Christie Has Unleashed the Dogs of Pollution

“Cry Havoc” and let slip the Dogs of War.

~~~ William Shakespeare (Julius Ceaser,1601)

[Update 5/14/10] – I used the Bard as metaphor for the Christie regime – in a superb story on the same issue  Christie Cuts Leave Small Solar Businesses Out in the Cold , veteran reporter Tom Johnson finds “panic in the streets”:

Panic in the Streets’

“There’s panic in the streets,” said Lyle Rawlings, president of Advanced Solar Products in Flemington and president of the trade group. It was evident when the Office of Clean Energy opened the program up for new applications on May 3 at Conservation Services Group offices in Iselin. “People were waiting up to four hours and some of them didn’t get approval,” he said.]

The military order Havoc! was a signal given to the English military forces in the Middle Ages to direct the soldiery (in Shakespeare’s parlance ‘the dogs of war’) to pillage and chaos.

Shakespeare was well aware of the use of the meaning of havoc and he used ‘cry havoc’ in several of his plays. The ‘cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war’ form of the phrase is from his Julius Caesar, 1601. After Caesar’s murder Anthony regrets the course he has taken and predicts that war is sure to follow.

ANTONY:
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

Governor Christie has let slip the dogs of war – and they are tearing the policy fabric in pillage and chaos.

Governor Christie is feeding and encouraging those dogs.

Today, the Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee heard the same old story from the same old dogs of pollution.

Rick Thigpen, PSEG Public Affairs. Look closely and see the wind turbine on his lapel – it should have been a nuclear containment building, as PSEG is seeking to build another nuclear power plant in South Jersey. He claimed the energy plans “must include new nuclear power”.

Those dogs see growing electric demand. They want more nuclear power and more in state power plants. They want subsidies for businesses. They want more monopoly utility profits. The want more gas pipelines and more electric power-lines to import more cheap dirty coal power. They misrepresent the economics of efficiency and renewable energy. They dismiss public concerns about global warming. They ignore the explosive growth in demand for alternative energy (wind and solar). They want to perpetuate current huge subsidies for fossil fuels. They deny extremely high environmental and public health costs caused by the pollution from fossil fuels, virtually none of which are reflected in the price of fossil based energy electric rates (cheap imported dirty coal).

In other words, these men are dinosaurs – yet they rule the Christie administration’s energy and environmental policy apparatus.

Christie diverted over $300 million in energy efficiency and renewable energy money to pay for tax cuts for wealthy individuals and greedy corporations. (another act of hypocrisy, given last year’s criticism, reported by the Press of Atlantic City : GOP critical of diversions from Clean Energy Fund

TRENTON – Republican lawmakers said Wednesday they are outraged that New Jersey will pay its utility bills with $30 million set aside for the development of clean energy in the state.

The money, from the state’s Clean Energy Fund, is one of several items funded by the Societal Benefits Charge on most consumer’s natural gas and electric bills. The Press of Atlantic City first reported the diversion Tuesday.

“If money is being diverted from the Clean Energy Fund to pay the electric bill in Trenton, then the governor is not only undermining our economic development efforts here in Atlantic County, but he is further demonstrating how badly he has run our state,” Atlantic County Freeholder Chairman Jim Curcio said in a statement.

Christie’s DEP budget zero’s the DEP Office of Climate Change, despite DEP’s December 24, 2009 release of an extremely ambitious plan to implement the green house gas reductions mandated by the 2007 Global Warming Response Act. Yet curiously, DEP was not asked to testify today about how the Christie cuts would impact their efforts to implement the GWRA Plan.

Christie also demanded a 90 day review to reassess the BPU Energy Master Plan, in light of new economic realities and his cost benefit analysis and pro-business policies. The Energy Master Plan provides the electric sector strategy, policies, and programs to meet NJ’s energy efficiency, renewable energy, green house gas reduction, and green job goals (just a slight contradiction with the crap they were selling last July).

To start today’s hearing, Joe Sullivan, who described himself as the “BPU Ombudsman” testified on behalf of the Christie Administration to explain the objectives of the Governor’s 90 day reassessment (that sure is a curious role for an “ombudsman“).

Despite Sullivan’s repeated attempts to downplay the policy significance of the Christie review by using euphemisms like “recalibrate” the plan in light of new “inputs”, there is no other way to describe what’s going on other than an all out attempt to gut the EMP by elevating short term and fatally flawed economic indicators above long term policy objectives (like the short term drops in spot market prices for oil and natural gas).

You see Joe, when a plan is based on modeled projections, you can’t simply tweak the “inputs” without fundamentally changing the outputs.

As even the industry folks testified, you are faced with a choice of higher energy costs or supporting current policy to meet energy efficiency, renewable energy and green house gas reduction environmental goals. We already know where the Governor will go on this question and the blind dogs just urged him on today.

Sullivan even conceded the point in response to a question by Chairman Chivukula. The chairman specifically asked whether the Christie reassessment would seek to alter current energy efficiency and renewable energy goals (i.e. 20% energy efficiency and 30% renewable energy by 2020).

Sullivan replied that financial analysis is part of their job to implement the Governor’s cost benefit policies.

So, the die is cast.

And the dogs are lose.

But don’t say we didn’t tell you what it all means.