“Resiliency” Is a Slogan, Not a Policy or Standard

Just read today’s NJ Spotlight story praising the Christie Administration’s “Resiliency Bank” and need to respond to clarify major misconceptions, see:

• STATE TARGETS $65M FOR COUNTRY’S FIRST ENERGY RESILIENCY BANK

As I’ve written several times here, the term “resilience” is a slogan and serves the same purposes as the “sustainable” slogan (and the Christie DEP’s “asset management” slogan too).

Those purposes include:

• to allow cynical politicians to dupe the press and public to appear “green”; (Gov. Christie actually promotes development on barrier islands, disposal of dredged spoils in salt marshes and wetlands, and discredited, costly shore hardening projects by calling them “resilient”);
• to avoid and divert from the issues related to costly compliance with regulatory requirements;
• to ignore infrastructure deficits;
• to allow government officials  to dodge accountability and ignore climate change;
• to provide funding opportunities for weenie “Green mafia” and Foundations, who often serve as corporate front groups; and
• to allow the status quo to go unchallenged

With respect to the Christie “Resiliency Bank”, I need to note a few basic points that are being totally ignored and masked by all the sloganeering.

As I’ve written here, existing DEP regulations and NJPDES permits issued to sewage treatment plants require that emergency plans be in place and that they be implemented in event of an emergency – DEP rules specifically mention the need for back up power and adequate fuel.

DEP and water supply authorities are under very similar planning and regulatory obligations.

DEP should be issuing enforcement actions for failure to comply with regulatory and permit requirements.

Instead, DEP lets operators off the hook and perversely rewards them for non-compliance and negligence.

That is what economists call a “perverse incentive”.

Absurd – more of Christie’s “regulatory relief” and DEP “customer service”.

To repeat that: DEP regulations and permits REQUIRED emergency plans and back up power.

Those requirements never were called “resiliency” by all the green weenies now seeking grants and the politicians seeking federal grants, but floods and hurricanes and emergency preparedness and planning are nothing new.

DEP was aware of these risks FOR MANY YEARS and required the water and sewer authorities to be prepared.

But, everyone looked the other way –

Those requirements were never monitored or enforced by DEP or funded by ratepayers and implemented by the water authorities.

Shame on them.

A failure and shame that is masked by the “resiliency” slogan