JERSEY TO PRIVATIZE TOXIC CLEAN-UP SCIENCE — State Environment Department Will Contract Out Geologic Work to Reduce Backlog
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=922
In addition to the controversies over toxic site cleanup, just weeks ago, Jackson was criticized by environmental groups for creating a “Permit Efficiency Task Force” (see:http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1022
Jackson pre-emptively showed her cards in that controversial debate as well. Her remarks sought to justify and lobby for policy changes – before the group has even met – the controvesial mission of the “Permit Efficiency Task Force” Jackson recently created by Administrative Order. The deliberations of that industry dominated Task Force will not be open to the public (see: DEP denies task force on permits is a retreat
Jackson: Faster reviews won’t weaken protections http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1206423377148520.xml&coll=1
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1022
“Jackson also spoke about an initiative that has established a task force to conduct a comprehensive review of the DEP’s land use permitting process. The task force is charged with preparing a report with its recommendations for improvements within 120 days. One goal will be to streamline the land use permitting process while maintaining public healthand protecting the environment, she said. Another goal will be to incentivize sustainable development projects.
“If we do not address how we deal with our permits department, I feel the department will collapse under the weight,” said Jackson. “Folks want predictability of outcomes and times and we are trying to bring that.”
By using the terms “predictability and certainty”, Jackson parrots the tired rhetoric of the Whitman Administration and industry lobbyists seeking to roll back environmental and public health protections.
Where is the NJ press corps?
Clean Air Council Hearing spotlights lack of pollution controls in NJ – State Urged to do more to regulate powerful port interests
Diesel fumes called NJ’s “greatest cancer risk” http://www.northjersey.com/news/northernnj/Diesel_fumes_called_NJ_greatest_cancer_risk.html
[See our Jan 18 post: In Harm's way http://blog.nj.com/njv_bill_wolfe/2008/01/what_they_dont_want_you_to_see.html
Bill WolfeJohn Maxwell, a well known Trenton oil industry lobbyist, is a "public" member of the Council. His introductory quip: "I'm a lobbyist for the oil companies doing god's work on the environment" prompted laughterThe little known Clean Air Council held their annual public hearing today at DEP's Trenton Headquarters. The topic was "Improving Air Quality at our Ports and Airports." The Council, formed by the Legislature to provide recommendations to DEP, holds an annual public hearing and meets monthly.
The hearing was well attended by business interests and lobbyists, with a few environmental group representatives and citizens. Tellingly, the Hearing Officer was Michael Engeton, chief lobbyist for the Chamber of Commerce. For the Council's membership and issue agenda, see: http://www.state.nj.us/dep/cleanair/
Bill WolfeMichael Engeton, lobbyist for the Chamber of Commerce, was Hearing Officer at today's Clean Air Council Annual Public Hearing.
Bill WolfeIrwin Zonis, an original public member of the Council since 1968 - traced the Council's history.Refreshingly, one Council member had the courage to mention the conflicts between business interests and the Council's mission. Original member Irwin Zonis remarked that the legislature, in forming the Council, wisely realized that it would "not be a good idea to have regulated industries craft [air quality] regulations”[Side Note: we urge Mr. Zonis to look into the powers of the Fish and Game Council - which include exactly such powers plus veto power over DEP regulations.]
Expert testimony to the Council spotlighted significant adverse air quality and severe human health impacts caused by unregulated emissions from diesel powered ships, port equipment, and trucks plying NJ’s ports.
Bill WolfePeter Greenwald, California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District (Los Angeles region)The Council heard stunning testimony from Peter Greenwald of California’s South Coast Air Quality management District. Greenwald emphasized that proximity to residential neighborhoods was critically important. His data showed that air pollution levels caused by unregulated diesel powered ships and trucks using Los Angeles ports caused dramatic loss of lung function in young children, increased morbidity and mortality rates, and posed cancer risks thousands of times above regulatory levels. Greenwald urged NJ regulators to aggressively use existing state and local laws to ratchet down on port pollution. He also urged NJ policy makers and Congressional delegation to supoort US Senate bill # S1499 (Boxer) to regulate emissions from ships
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:s1499is.txt.pdf.
The work being done by in California FAR surpasses the meagre efforts of NJ DEP – NJ lacks California’s community outreach, air monitoring, staff and financial resources, and aggressive regulatory controls. Because similar pollution problems and health risks are posed by NJ’s ports, Greenwald’s testimony posed a major challenge to DEP and the pro-business Corzine Administration. For California’s air toxics work, including emission inventories, cancer maps, and control strategies: http://www.aqmd.gov/prdas/matesIII/matesIII.html
Compare that effort to NJDEP’s: http://www.state.nj.us/dep/airmon/airtoxics/
Bill WolfeDr. Monica Mazurek, Rutgers University, testifies to NJ Clean Air CouncilRutgers professor Dr. Monica Mazurek, presented her work on fine particulate pollution, a serious health threat caused by diesel motor emissions (ironically, more work done in NY State than NJ). Dr. Mazurek stressed the need for additional air monitoring, emissions measurements, and modeling. http://www.engineeringplanet.rutgers.edu/mazurek.php
Bill WolfeAmy Goldsmith, NJ Environmental Federation, testifies to CouncilEnvironmental justice and community groups testified to the Council. Valorie Caffee (NJ Work Environment Council) Amy Goldsmith (NJ Environmental Federation) and Christina Montorio (Change to Win) emphasized cumulative pollution levels from multiple pollution sources.
Bill WolfeValorie Caffee, NJ Work Environment Council, testifies to CouncilTheir data showed gross disparities in adverse health impacts to NJ’s urban minority residents versus suburban communities, largely caused by diesel pollution. Data from Newark’s Ironbound community – nearby Ports Newark and Elizabeth and where ball fields are located nearby heavily truck trafficked highways – showed that predominately black children suffered far higher pollution levels and more than double the asthma rates, hospital emergency admissions, and lost school days than their counterparts in suburban NJ. http://www.cleanwateraction.org/njef/campaigns-cleanair.html
Bill WolfeChristina Montorio (Change to Win Coaltion) testifies to CouncilFor WEC website, see: http://www.njwec.org/
For Change to Win, see: http://www.changetowin.org/
Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence
Martin Luther King, Jr.
“…There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor — both black and white — through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.
Delivered 4 April 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
*Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I need not pause to say how very delighted I am to be here tonight, and how very delighted I am to see you expressing your concern about the issues that will be discussed tonight by turning out in such large numbers. I also want to say that I consider it a great honor to share this program with Dr. Bennett, Dr. Commager, and Rabbi Heschel, some of the distinguished leaders and personalities of our nation. And of course it’s always good to come back to Riverside Church. Over the last eight years, I have had the privilege of preaching here almost every year in that period, and it is always a rich and rewarding experience to come to this great church and this great pulpit. I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. The recent statements of your executive committee are the sentiments of my own heart, and I found myself in full accord when I read its opening lines: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.
The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.
And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation’s history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: “Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King?” “Why are you joining the voices of dissent?” “Peace and civil rights don’t mix,” they say. “Aren’t you hurting the cause of your people,” they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live.
Read more…
Avery Grant, Long Branch, moderated
Roy Jones, Co-Chair, SJEJA
David Sciarra, Director, Education Law Center, legal champion of the “Abbott v. Burke” equitable school funding decision
Lois Gibbs, of “Love Canal” fame, Director of the Center for Health, Justice and Environment
Dr. Peter Montague, longtime anti-toxics activist, founder of Rachel’s Hazardous Waste News, and nationally recognized proponent of the Precautionary Principle
Dr. A.S. Mahdi Ibn Ziyad, Congressional candidate in NJ’s First District, environmental justice activist, teacher and adjunct professor
Algernon Ward, chemist adn community activist, Trenton
