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A Shameful Episode

Beyond Regulatory Capture – A Billionaire Buys Bureaucrats & Conservationists

DEP Program Logo – Note that financial support from Hudson Farms is not disclosed as a sponsor

At a time when many NJ residents can’t rub 2 nickels together, are worrying about paying rent and basic living expenses, the planet is burning, and local community activists are demanding an end to DEP logging of State forested lands in the Highlands Preservation Area, the NJ DEP created, organized, and sponsored two week long luxury junkets – called a “Conservation leadership program“- for 15 DEP managers and their “conservation community” friends and political supporters who just so happen to be promoting joint DEP logging projects (just more of the “Elite Charade”).

“Conservation” organizations who attended these soirees include NJ Audubon, a group who is working with DEP on the controversial Sparta Mountain WMA and other Highlands logging projects. Not surprisingly, elites from the Nature Conservancy and Ducks Unlimited were involved, but sadly, NJ Conservation Foundation also jumped on board this disgusting gravy train.

Adding insult to injury, I learned of theses junkets after being disgusted by an outrageously false, darkly cynical, and opportunistic promotional letter from NJ Audubon CEO Eric Stiles, who actually had the balls to claim some kind of leadership in the black lives matter movement. Stiles recently wrote (full letter provided upon request):

Dear Members and Supporters,

New Jersey Audubon cannot be silent in addressing the incidents of racial injustice that have roiled our country in recent weeks which include the tragic death of George Floyd and an act of discrimination against Christian Cooper, a Board Member of New York City Audubon, in Central Park. New Jersey Audubon extends our hearts and action to the families and communities that have been victimized and marginalized for far too long. New Jersey Audubon stands with you and always will.

Right. Are you fucking kidding me? NJ Audubon as champion of racial justice????

The billionaire funded DEP “conservation leadership” program was the brainchild of and created by DEP. It was funded by Wall Street billionaire Peter Kellogg, owner of an elite hunting compound in Sussex County known as Hudson Farms.

Regular readers here may recall that I blasted Kellogg and Hudson Farms for providing a $140,000 grant to NJ Audubon to prepare the controversial logging plan for Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area, see:

• Billionaire’s Elite Hunting Club Gave NJ Audubon $140,000 To Develop Sparta Mountain Logging Plan

I’ve since learned that billionaire Kellogg’s Hudson Farms Foundation funding of NJ Audubon has more than doubled, to over $330,000.

One of the DEP soirees was held at Kellogg’s private Hudson Farms.

And of course PSE&G – who seeks to reap millions of dollars in profits by leveraging regulatory influence with DEP programs – including the DEP’s PACT climate regulations, carbon sequestration, and various mitigation programs now under development by DEP- couldn’t keep their grubby corporate hands out of and sponsored these junkets.

Several DEP manager attended the two weeklong junkets (several of whom are directly involved in the Sparta Mountain dispute). They include:

• *Dave Golden, NJ DEP DFW *(clarification: only attended 1 day)
• *John Sacco, NJ DEP DPF (*did not attend, member of planning committee)
• *Todd Wykoff, NJ DEP DFP (*did not attend, member of planning committee)
• Robert Auermuller, NJ DEP, DPF
• Elizabeth Dragon, Coastal land Use Enforcement
• Larry Fink, Green Acres
• Jason Hearon, NJ DEP DFW
• Chris Kunz, NJ DEP, BFWF&M
• Tony McBride, NJ DEP DFW
• Joshua Osowski,   NJ DEP State Parks
• Sharon Petzinger, NJ DEP DFW
• Kimberly Rennick, NJ DEP Project Manager
• Courtney Wald-Wittkop, NJ DEP Green Acres
• Brian Zarate, NJ DEP DFW
• Bill Zipse, NJ Forst Service

How much did this cost State government to send 15 professionals for 2 weeks? Were these people paid while on these week long Wall Street funded and corporate PSE&G sponsored influence peddling junkets?

How much worse can it get?

Here is how one of the “conservation leaders” from NJ who attended both events – who obviously is feeling guilty after I asked about it – described the junkets:

in January I spent a week at Hudson Farms, on Kellog’s dime, as part of the New Jersey Conservation Leadership Program inaugural cohort (see info attached). The program was the brainchild of Dave Golden w/ NJ Division of Fish & Wildlife. It also included a week at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, WV last October. Our cohort was wined and dined. And not just on propaganda. Kellog knows how to treat folks right. It’s delightful up there. Please don’t judge! I did not realize who was bankrolling the program when I applied.

The training itself, adaptive management work, is really quite useful. The rest of the experience was an eye opener, and depressing. Almost to a person the folks in my cohort are timid, and/or were already bought before participation in the program.

Here is the “program overview”. Note that the “tuition” is $4,850 for the weeklong event.

Here is the “purpose” – and note that logging is not included as a cause of fragmentation or “pressure” from “anthropogenic influences”:

Wildlife and natural habitats in New Jersey are under increasing pressure from expanding development, sea-level rise, habitat fragmentation caused by high road density, and other anthropogenic influences. When technical fixes alone cannot alleviate threats to conservation, adaptive problem solving becomes a key component to finding solutions. In a state like New Jersey, it is especially important to understand the complexities of the human element in conservation planning, management, and success.

Complexities of the “Human element? You mean complexities like the folks in Sparta NJ who are disgusted by DEP and billionaire Kellogg funded NJ Audubon logging of Highlands forests?

And look at how these elite, selfish, self promotional bastards view themselves in stating their “Vision”:

Elevate conservation in New Jersey by building extraordinary leadership throughout our conservation community. By providing our employees with adaptive leadership skills from a high-trust, shared learning experience, we will develop a network of highly effective professionals capable of magnify our individual or organizational outputs into exceptional collective accomplishments

Do they really believe their bullshit? That they are “extraordinary leaders” producing “exceptional collective accomplishments”? Delusional.

Heads should roll for this kind of Orwellian and manipulative bullshit that seeks to co-opt conservation groups and other professionals.

I want to know if the DEP attendees were paid and collected their DEP paycheck for these vacation weeks.

Can someone file OPRA requests for their time sheets they filed for the two weeks of these events and find out?

This needs to be widely shamed.

Donald Trump not the only billionaire writing checks to NJ Audubon

Don’t Let DEP create a landscape for logging and hunting

Hudson Farm – hunters love fragmented forests, fields and “early successional forest” because they produce more edge habitat and more game birds and deer

[Update 6/5/20 – Holy shit, I just hit billionaire Peter Kellogg’s Hudson Farm Foundation website and see that the NJ Audubon funding has more than doubled and is now $330,200. Is Kellogg funding replacing the former Trump “partnership” money? ~~~ end update]

The core issues in the growing controversy over the DEP and NJ Audubon’s proposed logging plan for Sparta Mountain revolve around the vision and values of public lands management – whether private & economic interests or public preservation values will prevail.

Equally important and related issues involve whether technocratic human control (i.e. “forest management to create diverse age class structure and early successional habitat“) or natural processes should govern: who and what are a forest for? What should the forest landscape look and feel like? Can DEP “management” and “forest treatments” “improve” the forest?

All signs from DEP and Audubon are pointing in exactly the wrong direction: the plan was written in secret by a narrowly trained private forestry consultant, who was paid and working under contract to NJ Audubon, a private group, and the plan itself promotes economic objectives over public values.

The latest news in this deepening quagmire shows that NJA’s Sparta Mountain Project was funded by an elite private hunting group owned by a Wall Street billionaire.

Elite private planning for a landscape that maximizes logging and hunting opportunities

In my first post on Sparta Mountain (of 10 so far), I  concluded:

A look into the players and their motivations reveals that special interests in forestry consulting, commercial logging, hunting, DEP bureaucracy, and narrow “conservation” views have teamed up to undermine the broader public interest and competing public lands management and forest uses.

Further confirming that conclusion, we now learn that billionaire investor and philanthropist Peter R. Kellogg gave NJ Audubon $140,000 for the Sparta Mountain logging scheme.

Kellogg also personally gave NJ Audubon an unknown amount “over $100,000″ (see page 13)

Got that? Donald Trump is not the only billionaire writing checks to NJ Audubon!

According to Forbes’s “400 Richest Americans” (2006)

Son of James Kellogg III, former chairman of New York Stock Exchange; cofounded Spear, Leeds & Kellogg 1954, nation’s largest specialist on the NYSE. Peter joined as director 1973. Sold to Goldman Sachs in 2000 for $6.5 billion. Owns and operates Hudson Farm, 3000-acre hunting club in Andover, N.J. 

The Hudson Farm is an elite private hunting club, that brags of its heliport and 15 minute flight from NYC (Google map view):

The Hudson Farm Club operates as a private year round outdoor experience for its members as one of the most attractive shooting layouts in the country since 1997.  The Farm consists of 3,800 acres of beautifully landscaped farmland in Andover, New Jersey with several ponds and lakes.

The Hudson Farm Club also operates The Hudson Farm Foundation which makes annual disbursements to local charities in the community.

What is it about rich white guys who like to slaughter caged birds? Hudson Farm sounds a lot like that “secret hunting society” cult like Texas farm where US Supreme Court Justice Scalia just died – and none other than Dick Face-Shooter Cheney  is said to have hunted there (see 4th commenter).

The Hudson Farm Foundation gave NJ Audubon $140,000 for the “Sparta Mountain Project”:

The Hudson Farm Club also operates The Hudson Farm Foundation.  The Foundation is governed by the members of the Club. 

Hit the Hudson Farm link and scroll down to find this:

• NJ Audubon Society-Sparta Mountain Project
  $ 140,000

  9 Hardscrabble Road
  Bernardsville NJ, 07924

A significant focus of the “members of the Club”, not surprisingly, is on promoting hunting and funding hunting oriented groups, including:

• $137,500 to the “Northern NJ Bear Project”, a group whose “values” state:

Hunting is a part of the world’s natural heritage and should be used as one of many tools for effective wildlife management

• $150,000 o NJ Outdoor Alliance. Th NJOA is headed by Anthony Mauro, a member of Gov. Christie’s DEP Transition Team that recommended weakening natural resource protections. NJOA has issued an Action Alert to their members in support of the Sparta Mt. logging plan

• $110,00 to Sussex County Sportmen Foundation; and $20,000 to “Hunters Helping the Hungry”.

Ironically, the Hudson Farm is steeped in progressive landscape & regional planning history:

On July 10th 1921, creation of the Appalachian Trail was conceived in our estate house, at a meeting, which included the visionaries:

Benton MacKaye, the Massachusetts forester and regional planner, who envisioned and campaigned for the Appalachian Trail. “He recognized that, the ability to cope with nature  directly – unshielded by the weakening wall of civilization – is one of the admitted needs of modern times”.

Clarence S. Stein, the visionary behind the planned community in Radburn, New Jersey was heralded as “one of the most progressive and controversial American architects and planners of the twentieth century”. Stein’s admirers placed him in the company of such giants as Lewis Mumford and Benton MacKaye. He championed radical community planning, finding inspiration in his studies in Paris as well as the Garden City movement in Great Britain. His city planning ideas transformed communities in both the United States and Europe.

Charles Whitaker, the editor of the journal of The American Institute of Architects, and founder of The Committee on Community Planning.

Having studied the theory and history of regional planning, I can assure you that a billionaire owned elite private hunting club that brags to be “one of the most attractive shooting layouts in the country since 1997” funding a private plan to log Highlands Preservation Area forests would not be consistent the vision of MacKaye, Stein, Whitaker, and Lewis Mumford, a hero of mine.

The fact that hunting billionaire club provided funding is highly significant – it is directly related to the pro-hunting objectives of the DEP/Audubon SMWMA plan.

Hunters prefer exactly the landscape DEP and NJ Audubon are trying to create on Sparta Mountain because it produces more deer, small game like rabbit and fox, and game birds.

The proposed plan itself says that wildlife management (code for hunting) should be the “primary emphasis” (page 29) and highest management objective and trump other uses and functions of the forest.

We must not let that happen.

[PS – I am not the only one deeply disturbed by this private elite planning: (see: “Residents concerned over Sparta Mountain”

Blaine Rothauser, wetland scientist, and conservation biologist, said the DEP is already married to the N.J. Audubon plan, which “will be hard to kill.” He also added the N.J Audubon is a non-profit organization, acting like a profit-driven consulting company. N.J. Audubon has three foresters on its team because they are selling forest management plans to towns and work with the DEP as consultants.

Will NJ Governor Murphy Defend The First Amendment and Free Speech?

Or Will He Continue To Support A Genocide In Gaza?

The National Police Crackdown Is Well Underway

As University campuses explode across the country in support of Palestinians and in opposition to Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, the official crackdown has begun.

Almost exactly like the national police crackdown that crushed the Occupy Wall Street movement – coordinated by the Obama administration – a series of heavily armed and sometimes violent police crackdowns is underway at Universities across the country, where police are arresting students and violently dismantling tents in occupied college squares.

I would not be surprised if the Biden Administration put out the word, like Obama did to crush Occupy.

Thus far, students are standing their ground and the movement appears to be expanding to additional universities. Let’s hope the courage continues and the movement expands! Chicago ’24!

The protests follow closely on a McCarthyite spectacle in Washington last week, where House Republicans were seeking the scalp of another elite University President of Columbia University. They’ve already driven out Presidents at Harvard and Penn, with the MIT President still hanging in there.

Academic freedom has been virtually terminated, and the Israeli lobby, billionaire bullies withdraw funding, and now even Netanyahu himself is calling student protesters Nazi’s and seeking to kill their political freedoms, like free speech, assembly, and protest rights.

So, I was not surprised to learn that Princeton University has just written to students to threaten to expel protesters there.

Which poses a political challenge to “liberal” NJ Governor Phil Murphy.

Will he speak out to defend the First Amendment and push back against Princeton’s threats?

Or will he continue the cowardly complicity of silence, as not only US rights and academic integrity are destroyed, but the US funded and supplied Israeli genocide continues?

Hey Phil – I even Googled mapped the route for you – why don’t you and Tammy wife take a stroll from the Governor’s Mansion at Drumthwacket – a 1 mile, 23 minute walk – to Princeton and have a chat with the University President about so called liberal values?

Then issue a Press Release statement?

The whole world is watching. Silence is complicity.

Gov. Murphy’s New Statewide State Parks And Open Space Foundation Law Invites Abuse

Virtual Media Blackout Of This Story – No Public Awareness Of The Threats

An Open Pitch To Intrepid Journalists

I follow the excellent work of FBW – Fund For A Better Waterfront.

Their latest newsletter warns of potential abuses in Hoboken:

By leasing the Community Hub building proposed for Maritime Park, the City of Hoboken could generate up to $111,000 in annual revenue for the community room and $55,000 for the roof deck. The City could also “Capitalize on Kayaking”, generating annually up to $77,500 for boat storage and $18,000 through kayak and canoe rentals.

These proposals are contained in Appendix C, Maritime Park Funding Opportunities, prepared by James Lima Planning + Development, in the final report submitted by Dattner Architects and its partners. The Funding Opportunities report proposes monetizing Maritime Park further with lawn areas for pay-to-play soccer, softball and volleyball; fees for birdwatching tours; and rental of the beach area.

These proposals fly in the face of the Fund for a Better Waterfront’s (FBW) decades-long advocacy for a truly public space at the water’s edge, open and free to all. To comply with the City’s Open Space Trust Fund (OSTF) ordinance, leasing the Community Hub building to a private operator would require approval by Hoboken voters, a right that FBW recently bolstered through its settlement with the City of Hoboken.

Very similar abuses currently are going on at Liberty State Park, where billionaire Paul Fireman is seeking commercialization and privatization via a sham astroturf Foundation called Parks For people or some such. This battle has generated enormous public opposition and tons of media coverage critical of Fireman’s abuses.

I sent Ron Hine at FBW an email giving him a heads up that the potential abuses he is seeing in Hoboken were expanded Statewide by Gov. Murphy’ new State Parks And Open Space Foundation law.

Ron replied that his was a local park battle, not a State Park.

So, I had to clarify that the new law applies to ALL local, county and State Parks – including historic sites, Green Acres lands, State forests, and State Wildlife Management Areas.

Yet this law has a gotten ZERO media coverage and the people of NJ have no idea of the threats it poses to their local public parks and open spaces.

So, I pitched the following story to a NY Times reporter who has covered the Liberty State Park controversy as well as the national political ambitions of Gov. Murphy – here is that pitch, and I must say, it is quite as story for an intrepid journalist out there!

Good day XXXX:

I just came across your piece on Gov. Murphy’s national ambitions and the Liberty State Park controversy, particularly the Fireman Foundation.

Given the obvious abuses by Mr. Fireman’s Foundation (i.e. a dark money astroturf operation to inject private commercial influence into public parks decisions – with pay to play dynamics, etc), I was shocked to see that Gov. Murphy signed into law a bill rammed quietly through lame duck that created a Statewide Parks and Open Space Foundation, comprised of private interests, and virtually modeled on the Fireman Foundation, see: P.L.2023, c.256

PL not yet published, but here is final form of bill passed and signed into law

https://pub.njleg.state.nj.us/Bills/2022/S1500/1311_R2.PDF

Legislative history here

https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/bill-search/2022/S1311

The law applies to ALL state parks, forests, Green Acres lands, local and County parks, historic sites, etc. Liberty State Park and Island Beach State Park were specifically targeted in the law via lame duck amendments.

The Foundation is empowered to raise private funds, and to dedicate those funds to specific projects that they recommend.

The Foundation is not subject to Open Public Meetings Act, Open Public Records Act, NJ Ethics laws or ELEC lobbying law. Pay to play on steroids!

The NJ State Park System has a $720 million unfunded maintenance deficit (per testimony by DEP Commissioner LaTourette to Assembly Budget Committee last year), so it will be virtually impossible for DEP to reject a project funded by the new Foundation.

There is literally NO awareness of this law and I’ve seen no media coverage, which has been consumed by the Liberty State Park controversy.

You may recall that NJ conservation groups “Keep It Green” open space voter referendum stripped the previously Constitutionally dedicated $48 million per year to State Parks capital projects and diverted that money to Open Space (during Christie Administration). The public got duped on that and was never told this would happen.

Similarly, the public knows nothing of this threat to their local and State parks (including forests!).

Can you please look into and write about this story?

Here’s a specific great story as an example of the abuses:

You might want to look into Peter Kellogg, a billionaire who owns Hudson Farm in Sussex County, an elite private hunting club. Ironically, that’s the place where Benton MacKaye conceived the Appalachian trail, see

https://hudsonfarmnj.com/history/

Kellogg has his own private Foundation, Hudson Farm, see:

https://hudsonfarmnj.com/hudson-farm-foundation/

Kellogg, via that Foundation, donated almost $500,000 to NJ Audubon to fund a controversial “forest stewardship” project (logging, including clearcuts) in DEP’s Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area, on preserved public lands purchased with Green Acres money. NJ Audubon provided political cover and a scientifically flawed “conservation” rationale for that logging (in specially protected NJ Highlands Forests, a law enacted to preserve intact forest canopy and stop forest fragmentation – I know, I wrote much of it).

Kellogg’s Hudson Farm also participates in a private carbon trading market and his Hudson Farm lands have generated “carbon credits”. Those economically valuable credits are based on the carbon stored in forests that would be lost if he clearcut the forest, which is something his own Forest Stewardship Plan says he is not going to do!

DEP received $370 million in Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) auction sales (2020 – 2022). Ten percent of those funds are dedicated to “carbon sequestration” so we’re talking about a lot of money.

DEP is now structuring Forest Management policies regarding carbon sequestration, and there is a forestry bill pending in the Legislature, sponsored by Senate Environment Committee Chairman Bob Smith.

So, here’s a perfect example of a billionaire using lots of private money in an astroturf operation to shape State public lands, forestry, and climate policies, all behind the scenes and in which issues he has significant economic interests.

And this history of Hudson Farm (public advocacy of MacKaye and Jane Addams involvement) poses an incredible irony to the private elite abuses ongoing now. The old Manhattan progressives are rolling in their graves.

Wolfe

Massive Loophole Explicitly Allows New Fossil Power Plants To Be Built

Existing Fossil Power And Fossil Imports Can Continue Operating Forever

The Bill Will Not Reduce ANY Greenhouse Gas Emissions

“You will never hear the Chemistry Council saying anything bad about the DEP. ” ~~~ Dennis Hart, Executive Director of NJ Chemistry Council (3/4/24 testimony to the NJ Senate Environment Committee on SCR 11)

Back in January when Senate Concurrent Resolution SCR 11 was posted for Committee consideration, I wrote Chairman Smith the sponsor to request amendments to make the bill actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions, prevent construction of new fossil plants, and phase out existing fossil (see the email to Smith below).

I knew Smith was not serious when neither he nor environmental groups expressed support or even replied to my suggested amendments.

There was no media coverage either.

But now, after an even lame SCR 11 was gutted, its safe for the media to cover the issue.

(the amendments were not even drafted when they were approved and still are not posted on the OLS website. Smith is over heard on live mike saying he just wants to get the bill out of committee, even though the amendments technically did not exist.)

I got a belly laugh but was not surprised to read today’s NJ Spotlight report that Smith had gutted his own lame bill: (NJ Spotlight)

But [fossil industry] critics argued the ban could threaten the reliability of the power grid, especially at a time when the state is moving to intermittent sources like offshore wind and solar energy. To an extent, Smith agreed, noting the bill was amended to allow new peaking gas-power plants, which often come online quickly during times when power demand strains the grid’s capacity to provide electricity. 

 A loophole that large swallows the entire SCR 11. Why even pass the bill if a loophole defeats the core sole purpose of the legislation?

I sense that NJ Spotlight reporter Tom Johnson had a smile on his face and enjoyed the humiliation served up to new Sierra Club Director Anjuli Busot-Ramos, who – just like DEP Commissioner LaTourette and NJ Spotlight editors – fails to understand the difference between misinformation and disinformation: (NJ Spotlight)

Both Ramos and Pringle also objected to putting the issue before voters, predicting a multimillion-dollar campaign by the fossil fuel industry to sway voters against the ban. “Our fear is we won’t be able to compete,’’ she said. “We don’t have millions of dollars to combat the misinformation.’’ 

Note how Pringle and Ramos rightly criticize the fossil industry but give Chairman Smith a pass for gutting his own bill in response to their criticism.

Remarkably, despite the fact that an already lame SCR 11 was competently gutted and will do nothing at all to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, un-named environmental groups still supported it!: (NJ Spotlight)

Several other environmental groups backed the resolution, however.

Now I have to listen to the testimony and be sure to name these idiots.

[Update: As I suspected, the corrupt cheerleaders at NJ League of Conservation Voters SUPPORTED this sham (at time: 1:10:00)

Dave Pringle’s opposition to the bill was based on economics, not climate science. He expressed a reliance on market forces to stop the construction of new power plants. Total Neoliberal BS – let the market solve the problem. He also opposed the bill because he was afraid he would lose the public debate and the voters would defeat the ballot question. He might be right that the fossil industry would spend millions on a disinformation campaign, but he revealed a disdain for the intelligence of the voters and no trust in democracy. And no confidence in his ability to win a public debate. What a tool.

Ms. Ramos’s testimony was even worse. She began with the outrageous claim that as a former DEP employee she could tell the Chairman that DEP has “great regulations on air toxics”. She then supported “clean hydrogen”. She misled about the impact of the new EJ law on permit renewals and modifications by implying that the EJ law could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air toxics – she failed to note that the law did nothing to change current DEP air toxics standards, methods, technical manuals, cumulative risk standards, risks management, or air permitting regulations and that the law prohibits DEP from denying renewals and modifications of current permits.

Doug O’Malley was a no show and no other climate or environmental groups even testified.  ~~~ end update]

In the meantime, check out my request for amendment below.