Duties Have Direct Impact on Former Clients’ Fortunes; Ethics Review Requested
[Update: 11/5/11 – I learned yesterday in response to another OPRA (the third in this case), that in response to our ethics review request, DEP Assistant Commissioner Jan Kozinski filed recusals on August 10, 2011 for Saul Ewing law firm, Waste Management, and First Energy, including their Portand (PA) coal power plant (the target of recent DEP petition and EPA action).See this for Kozinsi recusal documents. More to follow. End update]
Update: 8/9/11 – See Mike Symons at APP Capitol Quickies: Environmental watchdog presses for recusal review
This case illustrates a least two things:
- lack of sensitivity to ethics and transparency by the Christie DEP;
- the dominance of corporate interests in and influence on the Christie DEP.
Jane Kozinski, NJ DEP’s New Assistant Commissioner for Environmental Management, is a lawyer that previously represented corporate polluters that have business before NJ DEP, among them Waste Management Inc. Her former law firm, where she was a partner, even scrubbed its website of her bio and portions of a journal article she co-authored, we assume to mask those facts (we saved and posted the original bio page).
Yet neither Kozinski nor DEP see any need for an ethics review or recusal from DEP decisions involving Kozinski’s prior clients.
PEER has petitioned the State Ethics Commission to review the matter and require that Kozinski publicly disclose all prior clients with business before NJ DEP and comply with the mandatory recusal requirements in Commission regulations. See below for details and documents.
News Releases
For Immediate Release: August 8, 2011
Contact: Bill Wolfe (609) 397-4861; Kirsten Stade (202) 265-7337
POLLUTERS’ ATTORNEY SEES NO CONFLICTS IN TOP JERSEY ECO-JOB — Duties Have Direct Impact on Former Clients’ Fortunes; Ethics Review Requested
Trenton — A new top official at the New Jersey environment agency formerly was an attorney for some of the biggest polluters in the state but has not recused herself from handling matters related to her former clients, according to agency records released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  PEER today asked the state Ethics Commission to review the case and decide to what extent this official must avoid involvement with former legal clients.
On July 7, 2011, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) named Jane Kozinski as its new Assistant Commissioner for Environmental Management which oversees air quality, solid and hazardous waste management, and environmental health and safety technical and regulatory programs. Up until 2009, Kozinski was a partner at the Princeton law firm Saul Ewing LLP where she represented corporate clients on issues arising under federal and state environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, hazardous waste laws and New Jersey’s Spill Act – all areas under her new purview. Kozinski’s clients included corporations such as Waste Management Inc., which requires permits issued by her office.
On August 1, 2011 (the day Ms. Kozinski assumed office), New Jersey PEER Director Bill Wolfe filed a request under the Open Public Records Act asking for any ethics disclosure forms, including recusals that Assistant Commissioner Kozinski had on file at DEP. On August 4th, DEP responded that it had no recusals on file. The only responsive document found was an ethics disclosure form in which Kozinski stated that she currently had no outside activities that might present a conflict. That form ended with a notation by the DEP legal ethics officer which read “No ethics review required.â€
“The state ethics law says public officials must ‘avoid conduct which is in violation of their public trust or which creates a justifiable impression among the public that such trust is being violated,’ stated Wolfe. “State officials should not be in a position to help former clients, especially on matters in which the clients’ profits are in conflict with protecting public health.â€
State ethics laws require recusals when state employees worked on any “official matter†in a non-official capacity, such as a private lawyer. Recusals are also required where an official has any “personal interest, direct or indirect†which might impair evenhandedness. PEER is asking the state Ethics Commission to direct Ms. Kozinski to keep her former law clients at arms length.
“Without these rules, corporate polluters can insert their lawyers into state service to service them and screw us,†Wolfe added, noting that Kozinski advised clients how to evade the state pollution regulations she is now supposed to enforce. “This is like putting a mob lawyer in charge of the Untouchables.â€
In recent years, New Jersey has been tarred by pay-for-play scandals where corporations have bought their way into state decision-making, especially in regulation of wastes and toxic materials, the very issues now under Kozinski’s control.
See the OPRA response on recusals
Read the PEER request for an ethics review
View Kozinski bio removed from her firm’s website
Look at her article advising how to sidestep waste regulations