WolfeNotes.com

Governor Christie held a Photo-Op press conference on Barnegat Bay yesterday, and is getting lots of positive media today for signing legislation authorizing $650 million in “clean water” loans from the NJ Environmental Infrastructure Trust (NJEIT) See:

• Christie signs water quality bill that includes $16M. for Barnegat Bay projects 
• Christie signs bill giving $650 million to environmental infrastructure trust fund 
• Christie approves $650M for clean water 

The Governor’s accomplishment here is exaggerated and the press reports have a number of flaws:

1) they report the $650 million as “clean water”. This is misleading because it is a combination of “clean water” and “drinking water” money, which are distinct funding categories at DEP and NJEIT (AC Press story gets this right);

2) they leave out historical funding levels that would allow comparison of Christie to prior administrations. This is important because the Governor is taking credit, which is something he didn’t do for last year’s paltry NJEIT funding cycle (see below data), 

3) the stories fail to place funding in context, with respect to the total unfunded water infrastructure deficit.

4) There is no discussion of the controversies regarding allowable uses of the “clean water” funds and related policy problems of using funds to promote sprawl, subsidize private “brownfields” developers, and engage in pay-to-play corruption, all of which were exposed by the recent Encap scandal and Inspector General Cooper’s report. (see:

• ENCAP DEBACLE LOOMS OVER LATEST NEW JERSEY WATER FUND PLAN — Impending Legislative Approval Fails to Address Root Causes of Smoldering Scandal
• NEW JERSEY FLOATS DEVELOPMENT SCHEMES ON CLEAN WATER FUNDS — Golf Courses, Transit Villages and Transferable Building Rights Are Eligible Projects

Because we’ve worked on infrastructure issues for some time, I thought we’d provide readers the data on historical NJEIT funding levels, and compare Christie with prior Administrations.

Here is the NJ EIT website data, take from individual annual May reports to the Legislature:

YEAR      Amount

2006 -      $832 million (Corzine)
2007 -      $905 million
2008 -      $705 million
2009 -      no comparable data due to federal American Reinvestment and Recovery Act
2010 -      $380 million (Christie)
2011 -      $650 million

So, it appears that Governor Christie has presided over significant reductions in NJEIT clean water and safe drinking water loan funding.

I also thought it would be good to put the annual authorization in the context of the overall water infrastucture needs.

NJ’s drinking water infrastructure deficit is $8 billion.

But that drinking water infrastructure deficit is dwarfed by overall clean water and stormwater management needs, which exceed $20 billion (sorry, this link is from an old post. DEP killed this link to the DEP’s own Infrastructure Needs Assessment – I will find another functioning link).

NJ has a total $28 billion water infrastruture deficit (exclusive of significant costs to adapt to global warming sea level rise). At $650 million/year,that will take over 40 years to finance. But by then, the tab for crumbling infrastructure will be even higher!

As I wrote last year (see: Drinking Water Needs Are Critical and Ignored):

The American Society of Civil Engineers recently issued a national Report Card – Drinking water infrastructure was determined to be the most urgent infrastructure need and it got a D minus grade! (here is NJ’s State assessment).

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducts a national drinking water infrastructure needs assessment and submits bi-annual Reports to Congress.

According to EPA’s most recent Report, NJ has a  drinking water infrastructure deficit of  $7.962 BILLION ($4.7 BILLION for transmission and distribution alone – for NJ data, see page 18 of EPA’s Report)).

Drinking water projects received just $272 million in this year’s financing – at that rate, it would take 40 years to catch up with current deficits. Of course, over that time period, billions more in investment would be required to maintain NJ’s aging infrastructure.

So, contrary to the Governor’s spin and media reports, we’ve got a lot of unfunded work and much needed policy reforms remain to be addressed.

[End Note: I have heard that retirement and staff cuts at DEP have slowed down the processing and oversight of loans, stalling clean water projects. Due to the hiring freeze, DEP is uanble to backfill positions of staff that retire – this is the worst of all possible worlds, as DEP loses experienced professionals and manpower. The environment and the economy suffer from this shortsighted mismangement.]

[Update: 8/3/11 – Wow! Check out this photo. Obama signing bill into law all alone – a picture really speaks volumes. Compare that to several other bill signing ceremony pictures – See: The Shame Sets In ]

Obama all alone – the shame setting in

A little commented on aspect of the Obama so called hostage deal relates to deep cuts in clean energy funding.

Clean energy is allegedly a very high priority of the Administration in terms of infrastructure, energy policy, job creation, technological innovation, and global warming.

Nonetheless, Obama threw clean energy under the bus, along with the New Deal framework and War On Poverty Social Safety Net programs. And for nothing in return.

Are we on track for the kind of change you support? (photo: Wolfe)

According to a summary of the deal by VP Biden’s former economic advisor:

$1 trillion in cuts in discretionary spending over 10 years

What does that mean? It refers to the non-entitlements in the budget: defense and non-defense programs where dollar amounts are appropriated every year. On the non-defense side, it’s transportation, education and training, child care, housing assistance, health research, energy.

From a jobs perspective, a lot of infrastructure and investment in stuff like clean energy comes out of this part of the budget.

And that doesn’t describe additional likely discretionary spending cuts to EPA.

This just may have outdone our good Governor Christie, who we have blasted for similar reckless cuts.

But this so called extorted hostage “deal” (NY Times editorial: “nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists“) isn’t even Obama’s worst so far.

Obama’s far more substantial dirty deal – and killing the New Deal is a pretty huge dirty deal to surpass – was in Copenhagen.

Don’t forget that Obama derailed any possibility of government based collective global climate action – dooming the planet to tipping point warming. See:

Obama’s Copenhagen Speech: The Collapse of a Deal?

This “deal” is just further addition to the mountain of evidence that the political system is broken and can not be reformed from within or via electoral processes.

As I wrote in the original post launching this blog:

As political scientist Sheldon Wolin wrote in Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism (excellent review here), our democratic institutions have been hijacked by corporate interests and our Republic transformed to a global empire.

And there is little indication that the Obama “change” is anything more than rhetoric. According to a Wolin interview in Chris Hedges’s new book Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (Hedges interview here). Hedges wrote:

“The basic systems are going to stay in place; they are too powerful to be challenged.” Wolin to me when I asked him about the Obama administration. “This is shown by the financial bailout. It does not bother with the structure at all. I don’t think Obama can take on the kid of military establishment we have developed. This is not to say that I do not admire him. I think he is well meaning, but he inherits a system of constraints that make it very difficult to take on these major power configurations. I do not think he has the appetite for it in any ideological sense. The corporate structure is not going to be challenged. There has not been a word from him that would suggest an attempt to rethink the American imperium.”

The only way out is old fashioned movement politics, fueled by direct action and civil disobedience.

Mario Savio – Speech in Sproul Plaza (Berkeley, December 2, 1964)  (watch it)

And that, that brings me to the second mode of civil disobedience. There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.

NJ Spotlight held an energy policy forum last Friday on “NJ’s Thirst for Power”.

I attended and planned to write about what I heard in the context of the Christie Administration’s proposed changes to the energy policies in the Energy Master Plan.

But today Tom Johnson reports on some of the panel discussion, and does some of the heavy lifting for me (see: A Decade into Deregulation, Where are NJ’s New Power Plants?  Debated at the NJ Spotlight forum: Do subsidies motivate new construction or saddle ratepayers with bigger bills?

So let me make a few brief points on Tom’s article. I will hold off on writing a more thorough analysis until sometime before the upcoming public hearings on the EMP.

First off, a huge thanks to NJ Spotlight for shedding light on a key set of issues. They are the only game in town in terms of credible news coverage of the energy issue.

I came away from the panel discussion with the sense that:

• the field is rife with misinformation;
• the facts contradict much of the rhetoric and Christie policy premises;
• the complexity of the issues and inside baseball deliberations have frustrated any possibility of public involvement or transparency in huge economic and environmental policy decisions made behind closed doors with energy industry insiders driving the policy;
• energy markets are rife with “market failure” and energy deregulation has been a failure. This has caused NJ consumers to pay a huge price for energy while cheaper cleaner energy sources are marginalized;
• huge subsidies to and the true costs of fossil fuels – in terms of public health, environmental impacts, and global warming – are not considered at all;
• the global warming issue is not even on the table in policy deliberations.

Here are just a few issues raised by the panelists:

1. Huge Surplus Power

Governor Chrisitie’s energy policy is driven my two (competing and contradictory) policies:

• the need to lower the cost of energy that is purportedly driving away jobs, private investment, and economic development. This is to be done primarily by eliminating “socialized” “subsidies” like the SBC and RGGI charges and promoting “free markets”; and
• to build more instate fossil power capacity to meet what is described as a reliability crisis, resulting from a severe mismatch between rising energy demand and a deficit of power.

PSEG has gone further and said that due to energy shortfalls, NJ may face blackouts and rolling brownouts and must build expensive and environmentally destructive new transmission lines to import more power.

PSEG’s disengenuous scare tactics may reflect the fact that PSEG earns a significant share of their profits on transmission investments, not power generation or demand management.

But, to the contrary, the experts agreed that NJ and the PJM grid have a HUGE SURPLUS POWER CAPACITY.

Tom Johnson reports a 14-18% surplus, but that is the LOW end of the surplus (known as “reserve capacity”) – I heard one panelist claim that it is in the range of 25-30%.

“Fremont argued the reason no new generation is being built in the state is probably related to an oversupply in capacity margin in the region, as evidenced by reserve margins (the amount of capacity available above what is needed) ranging from 14 percent to 18 percent.”

Of course, such excess capacity makes PSEG claims of rolling blackouts and need for more transmission lines big lies, no?

2. Huge Industry Subsidies Hidden in “Capacity Payments”

To provide “incentives” (subsidies) to build even more costly excess capacity, to assure that the power generation is located nearby the sources of energy demand, and to promote grid reliability, PJM imposes what are called “location based” “capacity payments“.

NJ consumers pay more than $1.2 billion per year in these charges, which dwarf RGGI and SBC charges.

The huge costs of the PJM capacity payments makes Governor Christie’s attacks on solar subsidies, costs of RGGI, and SBC Clean Energy program seem absurd and disengenuous, no?

Ditto the Christie EMP policy changes to promote construction of more in state fossil power. Why do we seek to build new in state capacity when we have  a glut and energy demand is shrinking?

In addition to what Tom Johnson reports about the excess capacity (“reserve margin”), one panelist claimed that 6,900 MW of capacity didn’t “clear” the bidding process and had been retired from the PJM grid. Basically, that measn fossil plants are shutting down because they are not economic.

3. NJ Exports Lots of Power to NY City

We have far too much power and we are exporting tons of in state generated power to NYC –  According to PJM, the following NJ power exports are planned or underway:

• 1,200 MW (Bergen, proposed)
• 300 MW (Linden under construction)
• 200 MW (Linden, proposed)
• 660 MW (Neptune to Long Island, existing)

So why do we need to pay $1.2 billion in capacity payments – on top of the huge infrastructure costs to distribute that power to NYC?

4. Energy Demand – Flat or Declining

This issue was not discussed by the panelsits, but I understand that demand is flat or declining, due to NJ’s longstanding investments in a succcessful suite of energy conservation, efficiency, and demand management programs.

This is a real decline (not just a reduction in the projected rate of growth) and is independent of and in addition to dampened demand due to the economic recession.

So much for NJ’s so called “thirst for power”.

5. Deep Policy Contradictions

Energy policy must balance conflicting objectives of economic efficiency, ratepayer costs, environmental protection, and promotion of renewable power and green jobs.

Computer models can only guide – not dictate – those policy decisions.

In addition to the tremendous economic costs of excess capacity, readers also should know that the PJM economic enery planning model that generates the capacity payments has policy problems.

The model is biased in favor of fossil fuel capacity and it undermines demand management and conservation (negawatts). This capacity is far cheaper, far cleaner, and produces far more jobs, than traditional fossil and transmission systems.

I recently read a PSEG document that bragged that PJM capacity payment subsidies were what kept NJ coal plants open! (at over $1 billion in new pollution control costs, paid by ratepayers, not PSEG shareholders and investors).

WTF are we doing?

The Christie policy is insane. The facts contadict all the policy premises!

More to come on how this all relates to the Christie draft Energy Master Plan.

Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun
I’ll be sittin’ when the evenin’ come
Watching the ships roll in
And then I watch ’em roll away again, yeah

I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I’m just sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Wastin’ time (~~~ “Dock of the Bay“  (1968)  Otis Redding (listen))

In what looks like good news, US EPA Region 2 has weighed in in support of a TMDL on Barnegat Bay (see today’s Asbury Park Press story by Kirk Moore: EPA region shief says bay nutrient limit possible in three years).

I have not read EPA Regional Administrator Enck’s letter and don’t know if it pulls any regulatory triggers or threatens to withhold federal funds or is merely a warning [Update: here is the EPA letter h/t Jeff Tittel – it doesn’t really do anything], but we’ve been recommending that EPA step in to enforce the Clean Water Act’s TMDL requirements for many months, most recently, last week:

“We have argued for a Clean Water ActTotal Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) as the vehicle to address the Bay’s ecological collapse.

But Governor Christie vetoed a bill passed by the Legislature that would have mandated a TMDL for the Bay.

We have called on EPA to mandate a TMDL, given NJ’s continuing gross violation of the Clean Water Act and prior TMDL commitments with EPA.

We believe there are many reasons why this science based TMDL regulatory stick is preferable to the current Barnegat Bay Partnership locally driven management model and Christie Administration’s voluntary SAMP approach.

But despite EPA’s intervention, DEP still remains in denial on the TMDL issue and is politically defending the Governor’s veto of the TMDL bill.

DEP  remains opposed to a TMDL on the Bay. DEP testified in opposition to the TMDL bill as it moved through the Legislature. We’ve explained that the reason is grounded in Governor Christie’s ideological opposition to regulatory tools, not in science or law.

Worse, given the EPA letter, DEP now is attempting to shift the focus to EPA’s denial of NJ’s funding request, instead of where it belongs: on NJ DEP’s failure to comply with the Clean Water Act which has allowed the Bay to deteriorate to the point of ecological collapse.

And once again, the DEP press office is caught spinning the science.

Usually reliable Tom Johnson’s NJ Spotlight story leads with the EPA funding denial instead of the real issue, which is EPA TMDL support. But aside from downplaying the more significant federal EPA Clean Water Act oversight story, DEP is quoted with this whopper:

“We need more science and data before we decide whether a TMDL is needed,” Ragonese said.

The DEP Press Office needs to get out more often and talk with the scientists instead of parroting Commissioner Martin’s spin. Some old news:

• “We’ve actually reached a critical threshold where action is required to protect the bay” said Michael DeLuca, the senior associate director of Rutgers University’s Institute of Marine and Coastal Science. “Now it is clearly time to act.” (Star Ledger; 7/31/09)
• “We have the data already. We’ve had it for years,” said Michael Kennish, a research professor who heads Rutgers University efforts to study Barnegat Bay’s pollution problems. “We know what the problems are. We need to have big stuff done, mandates and requirements imposed by DEP.” [Asbury Park Press. 8/6/2010]

More recently, DEP’s own Science Advisory Board just recommended a TMDL for the Bay and coastal plain streams.

The DEP SAB findings explicity supported the TMDL approach for Barnegat Bay and coastal plain streams.

As we wrote last week, the SAB Report found:

“The most sensitive receptors for for excess nitrate are likely to be estuaries and low nutrient coastal plain streams. Given the nature of estuaries, a load-based regulatory approach (TMDL type approach) would make the most sense. Such an approach, furthermore, would be based on total nitrogen, not nitrate alone. (@ page 8)

So now even Commissioner Martin’s own hand picked SAB agrees with what we’ve said all along: that a “regulatory approach (TMDL type approach) would make the most sense” to address nitrogen eutrophication in estuaries and coastal plain streams.

But curiously, in Tom Johnson’s article, Willie DeCamp of Save Barnegat Bay blasts DEP Commissioner Martin and rants against “bureaucrats”:

“It is a disgrace that six months into the process, the commissioner does not even know that by far the largest vector of nitrogen into Barnegat Bay is air pollution,” said Willie DeCamp of Save Barnegat Bay. “The Governor’s ten points are silent on air pollution. Save Barnegat Bay came to the event wanting to constructively and interactively address that fatal flaw.”

“If Commissioner Martin can’t listen to what the public has to say, Barnegat Bay can never be saved,” DeCamp said. “You can’t do the whole thing with bureaucrats. Air pollution will not go away by being ignored.”

As a harsh critic of Martin, I have no problem with that. I too blasted Martin for spinning as did the Asbury Park Press editorial board for frustrating public comment. But, in fairness, the criticism must be fact based.

So, I question on what basis (data) Decamp claims that atmospheric deposition (air pollution) is “by far” the largest source of nitrogen to the Bay.

The data I’ve seen does NOT support that statement. Just the opposite: atmospheric deposition is the smallest source, and perhaps the relatively least able to be managed cost effectively because years of effort and billions of dollars have already been invested in NOx air pollution controls, so the low hanging fruit has been picked.

The total nitrogen loadings and relative source contributions are what a TMDL is supposed to derive. That work has not been done yet.

However, a December 7, 2009 USGS study estimated that total nitrogen loadings for the Bay are 650,000 kg/year, with only 22% from atmospheric deposition, 66% from surface water, and 12% from groundwater.

Furthermore, directly on point, that study found:

This new loading estimate was compared to a previously published estimate produced by using a similar methodology but lesss current data through 1997.  Findings of the present study include a substantially lower estimate of atmospheric deposition of nitrogen to the estuary compared to the previous estimate. The study results also offer further support of the relation btween land use and nitrogen levels, and indicate that the Toms and Metedeconk river basins account for more than 60% of the nitogen load to the estuary from surface-water discharge.

The TMDL is the best tool in the toolkit for restoring water quality.

The TMDL’s scientific findings and enforceable numeric nitrogen loading restrictions can be incorporated in and implemented in DEP land use and water regulatory programs:

• CAFRA (to restrict impervious cover, preserve vegetation, and reduce the number, size and rollback current high impervious cover limits in centers)
• wastewater planning (to limit wastewater flow capacity and restrict extensions of sewers in environmentally sensitive lands, limit septic density, better manage septic systems, and assess aging infrastructure for leaks);
• stream buffers (by mandating 300 foot buffers on all streams as non-point pollution BMPs)
• NJPDES (by requiring sewer authorities to upgrade treatment, resuse, and reinject clean highly treated wastewater to replenish aquifers);
• water allocation (to mandate water conservation, cap or lower existing water allocation permits, and restrict future allocations to address loss of freshwater inputs to the Bay, loss of flow in coastal streams, salt water intrusion into aquifers, and adverse wildlife and wetlands effects associated with over-pumping and over-allocation of freshwater);
• stormwater management (by providing a scientific and regulatory stick to drive upgrades of existing stormwater impoundments and limit future ones, and force new development to reduce imperviousness and better manage stormwater).

The local advocates need to get with the Clean Water Act’s TMDL program, focus criticism on DEP Commissioner Martin and not DEP staffers, and not blast people on false grounds and mislead the public about the science.

DEP More Than 2 Years Late In Responding to Legislative Mandate

As we begin summer, and with trees falling down in State campgrounds, we’re reminded of the crisis in State Parks funding.

For years, we have demanded that part of the solution include collection of current market value of leases and easements, particularly for utility easements across state lands.

The easement issue was epitomized by the Tennessee Gas Pipeline scandal .

(also see:  NEW JERSEY FORFEITS MILLIONS ON PARK LEASES AND CONCESSIONS — Lapsed Leases, Below Market Rates and Sweetheart Deals Give Corporations Breaks

So, we note that way back in June 2008, the Legislature mandated that DEP act to reform longstanding problems.

We secured amendments to that law specifically to address utlity easements across state parks and state lands.

That issue is especially timely, now that Governor Christie’s Energy Master Plan touts new gas pipeline infrastructure to import Marcellus fracking gas.

So, here it is – have at it (see:P.L. 2008, c. 31):

4. a. The Department of Environmental Protection shall conduct, within six months after the effective date of this act, a study of the facilities, services, resources, activities, and amenities provided, or which reasonably could be provided, at each State park or forest as defined in subsection e. of section 3 of P.L.1983, c.324 (C.13:1L-3).  As part of the study, the department shall:

     (1)   examine opportunities for increasing revenue realized from State parks and forests through (a) concessions, (b) marketing of products with State park or forest, New Jersey history, or other New Jerseyana or Garden State themes, (c) marketing of other products such as camping and outdoor recreational supplies and equipment, and (d) leases and rentals for events and other one-time or short-term uses;

     (2)   conduct a re-appraisal of the rents and fees charged for all residences and other buildings and structures, and for utility easements and right-of-ways, located on State park or forest lands to ensure they reflect current fair market values and will continue to do so;

     (3)   research fee structure strategies such as per person pricing compared to per vehicle charges and non-uniform pricing based upon intensity or frequency of use, location of the State park or forest, season, time of day, age of the visitor, and other similar factors;

     (4)   determine whether the fees it charges or will charge at State parks and forests are competitively priced when compared to similar facilities, services, resources, activities, and amenities offered in the private sector or by other states; and

     (5)   determine whether the fees it charges or will charge are causing or will cause any significant decrease in visitation to State parks and forests or a decrease in the use of certain facilities, services, resources, or amenities or in participation in certain activities.

     b.    The department, within 60 days after completion of the study required pursuant to subsection a. of this section, shall submit, pursuant to section 2 of P.L.1991, c.164 (C.52:14-19.1), to the Legislature and to the State Treasurer a report of its findings and conclusions from the study.

     c.     Based upon the results of the study, the department shall, by July 1, 2009, (1) modify the fees it charges for facilities, services, resources, activities, and amenities at State parks and forests to ensure as much as practicable that the fee structure established properly reflects the availability of those facilities, services, resources, activities, and amenities and that the fee revenues realized therefrom are making an appropriate and reasonable contribution toward defraying the cost of operating and maintaining State parks and forests, and (2) implement other measures deemed in the study to be appropriate and beneficial with respect to increasing revenues realized from State parks and forests.

Where are the media and Legislative Oversight?