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“Blown Out, Baked Out, and Broke”

Nowhere left to run to

Will Climate Chaos Drive Public Support of a Green New Deal?

In May of 1934, dust storms from the Great Plains blew all the way across the country, with dust so thick that the street lights in Manhattan turned on in the middle of the day (UGA Co-Operative Extension):

dust storms of mid-May, 1934 …  blew fine dust all the way from the panhandle of Oklahoma to New York City and Washington DC.  The amount of dust was so large that it caused streetlights in Manhattan (New York,  not Kansas) to come on in the middle of the day, and views from the Empire State Building looked like soup so thick that observers could barely see the ground because of the dust in the air.

The following year, in March of 1935, on the same day the FDR administration was testifying before Congress seeking funding for dust bowl conservation programs, another huge dust storm hit Washington DC: (from the Washington Post, “Black Blizard Blankets the National Mall”):

Creeping halfway across the Nation in a murky cloud extending 10,000 feet into the sky, the great dust storm of the Southwest and Midwest invaded the East yesterday, bringing grime and discomfort on the first day of spring.

Even as the Administration determined upon a combined drive by seven government agencies to fasten the Midwest’s rich farm soil against the destructive dust storms, the swirling particles of earth from Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas sifted into the District and dirtied the windows of Federal Buildings.

For superb contemporaneous historical accounts of the Dust Bowl and Mississippi River flooding, watch these classic documentaries by FDR’s Resettlement Administration, a short lived but important New Deal Agency and the Farm Security Administration:

• The Plow That Broke The Plains (1937)
•  The River (1938)

Farmers were “Blown Out, Baked Out, and Broke“.

“We left the mountains and the hills slashed and burned – and moved on.“

I can’t help but hear echoes in the current climate change driven, clearcut logging, and drought induced wildfires and smoke now ravaging the west coast.

Will that catastrophe – coupled with hurricanes, floods and other extreme weather AKA “climate chaos” – drive decisive public support for a Green New Deal?

I wrote about all that 8 years ago, in the wake of Superstorm Sandy’s devastation,  in a post titled:

• We’re All Okie Refugees Now – The Dust Bowl As A Metaphor For Global Warming Crisis

I strongly urge folks to read that, so will provide just this short excerpt here, from Donald Worster’s classic book, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930’s.:

Some environmental catastrophe’s are nature’s work, others are the slowly accumulating effects of ignorance or poverty. The Dust Bowl, in contrast, was the inevitable outcome of a culture that deliberately, self-consciously, set itself the task of dominating and exploiting the land for all it was worth.

The Dust Bowl came into being during the 1930’s, … the age of the Great Depression. Coincidence, some might say, that the two traumas should come at the same time. Few who have written on either affair have noticed any connection between them. My argument, however, is that there was in fact a close link between the Dust Bowl and the Depression – that the same society produced them both, and for similar reasons. Both events revealed fundamental weaknesses in the tradtional culture of America, the one in ecological terms, the other in economic. Both offered a reason, and an opportunity, for substantial reform of that culture.

History may not repeat itself, but it sure does echo.

We Explore an EJ Activist’s Experience to Show How The Flawed Bill Will Not Work

Waiver, Loopholes & Exemptions Gut Environmental Justice Impacts

Cruel Manipulation, False Hope, Cynical Political Opportunism

[Postscript Below]

NJ Gov. Murphy signed the flawed EJ bill into law today, read his over the top press release (curiously, which does not provide a link to the bill he signed into law):

• Governor Murphy Signs Historic Environmental Justice Legislation

As expected, Murphy claimed national leadership for signing the nation’s so called strongest EJ bill into law.

I blame the so called EJ activists not only for being duped by Democrats and negotiating a weak, 10 year old, and gutted compromise bill at exactly the time the BLM movement was building political power, but for actively encouraging this to happen (and not just members of the Environmental Justice Advisory Council, but other Foundation funded sycophants like Amy Goldsmith, Doug O’Malley, Ed Potasnak, and the rest of the NJ green mafia that have provided cover for Gov. Murphy).

I don’t now how anyone can call a law that totally ignores the climate emergency and climate justice a national model.

I don’t know how anyone can call a law the sets a huge 100 ton per  year air pollution regulatory threshold – thereby exempting thousands of small pollution sources that poison black and poor people – a model for regulating “cumulative impacts”.

I don’t know how anyone can call a law that totally ignores an actual Camden NJ based US District Court decision regarding the DEP’s failure to enforce civil rights laws in the DEP permit process as creating new “rights” for EJ communities.

I don’t know how a law that eliminated real local control and a local veto power by surrendering all legal power to DEP as some kind of model of democratic accountability (activists typically criticize this as anti-democratic “preemption”).

I don’t know how anyone could call a law that provides no standards or mandatory content requirements for an EJ impact statement and vest total control in drafting such an Environmental Justice Impact Statement in the hand of corporate polluters as promoting science, activism, democratic accountability or justice.

I don’t know how anyone can support allowing DEP to unilaterally invoke a loophole to waive the permit denial and permit conditions of the bill – without ANY technical standards, limits, or procedural protections – and to over-ride a DEP scientific finding of actual disproportionate public health and environmental impacts on an EJ community, merely by finding a “compelling public need” for the polluting project.

I’ve written about the flaws of the bill many times and explained how and why it won’t work. So today, instead of repeating that, I will illustrate the flaws by using the Governor’s own press release.

Once again, despite my prior criticism of how corrupt this co-optive practice is, Gov. Murphy quotes environmental justice activists in his press release.

I don’t want to single anyone out, but I was struck by this quote of support, both because I am not familiar with this individual (Melissa Miles) and because of what the quote hints at (i.e. “the rule-making process”): (Gov.’ press release)

“Environmental Justice communities are well aware of how race and income relate to environmental burdens,” said Melissa Miles, Executive Director, NJ Environmental Justice Alliance. “Our legislators have answered our call to action and now we must keep the voices of overburdened communities centered in the rule-making process.”

So let’s drill down on what Ms. Miles said and what it means.

1. Ms. Miles correctly notes the need for community involvement in the DEP rule-making process.

This confirms several criticism I have made, including: a) the bill can’t work without DEP regulations; b) the failure of the bill to provide any content requirements, citations of science or other regulatory standards, or numeric or narrative standards to guide and constrain DEP regulations. This Legislative abdication of their policymaking role provides DEP with wide discretion – discretion they have abused for decades with respect to EJ; c) powerful corporate polluters have captured and rigged the DEP rule-making process; d) Gov. Murphy’s Executive Order on rule-making actually makes this capture worse and provides polluters more DEP access and procedural opportunities to intervene behind the scenes with no fingerprints, while frustrating activists and the public’s ability to influence DEP rules; and e) the complex science and legal procedures of the rule-making process are heavily biased against communities and heavily in favor of powerful corporate polluters who can hire the experts and lawyers that bend laws to their favor in DEP’s rule-making process.

Strike One.

2. A quick Google reveals that Ms. Miles was previously employed by the Ironbound Community Corp. (ICC). ICC is part of what really amounts to a Newark – Essex County machine. They go along to get along, and know how to shake the money tree. Look only at the ICC-Booker-Covanta deal that allowed the Newark garbage incinerator to continue polluting. (Isn’t it curious that all the EJ advocates quoted in the Gov.’s press release were involved with ICC?)

Strike Two.

3. But I was intrigued by her current role as ED of the NJ EJA, so I Googled that and found her (undated) appointment press announcement.

I’d like to focus on the activist “experience” and “expertise” that is touted as the basis for her hiring – not as a personal attack, but to show exactly how the flaws in the bill will actually work (I have numbered the points):

So let’s drill down on the specifics of Ms. Miles’ wonderful experiences:

(1) – the Passaic River toxic site cleanup and dioxin are correctly noted as important.

But the bill exempts all toxic site cleanups from the environmental justice impact statement and cumulate impact reviews. (Besides, the Passaic River cleanup was a federal Superfund case and decisions were made by EPA. The NJ EJ State law does not apply to federal Superfund or EPA decisions. Worse, ICC was NOT a leader – they supported EPA’s partial cleanup & capping plan, which was opposed by other environmental groups for failure to fully cleanup the river.)

(2) – Ms. Miles has experience conducting truck counts, which are an important indicator of mobile source air pollution.

But the bill does not apply to mobil source air pollution. Equally bad, local port pollution from airplanes, ships, and diesel powered trains is not regulated by the bill.

Yes, mobile sources are in the bill’s definition of “pollution”, but the bill is limited to DEP permits. DEP does NOT issue permits to mobile sources. If anyone thinks that DEP is legally able to hold an industrial polluter accountable for mobile source pollution, I’ve got some land in Florida for sale. This is why the bill is unworkable.

In order to be workable, as I’ve written, the bill needed to amend the underlying laws that authorize DEP permits, e.g. the NJ Air Pollution Control Act, and to mandate the DEP revise the technical basis for their various permit review methods to account for cumulative impacts, including from mobile sources (e.g. risk assessment, air quality monitoring and modeling, and State of the Art determinations.).

But the bill did NOT do that. In fact, it does the opposite: the bill does once substantively cite a specific provision of the NJ Air Pollution Control Act (in Section 4.f. on page 8) but it does so to PROTECT THE POLLUTER, NOT THE PUBLIC by allowing the polluter to continue polluting during DEP’s renewal of permits and invoke a “permit shield” provision. What this will do is allow polluters to continue to operate, in the rare event that DEP imposes tough “conditions” on permit renewal, while the polluter challenges those provisions administratively and later in court.

(this follows a pattern in the bill – the only precise language and clear standards used are there to protect the polluters)

3) – Ms. Miles experience illustrates the need for ambient air monitoring – in the community and at the fence-line of industrial pollution sources.

But the bill: a) does not include a mandate that DEP beef up its tiny air quality monitoring network in EJ communities; b) does not change the way DEP regulates air pollution sources to mandate that they conduct fence-line and community air quality monitoring; c) does not change the lax and ineffective way that DEP allows polluters to conduct their own “air quality modeling” and “risk assessment” to analyze the health impacts on local EJ communities; and d) ignores the findings of prior DEP research in Paterson NJ to monitor local small sources of hazardous air pollutants and assess the cumulative impacts of those pollution sources.

(4) – Ms. Miles’ experience shows that community mapping is important to understanding the implications of pollution sources and environmental justice.

But the bill does nothing – in terms of specific standards, resources, or mandates –  to require DEP to map the relevant public health and pollution characteristics of EJ communities. Polluters are not required to map these impacts and characteristics in “Environmental Justice Impact Statements” or to illustrate them to communities or facilitate DEP regulation.

(5) –  Ms. Miles makes clear that children are important. They are more sensitive to pollution. The location of children’s day care centers and schools are often located very close to pollution sources, creating “hot spots”. Scientists classify children as “vulnerable populations” and “sensitive receptors”.

But the bill does not define, provide standards, or require consideration of children or other “sensitive receptors” in how DEP conducts risk assessment or how a polluter prepares an “Environmental Justice Impact Statement”. The bill does not address local “hot spots” or specify any standards for regulating the distance between a sensitive receptor and a pollution source.

(6) – Ms. Miles highlights climate justice as critically important in principle.

But the bill totally ignores climate, i.e. greenhouse gas emissions are not regulated by the bill or part of the DEP Environmental Justice Impact Statement or cumulative impact reviews. The DEP may not deny permits or impose conditions to mandate reductions in GHG emissions, or mitigation of GHG emissions, or adaptation to climate change. The DEP may not require energy conservation, energy efficiency or renewable energy in permits – even basic stuff like solar and planting trees. THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF CLIMATE JUSTICE.

(7) – Ms. Miles’ experience includes disaster preparedness and is correctly mentioned as important to EJ communities.

But the bill does not apply to NJ’s Disaster Planning and Preparedness program. The bill does not apply to NJ DEP’s “Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act” program (see “The Fatal Fifteen” for the implications of that). NJ does not have a climate disaster preparedness program. EJ community will remain at risk. The bill does NOTHING to reduce those risks.

(8) – (9) – Ms. Miles was motivated to become an activists because her child suffered from asthma. Especially in children and the elderly, Miles correctly noted asthma as a serious problem in EJ communities. Climate change will make current urban air quality far worse. Current poor urban air quality is due primarily to ground level ozone, although small particulates (PM2.5) are a big problem too.

But the bill ignores the major causes of poor local air quality: climate change warming; cumulate impacts of small industrial sources (less than 100 ton per year emission threshold in the bill); mobile sources (cars and trucks) and other “ozone precursors”  and major sources like airplanes, ships, and trains. It will do nothing to reduce the impacts and risks of asthma and other respiratory and cardio-pulmonary diseases associated with current levels of pollution. And don’t forget that huge loophole resulting from the 100 ton per year threshold. Just look at the DEP’s Paterson NJ cumulative risk study to see the impacts of many small sources, including “hot spots”.

(10) – Miles’ experience shows the importance of activism.

But the bill erects barriers to and frustrates activism: a) the environmental justice impact statement will be prepared by consultants for the polluters, not the community; b) the complex legal and scientific nature of the DEP permit process is heavily biased against and almost impervious to activism; c) local veto power, where activist could have the most influence and hold local political leaders democratically accountable, was deleted; and d) all final decisions are controlled tightly by the DEP out of Trenton, where corporate polluters, political, and economic considerations hold sway and overwhelm any local activist pressure.

Street heat has been neutered by this law.

Strike 3.

The bill is an activists’ nightmare, not a national model.

Postscript:

The entire EJ debate is now playing on the corporate technocrats’ field, using DEP’s flawed regulatory tools (which remain unchanged by this law) and DEP’s formal regulatory procedures, which neuter public involvement.

The corporate consultants will bamboozle local activists and DEP with “sounds like science” environmental justice impact statements (I’ve suggested people consider NJ Transit’s impact statement as a model of that).

In contrast, just think how much more leverage activists would have over DEP if the EJ impact statement had to meet specific scientific and technical standards in the legislation. If the EJ impact statement was written by a consultant that was paid by and reported to the community. If the community was provided technical assistance resources. If DEP were forced to apply the precautionary principle and base decisions on environmental justice impact statements, risk assessments, and air quality modeling procedures that were written by EJ groups and their scientific consultants. If DEP were forced to defend every aspect of their permit reviews to the community in the community.

But the bill does NONE of that. It does the opposite.

The activists will be disempowered by the process – and their one effective tool, a local veto power, was stripped from a prior version of the bill and is NOT in the bill the Gov. signed into law.

In contrast, just think how much more power local EJ activists would have if their local elected officials had veto power.

Activists will be unable to make Civil Rights Law disproportionate burden as discrimination arguments. Activists will be unable to argue “structural racism” arguments.

The burden of proof to support EJ discrimination under federal law under the federal Appellate Court’s interpretation is far too great, literally requiring concrete evidence of an intent to discriminate.

In contrast, just think if NJ civil rights law merely requiring a showing of disproportionate burden as presumptive proof of discrimination.

Activists will be unable to make climate justice arguments.

But corporate lawyers and lobbyists are given a platform to make economic and “compelling public need” arguments – which they’ve never had before under NJ environmental laws – to leverage DEP into issuing waivers.

Corporate lobbyists have always made the economic development and jobs arguments to undermine public health and environmental protections, but they didn’t have the law on their side. This bill now puts the law on their side.

And DEP will be insulated from activists concerns, while being subject to top down political edicts from the Gov.’s office or influential legislators who are beholden to corporate interests.

The law makes the status quo WORSE!

Heckofajob NJEJAC, ICC, CWA, Environment NJ, NJ LCV and the rest of the foundation funded tools who supported this law.

The NJ EJ bill does not create any “right” to a “clean environment”

Truthout Analysis Gets It Badly Wrong

Political Set Up Piece For Gov. Murphy’s Bill Signing Tomorrow

My friend and longtime NJ based scientist and environmental justice activist Peter Montague wrote an opinion piece today at Truthout, supporting the seriously flawed EJ bill now on NJ Gov. Murpy’s desk, see:

• A New Jersey Law Makes a Clean Environment a Right. Other States Should Follow

I met Mr. Montague in the late 1980’s when I was a DEP policy analyst and when he and Madalyn Hoffman (founder of NJ Green Party) led the charge against garbage incinerators.

Montague coined the phrase “a billion bullets to the heads of Newarks’ kids” to describe the lead emissions from the Newark garbage incinerator, a dinosaur highly polluting facility that would be exempt from the EJ bill he is now strangely supporting. I took the photo above at a December 2, 2009 DEP EJ briefing.

So, it’s really sad that I have to call bullshit on his crap.

According to Montague, Gov. Murphy will sign the bill tomorrow – no doubt surrounded by his sycophants in the NJ ENGO and EJ communities (but will they be quoted in the Gov.’s press release, after I called out that abuse?) It’s not surprising that Gov. Murphy would sign the bill on a Friday (in late afternoon?) as a means of minimizing news coverage. The bill is opposed by the NJ business community and Wall Street Murphy doesn’t want to poke a finger in the eye of his corporate friends.

As I’ve been writing critical analyses of the bill for weeks and urging NJ EJ activist to withdraw their support and urge the Gov. to veto the bill, obviously I disagree with Mr. Montague.

But this goes way beyond a good faith disagreement over the merits and politics of the compromise bill.

The headline and the text of Montague’s analysis are factually in error. The NJ bill does not make or create any “right” to a “clean environment”. This is just totally wrong.

Worse, the bill totally ignores an actual directly on point US District Court decision that analyzed the NJ DEP EJ program with respect to DEP permitting, see: South Camden Citizens v. NJ Dept. of Environ., 145 F. Supp. 2d 446 (D.N.J. 2001).

I recently wrote about how that decision relates to the EJ bill, see:

• 18 Years After Scathing Criticism By Federal Judge For Ignoring “Environmental InJustice”, NOTHING HAS CHANGED AT NJ DEP

This bill is NOT a national model, as Montague suggests, but is a national disgrace and sellout.

So, here’s the note I sent to Montague. I’ll let you know if he responds:

[Update – I just got this rapid and cryptic reply:

Thanks, Bill.  You may be right. –Peter.

I responded by asking Montague to correct or ask Truthout to take down the piece. He declined to do so. ~~~ end update]

Hi Peter – I’ve been writing for weeks now criticizing, in detail, the flaws in the EJ bill, so I was very disappointed by your piece today. There are so many problems with it:

1. The headline and your text talk about the bill establishing a “right”. That is totally false. You cite legislative findings which have no legal effect. Worse, in terms of civil rights law, the EJ bill ignores the Camden US District Court case on the civil rights issues.

2. the bill ignores climate, greenhouse gas emissions, and adaptation. That alone is a fatal flaw. Fatal, literally.

3. the bill ignores actual DEP permit regulations, Technical manuals, risk assessment methods, Guidance, prior science (Paterson cumulative impacts) etc

4. the local veto power was stripped

5. the 100 TPY air emissions threshold contradicts the entire concept of cumulative impact

6. there are a bunch of loopholes.

7. the compelling public need loophole arguably weakens all environmental laws

Here are some links to my analysis, if you are interested. I’m calling on activist to withdraw support and ask Murphy to veto the bill and start over.

http://www.wolfenotes.com/2020/09/structural-racism-works-for-the-same-reasons-that-the-environmental-justice-bill-will-fail/

http://www.wolfenotes.com/2020/09/nj-environmental-justice-bill-on-gov-murphys-desk-is-seriously-flawed-and-will-not-work/

Wolfe

Calling On Gov. Murphy To Veto The Bill

As I’ve written many times, the “environmental justice” bill that has passed both houses of the NJ legislature and is now on Gov. Murphy’s desk  (read it (S 232 [2R]) is seriously flawed.

It also totally ignores the climate emergency (e.g. there is no regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, no requirements to quantify a project’s lifecycle carbon footprint, no GHG emissions offsets, no energy efficiency or renewable energy standards, and no climate mitigation requirements to address urban heat island and increased air pollution etc):

• Greenhouse gas emissions are exempt. This ignores the climate emergency and the fact that EJ communities suffer disproportionately from climate impacts, especially from air pollution and extreme heat & urban heat island effects. This is an unforgivable missed opportunity to reduce GHG emissions as well at mitigate climate impacts in urban NJ.

Given these fatal flaws and failure to even address the climate emergency, I am calling on the NJ EJ advocates and environmental groups that have supported the bill to withdraw your support and urge Gov. Murphy to veto the bill.

The bill is not an acceptable compromise.

I understand that a 12th hour U-Turn is an extraordinarily heavy lift, but your credibility is on the line and we will name names.

Comparison Of NJ’s EV Program With ALA Report Amounts To Journalistic Malpractice

Today’s NJ Spotlight story on a Report by the American Lung Association (ALA) is highly misleading and grossly exaggerates the benefits of NJ’s electric vehicle program.

The ALA Report modeled the economic, public health, air quality, and climate benefits of conversion of the transportation sector to 100% electric vehicles powered by 100% renewable energy. The “transportation sector” is defined narrowly as gasoline and diesel powered on road vehicles, with no consideration of pollution from aircraft, rail, and ships and off road vehicles.

Basically, NJ Spotlight Reporter Tom Johnson used the ALA Report to tout the benefits of NJ’s electric vehicle program.

But Mr. Johnson compared apples to oranges and in doing so grossly exaggerated the benefits of NJ’s EV program. Johnson wrote:

NJ pitches in with zero-emission vehicles

New Jersey is one state that has embraced that approach, adopting a comprehensive program to electrify light-duty vehicles under a law approved in 2004. What’s more, New Jersey should have more than 300,000 zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2025, as well as charging infrastructure around the state to ease range anxiety among drivers that their vehicles can be refueled. It also aims to have 100% of its electricity come from clean-energy sources by mid-century.

If such strategies are followed nationwide, the study found it could have a significant impact on public heath, as well as reducing air pollutants in a state widely recognized as a transportation corridor.

The “NJ pitches in” section follows the lead 4 paragraphs of the Spotlight story, which summarize the ALA Report. The ALA Report includes estimates of various benefits that would accrue to NJ. Clearly, the intent is to compare NJ’s EV program with the ALA Report. That is highly misleading.

First of all, NJ has not “embraced that approach“. The phrase “that approach” clearly means the ALA Report’s electrification transition.

There is a huge difference between the ALA “approach” as presented in the ALA Report and the NJ EV program. See below.

Second, the phrase “if such strategies are followed” is highly misleading. This is because the phrase is contained under the header “NJ pitches in” that describes NJ’e EV program and directly follows a paragraph about NJ’s EV program. Thus, the phrase clearly implies that the “strategies” are NJ’s strategies and that those strategies will produce the various benefits estimated in the ALA Report.

That is so false and misleading it amounts to journalistic malpractice. Tom Johnson is an experienced reporter who has a basic facility with data. He could not do this inadvertently, because he clearly knows the difference between the NJ EV program and the ALA Report’s assumptions.

Here’s why the story was so misleading  (and I’ll keep this short).

1. The ALA Report assumes that 100% of the on road vehicle fleet is converted to electric vehicles which are powered by non-carbon based energy (renewables).

The ALA Report methodology is found on page 17. Here is the core ALA assumption:

2. NJ’s EV program is not even close to the 100% fleet conversion to ZEV’s assumed by the ALA Report.

I won’t rehash all that here. For details of NJ’s EV program and the various benefits modeled in the ALA Report, see:

• Highly Touted “Transformative” Electric Vehicle Program Has Negligible – If ANY – Impact On Greenhouse Gas Emissions

NJ Spotlight’s story is again highly misleading. Spotlight reports that:

New Jersey should have more than 300,000 zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2025

Keep in mind that the context for this statement is the ALA Report, which assumed a 100% EV fleet (passenger cars, trucks, buses).

In contrast, NJ’s 300,000 EV vehicle goal (it’s actually 330,000) is less than 10% of of NJ’s current fleet of passenger vehicles, which is not even close to the 100% of the entire on road transportation fleet (car, trucks, buses) assumed in the ALA Report.

3. Environmental Justice Benefits

To their credit, NJ Spotlight mentions environmental justice:

The study follows up on an earlier report this year from the association that found nearly half of Americans are living with and breathing unhealthy air, a problem linked to the transportation sector, a leading contributor to both climate change and air pollution. More often than not, those impacts are likely to fall on counities with people of color.

But, in light of the grossly exaggerated benefits of NJ’e EV program, this again misleads NJ’s EJ communities.

Additionally, NJ’s EJ communities are impacted by huge air pollution from NJ ports (from airplanes, ships, and rail). These are significant pollution sources which are not even included in the ALA Report, a significant fact NJ Spotlight fails to report.

Worse, NJ Spotlight fails to note the larger context, i.e. the fact that an seriously flawed environmental justice bill is now on Gov. Murphy’s desk.

That EJ bill totally IGNORES exactly the impacts and benefits that are quantified in the ALA Report, i.e. the pending EJ bill ignores mobile source pollution, ignores greenhouse gas emissions. As I wrote:

• Greenhouse gas emissions are exempt. This ignores the climate emergency and the fact that EJ communities suffer disproportionately from climate impacts, especially from air pollution and extreme heat & urban heat island effects. This is an unforgivable missed opportunity to reduce GHG emissions as well at mitigate climate impacts in urban NJ.

4. HUGE Benefits Resulting From the Social Cost of Carbon Are Ignored

The ALA Report quantifies benefits that result from the Social Cost of Carbon.

These benefits are HUGE and EXCEED the health benefits: (from the ALA Report)

Yet, NJ Spotlight reports only the health benefits and ignores the larger benefits associated with “Social Cost of Carbon”. NJ Spotlight reported:

In New Jersey, the changeover could avoid $1.9 billion in health costs, 169 premature deaths and 2,306 asthma attacks, the study projected. Nationwide, the benefits of switching to a cleaner transportation sector could avoid 6,300 premature deaths, more than 93,000 asthma attacks and $72 billion in additional health care costs based on pollution reductions, according to the study.

Why would NJ Spotlight ignore the LARGER SCC benefits?

I have long criticized NJ Spotlight’s failure to cover the issues related to the Social Cost of Carbon (a news blackout that is just what the corporate polluters want because it hides a $2.3 BILLION annual subsidy).

Perhaps failures to mention the SCC could be because I previously exposed the fact that the NJ EV program would have negligible – if any – greenhouse gas emission reduction benefits.  It would be a real stretch to report on SCC benefits when NJ’s EV program has virtually no GHG emissions reductions.

And once again, we have an apples to oranges misleading presentation, because the NJ economic benefits that NJ Spotlight reports result come from the ALA Report and its assumptions, not the actual far smaller NJ EV program. The NJ program will not produce anywhere near the benefits the ALA Report projects.

A reader would conclude the opposite: i.e. that the NJ EV program mentioned favorably in the story produces these huge benefits, when they don’t.

Look, I support a strong EV program, but, if we’re going to really address the climate emergency, we need to begin with an honest assessment of reality.

All in all, NJ Spotlight is engaged in cheerleading and not journalism – in fact, this story is gross journalistic malpractice.