WolfeNotes.com

Growing Public Opposition To Warehouse Developments On Rural Farmland

In a terse public notice, the NJ Highlands Council cancelled the scheduled September monthly meeting allegedly due to “quorum issues”. This cancellation follows a similar cancellation of the August monthly meting:

NOTICE OF MEETING CANCELLATION – NEW JERSEY HIGHLANDS COUNCIL

Please be advised that the meeting of the New Jersey Highlands Water Protection and Planning Council scheduled for Thursday, September 19, 2024 at 4:00 pm has been cancelled due to quorum issues. Our next scheduled meeting is Thursday, October 17, 2024 at 4:00 pm.

The Council is facing strong public opposition to proposed massive warehouse developments (for details on these developments, see:

• Pending Warehouse “Redevelopment” Approval Makes A Mockery Of The Highlands Act And The Highlands Council’s New “Warehouse Policy”

Local opponents of the project in Phillipsburg, Pohatcong, and Lopatcong are organizing and they submitted numerous public comments opposing the “redevelopment plan”, so the Council is now fully aware of just how bad this proposal is.

A vote on a staff recommended approval was on the agenda for both meetings that were cancelled.

Prior to the consecutive meeting cancellations, the public comment period on the proposed warehouse development plan was extended. That’s another indicator of backpedaling.

So, at this point it seems pretty obvious that any “quorum issues” are cover for the Council’s avoidance of facing the public opponents and openly deliberating and voting on this “redevelopment plan” that makes a sham of the Highlands Master Plan.

The opponents aren’t going away and the opposition is building. The Council mistakenly may think that delays dampen public opposition, but delays only allow opposition to build.

The Highlands Council will have to face the music at some point in time, and we urge them to step up to the plate and defend the credibility and integrity of the Highlands RMP by denying this sham.

Andrew Thomas Schwartz (1867 – 1942)

DEP Blocked Public Scientific Presentations On Fracking & Drinking Water

Lawsuit Alleges That DEP Managers Retaliated Against Expert

A “Stellar Career Took A Nosedive” 

Alan Dillon, a 30 veteran DEP drinking water expert, is suing the Department and several DEP managers for allegedly improperly retaliating and discriminating against him after he refused to comply with his managers’ orders to delete scientific information on fracking and open air reservoirs from his public presentations to academic and regulatory bodies.

The lawsuit names former Christie DEP Assistant Commissioner Dan Kennedy and Commissioner Martin’s Chief Of Staff Magdalena Padilla and several DEP middle managers.

The Appellate Division heard Dillon’s lawsuit on Monday – you can read the briefs and DEP’s response here. 

The lawsuit involves age discrimination, retaliation, and a hostile work environment. The legal briefs reveal an embarrassing and totally unprofessional work environment, as well as exposes exactly how DEP suppresses and manipulates science on controversial issues and retaliates against staffers who stick by their guns and refuse to suppress the science.

The briefs and DEP’s response reveal that DEP managers ordered Dillon to delete scientific information from presentations to Rutgers and a drinking water industry conference.

DEP managers claimed that public presentations on fracking and “open air reservoirs” – which were pending highly controversial issues at the time – were too “sensitive” and “political” for Dillon to discuss publicly.

At the time DEP managers sought to suppress Mr. Dillon’s public presentations, both issues were timely, relevant, and highly controversial. The Delaware River Basin Commission was considering a permanent moratorium on fracking and the DEP had recently entered into a controversial agreement with the Passaic Valley Water Commission to drain a reservoir and build costly concrete tanks. see NJ Spotlight’s coverage:

• Residents Oppose Passaic Valley Water Commission Open Air Reservoir Plans

On Garret Mountain in Passaic Valley, residents are fighting a $135 million plan to drain three open-air reservoirs and implant concrete tanks — the tab to be picked up by customers.

Mr. Dillon served at DEP for 30 years and recently retired as a Section Chief in the DEP drinking water program. Mr. Dillon’s brief outlines his professional career at DEP.

Mr. Dillon’s brief claims DEP managers sought to delete scientific information fro two of his professional presentations on drinking water:

The DEP’s reply brief attempts to smear Mr. Dillon and divert attention from the real issue, but it explicitly admits and defends this scientific suppression he resisted. DEP argues:

And after Mr. Dillon refused to delete information on fracking and open air reservoirs from these presentations, his managers drafted “replacement topics” – a transparent attempt to suppress science and change the subject:

Mr. Dillon refused to go along with political intervention by his DEP managers – and for that his “stellar career took a nosedive” and he was smeared and personally attacked.

I know and have worked with almost all the people involved in this tawdry affair and share a very similar experience of retaliation for defending science and informing the public.

There are literally scores of additional issues where the DEP managers suppress science and fail to inform the public about what they call “sensitive issues”.

This is totally unacceptable.

And you will hear nothing about any of it from the lame NJ press corps and the sycophantic DEP cheerleaders who pose as “environmental leaders”.

[End Note – read the DEP brief and see how DEP openly admits and defends suppression of science and political control by managers. Consider this next time DEP makes any public statements about any issues – they’ve all been filtered by the DEP press Office and DEP political appointees:

RFK, Jr. Is The Big Lie

My front porch, February, 2017

I normally stick to State and local issues, but the Trump campaign lies have gotten so outrageous that I must respond, particularly in light of this pledge RFK, Jr. made in his campaign kickoff speech:

to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism in our country.

I was sickened but not surprised by RFK, Jr.’s endorsement of Trump. Even worse, RFK Jr. is now touting his personal commitments to environmental and children’s health issues and Trump’s lead mouthpiece Tucker Carlson is using his platform to expand and support even bigger lies, see:

• Trumpers Discover Ecology, Toxicology, Public Health, and Scientific Integrity

So, we need to provide the facts on Trump’s environmental record to expose their fraud and hypocrisy.

In January 2017, on his first day in Office Trump issued a sweeping Executive Order (13771)  that directed the rollback of hundreds of environmental, climate, energy, public lands, and public health protections, see:

He followed that up with Executive Order (13979) with the darkly cynical Orwellian title: “Ensuring Democratic Accountability in Agency Rulemaking”.

Trump dismantled EPA climate programs.

Trump installed climate denier Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator. He was so bad he was forced to resign under at least 14 investigations after only a year in Office:

• E.P.A. Chief Scott Pruitt Resigns Under a Cloud of Ethics ...

On an issue that resonates today with so much criminal conduct, Trump even issued an Executive Order that made it far more difficult if not impossible to criminally prosecute corporate violators. (I’ll bet executives at Boeing, Big Oil/Gas, and railroad corporations were pleased by that).

The Trump record was well documented – for those who like the receipts and to explore the weeds, here are some of the best sources: The NY Times, Brookings, and Columbia Law School, respectively:

• The Trump Administration Rolled Back More Than 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List

• The Trump administration’s major environmental deregulations

• Climate Deregulation Tracker

Despite all that, both RFK, Jr. and Tucker Carlson’s liars have emphasized commitments to children’s health and, in particular, strong opposition to toxic pesticides. Given this emphasis, perhaps the most egregious and current illustrations of the fraud and hypocrisy is the story of one of the most toxic pesticides on earth, Chlorpyrifos.

This is particularly stunning example given the Tucker Carlson specific emphasis on the alleged Nazi development of organophosphate pesticides.

The story of Chlorpyrifos illustrates all facets of the Trump Project 2025 Agenda:

1) appointments of political loyalists in government agencies;

2) Executive Orders to set policy;

3) deregulation;

4) denial of science;

5) corporate lobbying; and

5) right wing courts to strike down any regulation that makes it through the deregulatory gauntlet.

Here’ the opening of the chlorpyrifos story by the Environmental Working Group, but I suggest you read the whole thing:

Chlorpyrifos is the most widely used organophosphate pesticide in the U.S., with millions of pounds sprayed every year. Scientists have definitively linked it to severe brain damage in children and fetuses, but a scheduled federal ban was scuttled by the Trump administration. Now some states are taking regulation into their own hands.

Did you get that? The Trump EPA killed a proposed BAN.

Let me put a finer point on that, from EWG:

October 2015

Numerous studies found overwhelming evidence showing that even small exposures of chlorpyrifos can cause irreparable damage to the parts of the brain that control language, memory, emotion and behavior, and that exposure during development leads to lower IQ levels. The EPA’s assessment of these studies concluded that current levels of chlorpyrifos found on food and in drinking water are unsafe. Based on this assessment and the FQPA standard, the Obama administration’s EPA proposed a ban of chlorpyrifos on food crops.

Landrigan said of the rule, “Based on the strong consensus of the pediatric and the public health communities, the FQPA stated unequivocally that regulation of toxic pesticides must focus, first and foremost, on protecting infants and children…. When the EPA fails to apply this principle, children may be exposed to levels of chemical pesticides that can profoundly harm their health.”

But look what happened to that Obama EPA ban: 

March 2017

Scott Pruitt, the first EPA chief in the Trump administration, ignored the evidence and overruled his own scientists, rescinding the ban just days before it would have taken effect.

The Biden EPA restored the ban:

The Biden administration

Shortly after taking office in January, President Biden used an executive order to direct the EPA to review the decision to reverse the ban on chlorpyrifos.

The EPA under President Joe Biden announced a ban on all uses of chlorpyrifos on food. The move will make it illegal to have trace amounts of chlorpyrifos present on food – something that the agency had previously permitted.

August 2021

The EPA announced on August 18, 2021, that it would ban all uses of chlorpyrifos on food, after decades of allowing its use. EWG applauded the long-overdue move as a vital step toward protecting public health.

But a right wing corporate Federalist Society US Circuit Court struck that rule down –

So the Project 2025 dismantling is proceeding as planned.

Don’t be fooled by liars and frauds like RFK, Jr. and the Tucker Carlson Crew.

Twisted Views Serve as Cover For Project 2025 Dismantling

Blame Government, Regulatory Capture, And Conflicts Of Interest For Neoliberal Corporate Greed

Tucker Carlson Interview And RFK, Jr.’s Endorsement Expose The Cynical Strategy

Trumpers are now posing as advocates for a myriad of left/progressive issues, from feminism to organic food to ecology to opposition to corporate greed

There’s been a stunning reinvention. Let me explain.

I thought I understood the strategic and rhetorical game that Trumpers were playing, in seeking to hijack the climate crisis and environmental policies and bring them into the culture wars and conspiracy theories.

Examples of that game were obvious: e.g. blame the World Economic Forum and hypocritical jet set elites like George Soros and Al Gore for trying to ban your (insert: car, SUV, truck, lawn mower, steak, gas stove, etc) under the guise of the climate emergency.

Or accuse Bill Gates or governments of seeking to confiscate private farmland to control the world food supply under the guise of reducing nutrient pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

The strategy was an indirect one: i.e. the culture war or conspiracy theory was advanced as the primary theme, while the specific substantive issue (climate, energy, pollution, etc) was used as a subordinate illustration of the particular lead culture war issue (elites, corruption, conspiracy, etc).

There was no attempt to engage the substance or advocate in behalf of the particular issue used as the example.

But I was wrong – that strategy recently has changed dramatically and the Trumpers are now frontally engaging the substance of the issue and seeking to hijack what have historically been left/progressive issues.

Trumpers are now posing as advocates for left/progressive analyses of a myriad of issues, from feminism to organic food to corporate greed.

Watch how that’s done by Tucker Carlson:

• Calley & Casey Means: How Big Pharma Keeps You Sick, and the Dark Truth About Ozempic and the Pill

Notice how the issues are framed and analyzed. Note the solutions suggested.

Virtually every issue is grounded in a right wing conservative ideology, e.g.

• the role of women in the home (to have babies, stay at home, and cook food)
• the role of government (to get out of the way, not to regulate and tax corporations)
• the role of free markets (to eliminate corrupt governments and promote public health and economic well being)
• the role of science (to expose and dismantle corrupt and captured government scientists and regulators)

These views just happen to be a perfect justification for the corporate deregulatory policy agenda of Project 2025.

And this is not a coincidence.

Examples:

Problem: FDA is funded by big pharma fees (75% of their budget). This funding creates conflicts of interest.

Solution: Eliminate that source of funding. With gridlock in Congress incapable of shifting funding to Legislative appropriations, that would “starve the beast” and advance Project 2025’s “dismantle the administrative state” policy.

Problem: Big Pharma is allowed to advertise drugs and stoke demand for drugs.

Solution: Ban advertising, which would just so happen to eliminate 50% of media revenues, attack “fake news” “enemy of the people”, and further cripple the media’s ability to expose corruption and the effects of Project 2025.

Problem: FDA, CDC, EPA, and other government agencies’ scientific advisory panels are dominated by industry scientists. The scientific research budgets of these agencies support corporate funded scientists and universities with conflicts of interests.

Solution: Ban scientists with conflicts of interest from serving on scientific review panels. Ban government funding of scientific research at universities with conflicts of interest. The just happens to create gridlock in any government regulatory initiative (which depends on this science), while attacking the elite university, again advancing the Project 2025 agenda.

Problem: Our food is contaminated with toxic pesticides that are poisoning us. Government programs, like food stamps, provide incentives to the food industry to market these toxic foods.

Solution: Ban government funding of food production support and social programs that provide incentives to the food industry to produce these toxic pesticide laden foods. This just so happens to coincide with the austerity and family values agenda of Project 2025.

Problem: Government food and drug safety regulations and dietary guidelines are scientifically flawed and were developed by Big Pharma and the food industry, who have captured and corrupted government. They promote and subsidize toxic processed food and dangerous and expensive drugs that merely treat chronic disease caused by toxic processed food.

Solution: Eliminate the flawed regulations and replace them with consumer choice and promotion of organic agriculture and good old fashioned home cooking and family meals. This agenda is twofer: it just so happens to justify Project 2025 deregulation and attack on government, while it also advances the “new feminism” and “family values” social agenda of stay at home moms who cook wholesome food from scratch.

There are many, many more examples I could cite from the works of RFK Jr and exposed in that Tucker Carlson interview.

The Tucker interview mentioned several specific Executive Orders that have “already been drafted” for the incoming Trump administration. Again, this is expressly part of the Project 2025 plan.

The Tucker interview even let the ideological cat out of the bag: that Stanford educated surgeon turned organic foodie alternative medicine man let it slip that her youthful family meals – with her Harvard Business School corporate lobbyist brother – included dinnertime conversations of topics such as “philosophy” and the ideas of Ayn Rand. Right.

Oh, and this woman, who denounces corruption in government and the health care industry, just so happens to be an entrepreneur who owns a business that sells a blood sugar monitoring device to women seeking to avoid IVF treatments merely by shifting their diet.

Harvard MBA and former corporate lobbyist Brother also is some kind of entrepreneur running a business related to his brand new “public interest” advocacy views.

You really can’t make this shit up.

[End Note: A stunning example was when our Stanford Surgeon turned organic foodie feminist claimed that German organic chemistry research that produced the Nazi gas (she didn’t mention the concentration camps) was directly related to the chemistry of pesticides that poison our food supply for the purposes of expanding production and lowering food prices (while blaming the Nazi’s for toxic agricultural chemicals, she didn’t mention the Green Revolution and role of western governments, industry, and institutions).

This claim prompted Tucker to accuse the Nazi’s of killing Christians (he didn’t mention the Holocaust or jews, or socialists, gays, et al). Tucker then went on to accuse the Nazi’s of developing nuclear weapons (he didn’t mention the US nuclear development program and actual use of nukes in Japan, twice).

See how this twisted game is played?