Encap Corruption Has Been Institutionalized at DEP

Encap case a “vivid how-to lesson, a playbook for getting money and other favors from the government.“

Jeff Pillets of the Bergen Record is the best investigative reporter in New Jersey.

In Sunday’s Record, Pillets wrapped up the Encap case he broke and has worked on for about 8 years now. I am proud to have contributed to his investigation.

To wrap things up, Pillets summarized the testimony in the corruption trial of NJ Senator Wayne Bryant (D-Camden). Nowhere else in NJ will you read stuff like this (other than Wolfenotes of course!):

Corruption in high places seems so commonplace in New Jersey that few members of the public or media even took notice that a legendary lawmaker was on trial: For four weeks, testimony about secret payoffs echoed in a mostly empty courtroom.

But the mountain of evidence presented in Bryant’s criminal trial reveals more than the alleged misdeeds of a politician on the make. It tells a story about how easily Trenton can succumb to the influence of private interests who understand what levers to pull.

In many respects, the testimony from a parade of lobbyists and old State House veterans amounted to a vivid how-to lesson, a playbook for getting money and other favors from the government.

I agree that corruption in NJ is widespread – but corruption is discouraged, and there are systems in place to prevent, monitor, detect, and prosecute it.

As a result, doing corrupt deals requires stealth and violations of laws, regulations, and abuse of discretion and other ethical strictures.

But not any more –

The DEP waiver rule institutionalizes and legalizes EXACTLY the corruption Pillets disclosed in the Encap case.

The waiver rule invites and institutionalizes exactly the same abuse and will lead to widespread expansion of what is now a limited practice at DEP, literally making that kind of abuse the rule instead of the exception to the rule .

(This corruption is especially likely to occur when the waiver rule is implemented by a Governor who attacks regulations via Executive Order, who considers essential public protections as “job killing Red Tape”, and under a DEP Commisisoner who has no environmental training and views DEP’s mission as “promoting economic development” and treating the regulated community like “customers”).

To illustrate this, consider what I found most interesting in Pillets’ reporting: the role of the DEP.

Pillets’ disclosures show how easily private interests can corrupt DEP, if one knows what regulatory and political levers to pull.

I write about this all the time. But very few people understand how much discretion DEP has and how easy it is to influence those discretionary decisions.

Pillets also reveals how public relations and media are used to divert the media and public’s attention, and how lobbyists spin the underlying corrupt reality.

In just 4 succinct paragraphs, Pillets lays out the inside DEP and PR games:

… They paid one of New Jersey’s most influential public-relations firms to plant favorable letters in local newspapers, to supply ghost-written op-eds for elected officials and to divert the public from focusing on the possible environment hazards of building on contaminated sites. …

Handwritten notes from Wisler’s daily calendar from 2003 through 2006 show dozens of meetings with officials including former DEP head Bradley Campbell and his successor, Lisa Jackson; former Office of Smart Growth director Adam Zellner; former Meadowlands Commission director Bob Ceberio; and Patti McGuire, who served as ex-Gov. Jon Corzine’s deputy chief of staff. …

Campbell, as DEP commissioner under former Govs. James E. McGreevey and Richard J. Codey routinely met with the developers’ lead lawyer as department regulators reviewed the EnCap/Cherokee plan to clean up polluted sites and safeguard them for future homeowners.

At one meeting, Campbell advised the developers that they would not always have to resort to “legislative solutions” to advance their plans. They could simply work with his office administratively, Campbell said.

Which brings us to the point of this post.

Encap corrupted DEP managers, who bent and broke rules to serve corrupt purposes.

The waiver rule will produce the same results, but there won’t be any investigative expose’s or corruption trials – not anymore (and especially with a depleted press corps and – let’s not forget that Encap involved landfills and site remediation –NJ’s privatized toxic site cleanup program).

Earth Day Protest, 2005. DEP Commissioner Brad Campbell (L) and Wolfe (R) debate