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Bill Diverts $50 Million Of Clean Energy Funds From Poor People To Corporations

No Standards Or Links To Climate And Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions

Labor Unions And DEP Excluded From The “Green” Investment Program

Tomorrow, the Senate Environment Committee will consider a bill (S3603) to create Gov. Murphy’s “Green Bank”.

I recently criticized that Murphy initiative in this post, by comparing it to New York State climate activists $15 BILLION climate funding campaign (new State money, not a diversion or federal funds) and NY Gov.’s commitment to a $10 billion program, funded by polluters, not taxpayers, see:

• More Murphy Green Fraud

The bill is seriously flawed and must be significantly amended or scrapped.

The bill also raises the question of who controls the State allocation of billions of dollars in various federal infrastructure funds and what those funds can and will be used for.

A similar lack of transparency, public participation, and accountability led to serious abuses by the Christie administration’s unilateral control over billions of federal dollars in Sandy aid.

I submitted the following testimony to the Committee opposing the bill and laying out the flaws that must be remedied by major amendments. The sponsor, Senator Singleton’s office, at least responded to my email.

———- Original Message ———-

From: Bill WOLFE <>

To: senbsmith <SenBSmith@njleg.org>, sengreenstein <sengreenstein@njleg.org>, “sensingleton@njleg.org” <sensingleton@njleg.org>

Date: 03/07/2023 6:15 PM

Subject: S3603

Dear Chairman Smith and Senator Singleton –

Please accept the following testimony in opposition to S3603.

I oppose the bill for the following reason:

1) The bill does not create new sources of funding.

The bill instead would divert $50 million from the Clean Energy Fund created by the Societal Benefits Charge (SBC). The CEF has been raided and hundreds of millions of dollars diverted. The raids must stop.

The SBC funds are more efficiently, effectively, and equitably used to fund the most cost effective carbon emissions reduction projects, which are energy conservation projects in low and moderate income residential buildings, as opposed to the eligible uses allowed by the bill.

If the Green Bank is sound public policy, it should be funded by new revenues, not cannibalize scare funds that are already inadequate.

2) The allowable uses of funds include “other forms of financial assistance”. This use is far too broadly defined and vague. It amounts to a blank check. It would allow grants. That is particularly poor policy in light of the eligible entities, which include, without limitation, private corporations.

3) The bill lacks any technical or scientific or regulatory performance metrics related to assuring that the projects funded produce a reduction in carbon (greenhouse gas) emissions.

The bill also lacks any links to or integration with the goals of the Global Warming Response Act or DEP regulatory programs.

4) Section 2 of the bill does not link the EDA performance standards for eligible projects to any scientific or regulatory methodology to assure transparency, accountability, and real greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

5) The consultation provisions of Section 2 do not include NJ DEP, the State of NJ’s primary climate science and policy experts. DEP not only is the primary State agency, DEP is authorized by law to implement clean air and greenhouse gas emissions reductions. They must be a core member of any Green Bank.

6) The bill would allow funding to “nonprofit organizations”. There are no standards to define and limit what a bonafide non profit organization is. This opens up multiple opportunities for abuse and puts the Bank and EDA in the improper role of certifying appropriate nonprofit institutions. For example, could an Exxon Mobil formed and funded nonprofit be eligible? A religious nonprofit? A NJBIA or Chamber of Commerce nonprofit?

7) The bill would allow the Green Bank to accept money donations from “private sources” and accept  “charitable gifts, grants, and contributions, as well as loans, from individuals, corporations, university endowments, and philanthropic foundations;”

This opens up an ethical can or worms and promotes pay to play, privatization, and other inappropriate schemes.

***8) The bill fails to include a role for Unions in the operation of the Bank and the allocation of green investment funds, or any mandatory union or labor standards. That is totally unacceptable.

I strongly urge that the bill be held so that significant amendment to address the above concerns can be developed.

Respectfully,

Bill Wolfe

*** #8 was added to email via this post

Biden EPA Using Grants As A Blank Check For Politically Safe Patronage Projects

As Long Delayed And Fatally Flawed EJ Rules Are About To Be Adopted, The Murphy DEP Is Using Grant Funds To Dampen And Co-Opt Criticism

Lots Of Slogans – Lack Of Enforceable Technical Standards

My email inbox is overwhelmed today by press releases from US EPA and NJ DEP announcing a firehose of billions of government funding to support various “safe” climate and environmental justice projects.

Let’s first examine the US EPA press release and then the NJ DEP release. There are similarities (e.g. funding for politically safe, non-regulatory projects that can be used to co-opt recipients, etc) and contrasts (i.e. DEP is distancing Gov. Murphy from the “historic” EJ policy and funding, while EPA is touting Biden).

In their press release, US EPA overtly politicizes the funding, and is sure to prominently feature and tout the “Biden” administration for the credit.

Here is US EPA’s press release headline:

• Biden-Harris Administration Announces Over $250 Million to Fund Innovative Projects That Tackle Climate Pollution – New Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program made possible by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act

… President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act includes historic funding to combat climate change while creating good-paying jobs and advancing environmental justice. Today’s announcement builds on $550 million announced last week for EPA’s new Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking program and $100 million announced earlier this year for environmental justice grants to support underserved and overburdened communities. Additionally, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund will award nearly $27 billion to leverage private capital for clean energy and clean air investments across the country.

The so called “Innovative Projects” that EPA will fund are the same old same old politically safe projects that are used to essentially buy the support of friendly groups and dampen and co-opt both activism and criticism.

Those political objectives of these grant programs are masked by allocating the funds to governmental bodies (who then, due to broad and vague eligible uses and in the absence of EPA performance standards and use restrictions, then re-allocate it politically, e.g. see NJ DEP below):

About the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program

The CPRG planning grants will support states, territories, Tribes, municipalities and air agencies, in the creation of comprehensive, innovative strategies for reducing pollution and ensuring that investments maximize benefits, especially for low-income and disadvantaged communities. These climate plans will include:

• Greenhouse gas emissions inventories; 
• Emissions projections and reduction targets;
• Economic, health, and social benefits, including to low-income and disadvantaged communities;
• Plans to leverage other sources of federal funding including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act;
• Workforce needs to support decarbonization and a clean energy economy; and
• Future government staffing and budget needs.

These are all very soft and fuzzy eligible purposes.

Note that not one “politically safe” funding category actually requires quantitative reductions in actual pollution and/or greenhouse gas emissions.

Not one is linked to or would advance any form of EPA or State regulation of the private sector or impose requirements or compliance costs on corporate polluters. (read the EPA Guidance Documents).

Getting deep into the weeds, we must note that the EPA “Climate Pollution” Grant requirements for States are generic and financial in nature and are not linked to EPA clean air or climate regulations:

Grant recipients shall follow the framework for grants management, requirements, and reporting using the Uniform Grants Guidance (UGG) under 2 CFR Part 200 and EPA regulations under 2 CFR Part 1500. Some of the statutory provisions described in this document contain legally binding requirements. However, this document does not substitute for those provisions or regulations, nor is it a regulation itself. Thus, the document cannot impose legally binding requirements on EPA, states, or the regulated community, and it may not apply to all situations.

The EPA grant guidance does not contain performance measures! Instead, EPA allows the States to select their own: (see page 26)

This is a patronage program and not a serious climate program.

When we look at the NJ DEP funding, we observe that the NJ DEP grant program press release shares the EPA blank check and politically safe patronage characteristics.

But in contrast to EPA’s overt politicization, very surprisingly, in a sharp departure from almost all prior DEP press releases, the NJ DEP headline does not include Gov. Murphy:

• DEP SEEKS PARTNERS TO BUILD NEXT GENERATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERS FROM OVERBURDENED COMMUNITIES

This funding is described as exclusively a DEP project:

TRENTON – The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is seeking to partner with up to five community-based organizations to continue its award-winning Youth Inclusion Initiative to help youth in overburdened communities become part of the next generation of diverse environmental professionals, Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette announced today.

Why would DEP distance Governor Murphy from this EJ initiative?

DEP recently excluded Governor Murphy in this February 22 “Outside Together” EJ oriented press release and in this February 22 urban parks EJ funding press release as well

Gov. Murphy is prominently missing. The exclusion of Gov. Murphy from DEP press releases seems to be selectively applied to the controversial “historic” DEP EJ policy.

In contrast, DEP made sure to credit the Governor is almost all prior DEP press releases, most recently these examples:

• MURPHY ADMINISTRATION OFFERING $19 MILLION IN GRANTS TO ASSIST MUNICIPALITIES WITH NEW STORMWATER PERMITTING (February 17)

• MURPHY ADMINISTRATION AWARDS $16 MILLION TO REDUCE WASTE AND PROMOTE RECYCLING ACROSS New Jersey (February 9)

• MURPHY ADMINISTRATION AWARDS $24.3 MILLION THROUGH ITS NATURAL CLIMATE SOLUTIONS GRANT PROGRAM (January 18)

• MURPHY ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCES MORE THAN $8 MILLION TO BUILD DIVERSIVE, (SIC) INCLUSIVE GREEN JOBS SECTOR

I strongly suspect that this has a lot to do with the upcoming DEP adoption of the long delayed and fatally flawed DEP EJ regulations.

It seems very likely that environmental groups and EJ activists will strongly criticize DEP and the Gov. for those weak and ineffective regulations, which have been exposed as sham already due to massive loopholes.

By distancing Gov. Murphy – who touted the EJ law he signed as “historic” – from the EJ program, DEP is seeking to insulate the Gov. from this upcoming firestorm of criticism.

By announcing the grant program PRIOR to the adoption of these EJ regulations, DEP is holding out a carrot and sending a blunt and transparent message to EJ activists and organizations: play ball with us and we will fund you.

Word.

False Claims About “Loopholes” Let Murphy DEP Off the Hook

False Claims About Local Control Of Development Divert From State Regulatory Powers

Reliance On Cherry Picked Data From Chemical Industry Funded Groups Misleads Readers

It looks like this is going to be a multi-part series, because today NJ Spotlight published round two of their firehose of puff and spin on water resources and land use issues, sponsored by the misleadingly named (after a good old American and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania), the Wm. Penn Foundation.

As I revealed yesterday in Part One, the Wm. Penn Foundation is actually a creation of the Haas family, the money behind giant corporate chemical polluter Rohm & Haas.

Can anyone imagine the outcry if a media outlet printed a series on public health, sponsored and shaped by the disgraced criminal Sackler family Foundation (hiding the role of Purdue Pharma) and that series of stories never once mentioned the pharmaceutical industry or the health disaster caused by their drug, oxycontin?

Well, that is exactly what the Haas family – hiding behind the facade of Wm. Penn Foundation – has done to NJ Spotlight and the environmental groups who take their corporate polluter blood money.

It’s not hard to understand why a major corporate chemical manufacturer would not fund environmental groups to focus on government regulatory and enforcement programs and instead point the pollution finger elsewhere. That’s also why they fund land preservation and non-point pollution projects. That’s why they target and fund water quality monitoring of streams like Lopatcong Creek, instead of, for example, chemical water quality monitoring or analysis of sediments and fish tissue in the Delaware River and bay.

Just like the Sackler family would not put their neck in the noose by funding projects on oxycontin and collection of data on over 100,000 drug over-dose deaths.

I hope to begin to get to the substance of the issues that were misrepresented, so let me start with this “big picture” broad overview.

The thrust of yesterday’s coverage on the Highlands – highlighted in the subtitle “Highlands loophole lets development grow, fertilizer fuels lake pollution – is that “loopholes” in the Highlands Act are the source of the problem.

That is false. I will write a specific post on the Highlands issues soon.

Today, Tom Johnson writes a “big picture” overview  – that repeats exactly that same “loophole” falsehood:

To some, it points to the need to take a tougher stand on new projects impacting water quality. “Right now, we have a baker’s dozen of warehouse projects around the state that have real water quality impacts,’’ said Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey. The DEP needs to close regulatory loopholes that allow these projects to move forward, he said.

That too is false.

It is not “loopholes” but lack of DEP enforcement that “allow these projects to move forward.” (Hey Tom, your bias is showing: DEP approval of a bad project is not “moving forward”, it’s moving backward!)

This is not an accident. It is an intentional outcome of the Wm. Penn funding.

As I wrote yesterday, the Wm. Penn Foundation (Haas family) does not fund work on laws, regulation and government planning. They support local and voluntary private sector projects  that target non-point source pollution, land preservation, and voluntary “ecological restoration” projects.

Wm. Penn funds NGO groups that either don’t work on DEP regulatory issues or that don’t understand DEP regulations or that just spin to divert attention and provide cover for DEP.

I fired off this letter to Doug O’Malley:

Doug – DEP issues Water Quality Management Plan approvals for warehouses, most new development, and water infrastructure.

The Clean Water Act Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) program establishes legally enforceable numeric caps on total pollutant loads (point and non-point) and pollutant reduction requirements in impaired waters (cumulative impacts). The TMDL requirements are enforced in DEP permit programs (land use and water quality and water allocation and stormwater).

The Surface Water Quality Standards include enforceable “anti-degradation” requirements that are designed to prevent degradation of high quality waters (in light of cumulative impacts). Again, anti-degradation (and numeric and narrative water quality standards) are enforceable in DEP planning and permit programs.

Those regulations provide adequate authority to deny permits.

There are no “loopholes”. I’ve been working on this for 35 years. Where have you been?

There is lack of DEP enforcement. Surely you must know that.

Yesterday’s story on the Highlands made exactly the same false claim about “loopholes” in the Highlands Act.

All this does is let DEP off the hook.

Do better.

BTW, tell NJ Spotlight reporters that they don’t have to rely on Wm. Penn funded groups for cherry picked data and amateur assessments of current water quality conditions and trends in water quality. The Clean Water Act mandates that DEP publish Statewide Water Quality Reports (known as the Section 305(b)/303(d) integrated Report)

*For groundwater pollution data, DEP used to issue Private Well Testing Act reports, but no longer does so.

For threats to public drinking water supplies, see DEP’s Source Water Assessment Program – find the needle buried in the DEP website haystack and hit the link to find specific threats to specific water systems. Then wade through to the end of those documents to find the real threats buried at the end. Of course the data re over 20 years old. DEP doesn’t do that anymore.

And don’t even ask about the legislatively mandated annual Clean Water Enforcement Act Report – DEP stopped issuing that many years ago (2010) in blatant violation of law, but with no accountability, no media, no environmental group criticism, and no consequences.

Much more to follow.

Biden’s State Of The Union Straw Man Sets Stage For Cuts To Social Security & Medicare

The Greatest Living Journalist Is Now A Blogger

The Ideological Attack And War On The New Deal Is Over – It’s Now Bipartisan

I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. ….. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. ~~~ “Beyond Vietnam – A Time To Break Silence”  (Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967)

A very intelligent friend of mine – a history buff and brilliant writer – who shall remain nameless, sent me an essay this morning largely focused on his Manichean delusional World War 2 video game movie of the Ukraine disaster.

This man was demanding US and NATO boots on the ground and a no-fly zone immediately after the Russian invasion – and he’s only gotten worse since (US first strike use of tactical nukes? Take out the Russian Naval fleet? Blow up pipelines and sabotage Russian infrastructure? Everything’s on the table).

We stopped communicating for months over his insane pro-war and anti-Russian views. He’s now attacking Biden for not doing enough.

So, today, I fired back.

I’m riffing on ideas from US Marine Corps General Smedley Butler famous 1935 book “War Is A Racket” – and Randolph Bourne’s far less well know but equally powerful 1918 essay “War Is the Health of The State” – and the predatory capitalism in John Perkins’ 2004 book “Confessions of An Economic Hitman” – and George Orwell’s body of work on propaganda and the Big Lie – and Professor John Mearsheimer’s analysis – and the “bipartisan” House Resolution 9 denouncing “the horrors” of  Socialism which included frontal ideological assaults on core principles of the New Deal – and most recently, Sy Hersch’s revelations on how the US blew up the Nordstream pipelines (which hugely increases corporate profits from US natural gas exports as LNG).

XXXX – as a fellow recipient, I’m astonished that you didn’t see the game Biden played on SS and Medicare in the SOTU.

Particularly after the House Resolution condemning Socialism, which included explicit ideological condemnations of the premises of SS and the entire New Deal (i.e. the anti redistribution and property rights quotes from Madison and Jefferson). I know you didn’t miss it, but here it is again, conflating grossly distorted historical catastrophes with and condemning core New Deal principles as “horrors of Socialism”:

Whereas the author of the Declaration of Independence, President Thomas Jefferson, wrote, ‘‘To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to  others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.’’;

Whereas the ‘‘Father of the Constitution’’, President James Madison, wrote that it ‘‘is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest’’;

And of course you ignore, particularly after Biden’s entire 40 plus year political career where he supported cuts to SS and championed the “shared sacrifice” “grand deal” numerous times on entitlements and austerity.

By accusing the Republicans of seeking to phase out (or sunset?) SS/MC, Biden crafted a straw man that sets the stage for cuts and “reforms” that “modernize” and “put the SS Trust Fund on a sound financial footing”.

Then, after the deal is done, Biden can brag that he “saved SS” from the evil Republicans and the Republicans can claim they merely guaranteed its solvency.

Remarkable you don’t find this game worth writing about, and instead choose to fall for the transparent and repeated propaganda ratchet by the Military Industry Complex and NeoCons: ie.: Just give Ukraine canon fodder just one more billion dollar US weapons system. Just one more….

I think the Ukrainian high official who recently was quoted as guaranteeing that US would provide F-16’s” (paraphrase):  “We asked for X, Biden said no. We later got X. We asked for Y. Biden said no. We later got Y. We asked for Z. Biden said no. We later got Z. We will get F-16’s:

XXXX, Ukraine is even a worse strategic and moral error than Iraq and Vietnam. (to be clear: both were US criminal wars of aggression).

But this time around, instead of showing the body bags, reporting on the My Lia’s and Tet Offensives that expose the military lies, mock the John Bircher and LBJ paranoia of the “Communist Domino Theory”, and reporting on the Pentagon Papers, the US media is engaged in pro-War big lie propaganda and replacing the RAND corporation and writing the Pentagon Papers as the news.

That Sy Hersch piece on US blowing up Nordstream was something, eh?  The fact that he had to publish it on Substack and was called a “blogger” by the mainstream press tells you all you need to know. Imagine, the greatest living journalist is now a blogger. Imagine that.

DEP Must Withdraw Plan In Light Of Current Science & EPA Proposed Lower NAAQS

Gov. Murphy’s Climate And Environmental Justice Policies Are Ignored

[Update below]

This is a quick note. [* I corrected my error on the scheduling of the public hearing]

I recently wrote briefly about this issue here, which provides some background information:

• US EPA Proposes Stricter National Air Quality Standard For Particulate Pollution – Science Shows That NJ’s Air Remains Unhealthy To Breath

DEP recently quietly submitted NJ’s State Implementation Plan (SIP) for fine particulate known as PM 2.5 to EPA for review and approval.

I requested that DEP hold a public hearing, which they are legally required to do if someone requests one. I was told by DEP yesterday that DEP will hold a “virtual” public hearing on Feb. 14 on the DEP’s proposed SIP PM 2.5 plan submission to EPA for approval. Please register to testify here:

• February 14, 2023 @ 10 AM – Link to join meeting:
• Call In: 1 856-338-7074
• Phone conference ID: 640 213 715#

The hearing provides a good opportunity to educate the public, generate press, and begin to reform the DEP’s air quality program in light of climate science, EJ policies, and advances in science on adverse health effects of ultra fine particulates.

EPA recently proposed revisions in the federal NAAQS for PM 2.5 that would make NJ   non-compliance worse.

The Gov. and DEP are now holding hearings on the urban heat island effect, and that involves PM 2.5 strategies.

I am recommending the following, which I urge you to support:

DEP Must Withdraw and strengthen the plan in light of the following:

a) advances in science document more serious health effects at lower levels of exposure, particularly in EJ communities;

b) EPA’s proposed revision to lower the NAAQS for PM 2.5

c) DEP’s current development of an “Urban Heat Island” strategy

d) advances in climate science that project more adverse impacts of PM 2.5 and ozone

e) failure of the current DEP ambient air quality monitoring network to assess ambient conditions in the locations where people are actually exposed to pollution (e.g. at 5 feet elevation, street exposure) and failure to adequately monitor EJ communities.

DEP SIP fails to make enforceable commitments to upgrade the current monitoring network in these important regards.

f) ongoing regulatory development to attain the aspirational goals of the Global Warming Response Act, which impact PM 2.5 attainment and involve coordinated strategies.

g) the DEP’s emissions inventory fails to reflect the DEP’s current and proposed expansion of fine particulate generating prescribed burns in NJ’ forests. According to EPA:

Wildland fire, which encompass both wildfire and prescribed fire, accounts for over 30% of emissions of primary PM_2.5emissions (U.S. EPA, 2021).

h) the current NJ SIP transportation conformity analysis is flawed, outdated, and fails to reflect current science on PM 2.5 and fails to fully inventory, model, or capture projected increases from major road expansions and increasing VMT and related transportation emissions.

i) recently approved and pending fossil infrastructure project emissions are not included in the inventory.

j) the control strategies felt o reflect “advances in the art” as required under NJ Air Pollution Control Act.

Finally, the California Air Resource Board (CARB) has been developing science and regulatory strategies for PM 2.5 and ultra-fine particulates. I request that the DEP publish and consider CARB policies and recommendations and conduct a side by side comparison between CARB and the DEP SIP strategies so that the public can be adequately informed.

[Update: 3/10/23:

• Revealed: the 10 worst places to live in US for air pollution

• A Guardian analysis using cutting-edge modelling developed by researchers tracks deadly PM2.5 levels