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NJ Spotlight Maintains News Blackout Of Fossil Moratorium, With A Little Help From Murphy’s Friends

[See End Note for clarification]

Repeating a disturbing pattern, Governor Murphy’s “green” cheerleaders and the stenographers in NJ media – especially NJ Spotlight, purportedly the leading NJ media outlet for energy and environmental policy coverage out of Trenton  –  have once again helped Gov. Murphy avoid accountability on his actual climate record and maintained the news blackout on the critically important issue of the need for a moratorium on expansion of fossil infrastructure.

The cheerleaders and stenographers did exactly the same thing just 2 years ago in 2019.

This time around, here’s the concerted diversion sequence – watch how quickly and strategically the news managing cheerleaders and stenographers sprang into action:

• On November 5,  Senate Environment Committee announced they would hear the fossil moratorium on 11/15
• On November 10, cheerleader Ed Potosnak praised Gov. Murphy at the Gov.’s gaslighting press conference
• On November 10, climate activist held a march in Newark to demand no more fossil – and it got no media coverage
• On November 11, stenographer Tom Johnson at NJ Spotlight wrote exactly the headline the Gov. wanted from his LBJ reprise press conference
• On November 12, NJ Spotlight published a diversionary Op-Ed by cheerleader Tom Gilbert
• On November 15, the Senate Environment Committee approved the moratorium Resolution
• On November 15, cheerleader Ed Potosnak issued a diversionary press release
• On November 16, NJ Spotlight publishes a diversionary story about infrastructure

The result is that on November 16, there remained a virtual news blackout of the moratorium issue and Senate action – just what the Gov. wanted (other than my note).

Media silence and stenography are just what DEP Commissioner LaTourette wanted. He wants no focus on his multiple failures – or the gross conflicts that his prior revolving door work as a corporate lawyer for fossil LNG export Fortress Energy.

And just what the NJ corporate polluters at NJ BIA and the Chamber of Commerce wanted: no focus or discussion of the need for binding DEP regulations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

And I didn’t even mention the absurd Assembly bill – heard on the same day and at the same time the Senate Environment Committee was hearing the moratorium Resolution – that would purportedly “codify” the goals of the Murphy Energy Master Plan. The bill codifies Gov. Murphy’s priorities, but completely ignores the primary and overriding goal of the EMP, which is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions!

See how that all works?

If anyone thinks that this flurry of diversionary press conferences, press releases, Op-Eds, and news coverage are purely a coincidence, I’ve got some oceanfront property in Florida for sale.

The pattern of abuse is so blatant that it is incredible that it is not exposed and publicly denounced for the gross manipulation it is.

The most recent example is yesterday’s approval by the Senate Environment Committee of a non-binding Resolution that would urge Gov. Murphy to impose a moratorium on new fossil projects. The Resolution was sponsored by retiring Senate Majority Leader Weinberg, and could be viewed as a legacy accomplishment.

Despite the Senate Committee’s approval – and a newsworthy announcement by Committee Chairman Smith that he would seek a voter referendum to amend the NJ Constitution to impose a moratorium – there was literally a news blackout.

How could that happen? Let me briefly explain.

If we are going to slow down or minimize catastrophic and runaway climate chaos, the first step is to stop expanding the extraction of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas and building new fossil infrastructure like pipelines, compressor stations, LNG export facilities, and power plants.

Scientists have been warning about this looming catastrophe for well over a decade. Climate activists call this a “keep it in the ground” strategy.

At the national level, climate activists made some progress on these issues when President Biden issued an Executive Order that announced a “pause” on new oil and gas leases on federal lands (Executive Order (see Sect. 208) .

But Biden rapidly folded in the face of Big Oil and Republican resistance and instead of codifying the EO’s “pause” into a more permanent moratorium, according to the Associated Press, oil and gas permits are being issued by the Biden administration at a record pace.

Prior to the Biden short lived “pause”, here in NJ, in 2019, climate activists formed a coalition of over 100 groups, called “Empower NJ”, to pressure Gov. Murphy to impose a moratorium on several pending fossil infrastructure projects.

In July, frustrated by the lack of success of their political campaign and continued inaction by the Murphy DEP, the Empower NJ Coalition filed what is called a formal “petition for rulemaking” to DEP to demand regulatory action by DEP, including a moratorium on fossil.

In October the Murphy DEP declined to act on the rulemaking petition.

Instead – just like Biden’s capitulation to Big Oil and Gas’ political power – DEP Commissioner LaTourette appeared before NJ corporate hacks at a climate denial conference to tout continued reliance on fossil fuels an effectively mock climate activists.

Remarkably, while the moratorium issue and the petition for rulemaking got virtually no press coverage, NJ Spotlight did report DEP Commissioner LaTourette’s support for fossil – at an NJ BIA conference stacked with climate deniers – and misleading statements about the effects of a moratorium.

So, there’s the real issues and the real context.

So, we’ll close by repeating the question we began with: Why the continuing news blackout on the fossil moratorium issue?

[End Note: I’m getting blasted by a knowledgeable reader for being soft on the environmentalists:

I think you gave the enviros (CWA , Sierra ENJ) a free pass – they did not  even try  to make climate moratorium and env major campaign  issues – they all endorsed like sheep.

The reader is correct. I agree that they failed miserably to make their own moratorium campaign and DEP petition for rulemaking endorsement requirements and political issues.

I think that’s due to a combination of incompetence, cowardice and corruption.

Chairman Smith Abdicates Legislative Responsibility

Chairman Says He Will Put The Moratorium Issue To The Voters Next Year

Climate and Environmental Activists Put In a Lame Effort

Kabuki – Showy posturing performed as an act of theater. Typically used by pundits to describe an empty political performance which serves to satisfy or distract an audience.

Senator Bob Smith, Chairman Sen. Env. Cmte.

Well, at least this time around, today the Senate Environment Committee actually heard and released the Senate non-binding Resolution urging Gov. Murphy to impose a moratorium on new fossil projects.

Last time around, back in 2019, they ran away from it, see:

• Who Killed The Senate Resolution Urging Gov. Murphy To Impose a Moratorium On Fossil Infrastructure? – Resolution posted on Environment Committee Agenda and Withdrawn 24 Hours Later

But, that’s about all the good news I can report.

Leave us

Helpless, helpless, helpless, helpless
Babe, can you hear me now?
The chains are locked and tied across the door
Baby, sing with me somehow. ~~~ Helpless, Neil Young

Here’s the highlights (lowlights?) of today’s hearing:

1.  No political support or viability.

The sponsor, Senator Majority Leader Weinberg, who is retiring, did not appear to present or support her Resolution. Senate Environmental Committee Chairman Smith offered no explanation or defense of the Resolution, nor did any member of the Committee. Senator Greenstein “abstained”.

Smith went out of his way to emphasize that the Resolution had no legal effect. Instead, Smith said he would push – next year, it’s always next year – for his Senate Concurrent Resolution 18 to  “Amend the Constitution to prohibit construction of new fossil fuel power plants.”

Sound good, right? WRONG!

Smith introduced that Resolution back in September of 2019 and never followed through on it. My sense is that he offered that up as an alternative to and to derail the broader fossil moratorium Resolution and to avoid any discussion of the issue of the need for DEP regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Smith’s Concurrent Resolution grandfathers existing fossil power plants in perpetuity. It applies only to new fossil plants and would exempt pipelines, compressor stations, export facilities, and all other major fossil greenhouse gas emissions sources.

Worse, punting a critical legislative issue to the voters is an abdication of legislative responsibility and it provides cover for the Governor to delay and avoid taking Executive action on the moratorium. Smith surely knows that economically powerful interests would surely spend millions of dollars to defeat such a voter referendum and it would go down to defeat. Another “fake solution” by Smith.

This is Kabuki at its worst.

2. The environmental and climate activist communities were not well represented.

First of all, many groups were simply AWOL (including those who were in Trenton and testifying to an Assembly Committee on trivial bullshit). Those groups include Rethink Energy NJ (NJ Conservation Foundation), all the conservation and watershed groups (NJ LCV, NJ Audubon, Pinelands Preservation Alliance, The Highlands Coalition, Watershed, etc), all the “sustainability” and planning groups (Sustainable NJ, NJ Future), all the coastal groups (COA, ALS, Surfrider), many of the climate activist groups, ANJEC, and all the grassroots anti-pipeline, environmental and social justice groups.

Those groups are too busy cheerleading Gov. Murphy’s symbolic gestures and taking corporate oriented Foundation money to expend any political capital actually putting pressure on the Gov. to do something real on climate that would impose real costs on powerful corporations.

That’s why Ray Cantor of NJ BIA was there to oppose the Resolution and the concept of a moratorium on behalf of NJ’s corporate community. Cantor even offered up a defense of and had strong praise for fossil fuels! He sounded exactly like the API and oil industry’s recent testimony to Congress on their corporate climate disinformation campaign.

The main supporters were Food and Water Watch, Sierra Club, Environment NJ and NJ Industrial Union Council. (Oh and how could I forget Clean Water Action, the group that just appeared to cheerlead at Gov. Murphy’s press conference that sabotaged the moratorium?)

The supporters were not critical of the non-binding nature of the Resolution and need for real legislation with teeth.

They were not critical of Gov. Murphy’s (Gaslighting) Executive Order.

The were not critical of DEP’s multiple failures, including DEP’s failure to act on their petition for rulemaking.

And they said nothing about the toothless NJ Global Warming Response Act and New York State’s climate law (which has teeth) and the need for DEP regulation (which their own petition and the Senate resolution call for).

They said nothing about the fact that NJ DEP regulations do not regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

They said nothing about pending and long delayed DEP climate PACT and environmental justice regulations.

This is remarkable cowardice and/or incompetence by climate activists.

[Update: I failed to mention one positive, when Matt Smith of F&WW criticized DEP Commissioner LaTourette’s misleading public statements about the moratorium.]

3. No Street Heat

I am not certain of this because I was not there and could only listen to the testimony online, but I don’t think the climate activists and environmental groups – who claim hundreds of thousands of members – mounted any kind of rally or public demonstration in support of the moratorium.

This is a stunning failure, given the platform that the Resolution offered them and the timing, in terms of the failure of COP26 and the pending collapse of the Biden “Build Back Better” climate program.

4. The Murphy DEP didn’t even show up

The Murphy Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection was nowhere to be found. I’ll say no more, other than to condemn him for a total lack of leadership and abject cowardice.

This no show from a man who repeatedly accuses the people of NJ as not understanding the climate emergency and gaslights them on environmental justice.

That’s just how a former fossil industry lawyer rolls.

5. Lame Duck Is Not The Time To Ram Through Major Policy Like a Fossil Moratorium

Finally, no one mentioned that a lame duck session is not the forum to ram through serious major public policy. Such an anti-democratic move only undermines public confidence and support.

The fact that the Democrats in Trenton are doing this in lame duck – and the non-binding nature of the Resolution – sends a message that they are not serious and politically committed to the issue and willing to publicly fight for real climate action.

When will the members and funders of NJ climate and environmental groups demand more?

Gov. Murphy Holds Press Conference To Divert From Newark Protest And Senate Fossil Moratorium Resolution

Climate Activists Get Fucked Again, And They Don’t Even Know It

Cynical politician are masters of manipulation of the media. Some call it news management.

With proper timing, politicians can get out in front of a bad news story and change the subject.

Another tactic is to divert the media’s attention from events that would put the politician in a negative light, and refocus and control the narrative.

Get out front, divert, change the subject. It’s as easy as 1,2, 3 – especially when you have sycophants to cheerlead and stenographers for journalists.

One of the most notorious historical examples of this kind of cynical news management was when President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) called a last minute White House press conference to divert news coverage from the testimony of Fannie Lou Hamer to the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, NJ.

Here’s how the Washington Post tells that story:

Obama Is A Hypocritical and Dangerous Neoliberal Fraud

“Under my administration, America is producing more oil than at any time in the last eight years. We’ve opened up new areas for exploration. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We’ve added enough new oil and gas pipeline to circle the Earth and then some,” Obama said (source)

From the outset of the Obama administration – having many professional and personal experiences with his first term EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and White House energy policy aide Heather Zichal (now a corporate gas whore)- I knew the man was a fraud. And I soon found several opportunities to expose that, for example:

• Obama CEO Summit Explains EPA Regulatory Retreat
• Another Obama EPA Backtrack On Greenhouse Gas Regulation
• Obama All In For Oil & Gas

In total frustration and disgust over the failure of US media and environmental groups to tell the truth, in 2014 and 2015, I wrote:

• Growth Rates Mask Effects on Total GHG Emissions – Obama on The Same Page as Bush on “Energy Intensity” and Economic Growth
• Look At Your Obama “All of the Above” Energy Policy
• Obama Lifts Oil Export Ban

For the same reason, I later wrote:

• Take A Look At The So Called Obama “War On Coal”

So, while I was not surprised, I was particularly sickened by hearing Obama’s remarks at the COP26 conference. Read it and weep:

• Barack Obama COP26 Climate Speech Transcript

This Obama speech was deeply offensive – to begin, because it was Obama that led the charge to make Paris a weak, meaningless, voluntary and unenforceable framework:

And on Paris, our goal was to turn progress into an enduring framework that would give the world confidence in a low carbon future, an agreement where countries would update their emissions targets on a regular basis, an agreement that would help developing nations get the resources they need to skip the dirty phase of development and help those nations that are most vulnerable to climate change get the resources they need to adapt, an agreement that would give businesses and investors the certainty that the global economy is on firm path towards a clean and sustainable future.

In other words, our hope was to create an agreement they gave our planet a fighting chance. That was our ambition. By some measures, the agreement has been a success. For the first time leaders of nearly 200 nations, large and small, developed and developing, made a commitment to work together to confront a threat to the people of all nations. That seemed proof that for all the divisions in our world when a crisis threatens all of us, we can come together to address it.

In another sickening lie, Obama touts what is now obvious discredited private corporate PR sham and Neoliberal market fundamentalism:

At the time, we also believed that if enough national governments showed they were serious about climate, then other institutions, particularly in the private sector, would start raising their sights as well. Over the last six years, that is what’s happened. Today more than one-fifth of the world’s largest companies have set net zero emissions targets. Not just because it’s the right thing to do for the environment, but in many cases because it makes sense for their bottom line.

Obama then engages in historical revisionism about his failed EPA regulatory strategy, known as the Clean Power Plan:

the determination of our state and local governments, along with the regulations and investment that my administration had already put in place, allowed our country to keep moving forward despite hostility from the [Trump] White House.

False. Obama’s core EPA Clean Power Plan was never “put in place”.

The Supreme Court blocked it. The Court is on the verge of stripping EPA of authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, based in part on Obama and Lisa Jackson EPA’s flawed regulatory strategy under the Clean Air Act.

Obama then cheerleads for passage of Biden’s lame and gutted climate plans:

We have enormous responsibilities and obviously we still have a lot of work to do. But last week, Congress passed President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill that will, among other things, create jobs manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines and batteries and electric vehicles and build out the first ever national network of charging stations so families can travel across the US in electric vehicles. I’m confident that a version of President Biden’s Build Back Better bill will pass through Congress in the coming next few weeks. … That legislation will devote over half a trillion dollars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over a billion metric tons by the end of the decade, at least 10 times more than any legislation previously passed by Congress.

I’ve seen no credible “net” quantification of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the infrastructure bill and the gutted Biden reconciliation bill that would support Obama’s claim that the legislation would “reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over a billion metric tons by the end of the decade.”

Obama admonishes and discourages young people from protesting. They must dial back all that activism and make it a priority to vote for Democrats, and then be good little  consumers and support the Neoliberal capitalist regime by focusing on corporate market responses:

A second way you can have an impact on climate change is by pressuring companies to do the right thing. Members of your generation have already shown you’re willing to pay for products that you believe are responsible and responsive to the climate challenge, and that you’re also willing to avoid those companies that are actually making climate change worse. …Companies are starting to figure out that becoming more energy efficient is good for their bottom line because they’ll spend less on energy, but you also have the opportunity to teach them that by getting serious about climate change, they have a chance to win loyal customers and employees.

Obama even scolds activists and denounce direct action tactics – similar to how he scolded black men to “pull up your pants”:

But to build the broad based coalitions necessary for bold action, we have to persuade people who either currently don’t agree with us or are indifferent to the issue. And to change the minds of those fellow citizens in our respective countries, we have to do a little more listening. We can’t just yell at them or say they’re ignorant. We can’t just tweet at them. It’s not enough to inconvenience them through blocking traffic in a protest.

The only thing I could partially agree with was when he expressed a convoluted solidarity with workers. But in doing so, Obama managed to dismiss the “just transition” strategies advocated by climate activists. Instead, sounding like Joe Manchin and using fake populist rhetoric, he failed to mention “just transition” work and again dissed climate activists for their “highfaltin’ talk”

There are workers and communities that still depend on coal for power and jobs. And yes, they are concerned about maintaining their wages. That’s not unreasonable for them to be concerned about that. And the fact is the truth is that transitioning from dirty energy to clean energy does have a cost. And it is not unreasonable for people who often are already economically vulnerable, and maybe don’t feel particularly politically powerful. It’s not unreasonable for them to think that for all the high highfalutin’ talk, some of those costs of transition will be bourne by them. Not by the more powerful and the privilege. That’s not an unreasonable perspective for them to have.

Obama is a dangerous liar. And he’s very, very good at it.

And this lecture from a man living in a multi-million dollar estate on Martha’s Vineyard and abusing communities in Chicago by building his obnoxious massive Presidential Library in a public park.

Greenhouse gas emissions and DEP role continue to be ignored

A Climate And Land Use Legacy For Gov. Murphy?

Time for a NJ Farms and Forest Protection Act To Preserve What Left Of The Landscape

After repeatedly getting several critical issues wrong, NJ Spotlight finally got one aspect of the warehouse sprawl story correct today: home rule, see:

• A first step toward regulating warehouse sprawl?

The question in the headline is apt: the State Plan Implementation Committee is an advisory group to the State Planning Commission. And the Commission has jurisdiction over a voluntary State Development and Redevelopment Plan that has no teeth. That’a very far cry from “regulating warehouse sprawl”. Thus, the Executive Director’s emphasis that this was merely a “listening session”!

Donna Rendeiro, executive director of the commission, called the meeting a “listening session” that did not include policy proposals by commission members, but said it’s likely to kick off further discussions.

But NJ Spotlight continues to ignore several other critical issues, including the massive new greenhouse gas emissions from these warehouse developments (and new truck traffic), and how those emissions conflict with Gov. Murphy’s climate goals.

Additionally, there has been no reporting on the role of DEP regulatory oversight and gaps in DEP regulations (there are warehouse projects pending DEP approval and DEP has approved an unknown quantity of new development with no accountability).

More importantly, warehouses are not the only threat to NJ’s few last remaining farms and forests. Those farms and forests continue to be threatened by all forms of development, including a huge proliferation of industrial scale solar development and forests are threatened by various logging schemes.

So, as I’ve suggested, the time is right to connect the climate and land use issues in a major new initiative, which could form Gov. Murphy’s legacy, much like the Pinelands Protection Act is a legacy of Gov. Byrne and the Highlands Act is a legacy of Gov. McGreevey, see:

• The Final Frontier In NJ’s Long Running Land Use War

Instead of compromising away what little is left of NJ’s forests and farmlands, it’s time for the conservation, environmental, justice, and climate communities to work together and fight the final battle to preserve what’s left.

The current incremental strategy – which amounts to case by case litigation, local site specific land use battles, and reliance on the land trusts and Foundation funded “environmental groups” to cut deals with the solar industry – surely has failed and will kill what’s left.

The climate science; land use, forestry, and agricultural policy; and the politics could actually work together to support a very aggressive demand for a NJ Forest And Farmland Preservation Act.

The idea is simple: preserve what’s left before NJ’s is either fully built out or inundated by sea level rise.

(and where are all those people now living along shorelines and rivers going to relocate when the inevitable next major floods hit and the sea level rises? Not all of them can move to Florida. They’re going to demand to develop what’s left of NJ’s higher elevation lands.)

It may take awhile, but perhaps the NJ activist community could mount a campaign and give Gov. Murphy his second term agenda and legacy platform. Now is the time to move on that, as the Murphy administration prepares its second term strategy.

I guess it takes a while to get the NJ environmental community focused and for NJ Spotlight to correct their coverage.

On the home rule issue, over a year ago, on 11/6/20, I wrote to correct NJ Spotlight’s misleading framing and false coverage:

• Warehouse Development Threat To Rural NJ Exposes Failures In State And Regional Planning and Regulation

The solutions are regional planning and regulatory powers enforced by State and regional institutions (not county and local governments).

NJ has a well developed, time tested, and legally valid effective suite of State and regional planning and regulatory laws and institutions, i.e. 1) the NJ State Development and Redevelopment Plan and The State Planning Commission; 2) The Highlands Act, Regional Master Plan, and Highlands Council; and 3) the Department of Environmental Protection land use and water resource planning and permitting programs (as well as the State Department of Transportation).

So, why does the Spotlight story not only omit all that and focus exclusively on local and county voluntary coordination and demonstrably weak and ineffective tools under the “home rule” oriented NJ Municipal Land Use Law?

I repeated that criticism and sought correction in a more recent March 2021 post:

• False Narrative On Warehouse Development Story Masks Corporate Power & Failures In State Planning, Regulation, and Media

1. The myth of “Home rule” is strengthened, not exposed. NJ Spotlight wrote:

“Municipalities, which have authority over land use, are attracted to the local taxes and jobs that come with new warehouses and many approve the plans over the objections of local critics.”

This is legally a false statement. Municipalities are delegated limited land use power by the State legislature, under the State’s constitutional police power.

2.  The powers of State government and the politics of land use are distorted. NJ Spotlight wrote:

“It’s a home-rule state, and local governments have the final say,” he said. “It’s hard to reel that power back once you’ve handed it to the local governments; you are going to meet a lot of political resistance if you say you need to take some of it back.”

Again, these statements are factually false. Local governments do not have “the final say”. Under NJ law, regional entities like the Highlands Council and the Pinelands Commission have final say within their regions. Under NJ law, State regulatory agencies like the DEP have final say on infrastructure, water resources, and many environmental issues. Under NJ law, the Legislature has “taken back” local land use powers many times (from the Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act, to the Flood Hazard Control Act, to coastal land use under CAFRA.)

To plant those seeds on how to create a legacy for Gov. Murphy, I wrote the following note to reporter Jon Hurdle.

Maybe Eliott Ruga and Amy Goldsmith can parrot these words too:

Jon – you finally got the home rule issue framed correctly, but it pains me to hear my words come from the mouths of idiots like Amy Goldmsith (who never did anything on land use in NJ) and Eliot Ruga (a former TV sports producer with no land use or environmental training or experience, who reversed his prior remarks that emphasized home rule).

Perhaps future stories will focus on:

1) the massive greenhouse gas emissions from these developments and conflicts with Murphy’s climate goals;

2) the DEP regulatory role and the pending permits and all the prior DEP permit approvals; and

3) the need for a new legislative initiative to protect what’s left of NJ’s remaining farms and forests – which could a legacy initiative for Murphy, like McGreevey’s Highlands or Byrne’s Pinelands or Kean’s Freshwater Wetlands Act.

Wolfe