WolfeNotes.com

Just 2 Days Before Exxon & Fossil Industry Executives To Testify In Congress About Climate Denial Campaigns

The Murphy DEP’s Sister Souljah Moment

[Update: Pacifica network is live broadcasting the Congressional hearings on 10/28/21. My local station is KPFA, starting at 6 am PST/ 9 am EST.]

Under threat of subpoena, Congress demanded that executives of ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell Oil, the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce testify about their reported efforts to mislead the public about climate change.

That testimony will be presented in 2 days, on Thursday, see:

• Big Oil CEOs will testify before Congress this month

Congress acted in response to a huge scandal resulting from a sting operation and secret recording of Exxon’s Chief lobbyist. As I wrote:

In an historic sting operation, Exxon’s top DC lobbyists were duped – by Greenpeace UK of all people – into thinking they were talking to job recruiters. Please read this remarkable story and watch all the astonishing Zoom videos here (the expose is called “Unearthed):

• Inside Exxon’s playbook: How America’s biggest oil company continues to oppose action on climate change

The Washington Post wrote an overview of the proliferating national scandal, see:

An Exxon lobbyist thought he was in a job interview. Instead, it was a secretly recorded Zoom call. – 

So, that’s the context for a controversial climate denying “conference” held by the NJ Business and Industry Association (NJ BIA) last Friday and shamefully reported today by NJ Spotlight.

NJ BIA imported a national fossil industry funded climate denier to attack NJ’s modest – and unimplemented – clean energy goals.

“The perception of crisis and level of alarm often portrayed in the media and by politicians is overblown,’’ Curry said. …

“It’s time to listen to the business, not the politicians and activists,’’ Curry said.

Just who the hell is Curry and the “Climate Forecast Applications Network”?

NJ Spotlight doesn’t tell readers anything about this unknown person and unknown organization who just magically parachuted into New Jersey.

So, here is some background on the climate denying, fossil fuel funded “source”, Judith Curry, the hack that NJ Spotlight provided a huge and unqualified platform to:

Climate scientists criticize her uncertainty-focused spiel for containing elementary mistakes and inflammatory assertions unsupported by evidence. Curry is a regular at Anthony Watts‘ denier blog, as well as Steve McIntyre‘s Climate Audit, another denier site. She has further embarrassed herself (and her university) by using refuted denier talking points and defending the Wegman Report, eventually admitting she hadn’t even read it in the first place.^[1] Curry has agreed with Trump’s description of climate change as a “hoax”, writing in 2016 that the UN’s definition of manmade climate change “qualifies as a hoax”.^[2]

Yet, NJ Spotlight didn’t tell readers about any of that.

NJ Spotlight presented Curry’s climate denial right up front, and reduced the whole debate to a fact free she said/he said with Murphy BPU President.

This kind of journalism is astonishing – and highly irresponsible – particularly in light of the known fossil industry funded climate denial campaign that is now under investigation by Congress.

But, that’s not all of what was so wrong with NJ Spotlight’s coverage.

NJ Spotlight has written literally dozens of highly misleading stories about the alleged “high costs” of renewable energy, but with absolutely no mention of the benefits, the costs of climate emergency, or the economics of investment in infrastructure (investments are not “costs”, as they have benefits, or internal rates of return). So called “costs” are only relevant in relation to benefits. And all this mis-focus on costs, with no mention of the distribution of costs (equity) or the moral flaws with the entire cost benefit analysis enterprise. And on top of all that, no mention of the billions of dollars in subsidies to fossil energy or the profits of the fossil corporations.

I’ve complained repeatedly to NJ Spotlight co-founder and editor John Mooney about this egregiously misleading journalistic malpractice. He’s refused to even reply.

But, in addition to the NJ BIA climate denial propaganda “conference” and the journalistic malpractice, the Spotlight article did reveal important news. Let me explain:

The NJ media has failed to cover the recent denial by the Murphy DEP of an important regulatory petition by NJ climate activists that would strengthen and accelerate the Murphy’s greenhouse gas emissions reductions goals to reflect current science, and impose a moratorium on new fossil infrastructure.

I think I’m the only one who has written about this, see:

• Murphy DEP Punts On Climate Emergency Rule Petition Seeking Deep Reductions In Greenhouse Gas Emissions

But instead of reporting that petition denial story critically, NJ Spotlight gave a platform for the Murphy DEP Commissioner to brag about “telling advocates” that a moratorium on new fossil “is not going to happen anytime soon”.

Spotlight even mis-represented a moratorium on new fossil (the actual petition demand) with a “shut down of all fossil projects” or a phase out.

Commissioner LaTourette made this public statement not in an official document, but as he groveled before the NJ BIA climate denier conference.

That’s what’s known as a “Sista Soulja” moment! (Commissioner LaTourette’s a real tough guy, keeping those climate “advocates” in line!).

A Sister Souljah moment is a politician‘s calculated public repudiation of an extremist person, statement, group or position that is perceived to have some association with the politician’s own party.^[1]

Here’s Murphy DEP Commissioner’s own words:

No immediate end to fossil-fuel use

Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn LaTourette said he has told advocates pushing to shut down all fossil fuel projects that that is not going to happen anytime soon.

“We need carbon-based fuels to power our economy,’’ LaTourette said. “It is why we don’t see the DEP responding to calls for a fossil fuel moratorium.’’

Get that?

The Murphy DEP Commissioner publicly repudiated climate activists and he did so before a climate denial conference held by fossil funded climate denying hacks and business groups!

Finally, in the denouement of journalistic malpractice, NJ BIA and NJ Spotlight actually trotted out Gov. Christie’s thoroughly discredited former DEP Commissioner, Bob Martin, for a parting cheap shot:

The cost could run as high as $2.4 trillion based on a study by Princeton University, according to Bob Martin, a former DEP commissioner.

“The costs will be significant,’’ Martin said, although there is increasing private investment in modernizing the grid.

Unbelievable.

Spotlight co-founder and reporter Tom Johnson needs to retire.

Here’s the email I sent NJ Spotlight editor John Mooney:

John – TJ’s story gives extensive quotes to a partisan fossil fuel industry funded climate denier (Judith Curry) –  with no context on who she is or represents or who she is funded by. Look at her bio:

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Judith_Curry

Curry’s views have been discredited and criticized by scientists.

TJ’s story places her quotes up front and makes them a she said/he said debate with BPU.

This is highly irresponsible journalism, and it comes just 2 days before Exxon and fossil industry executives will testify before Congress about their climate denial strategies.

You must do better.

Wolfe

[Update:

Consider just how brazen this climate denial backlash really is:

The NJ BIA event was held the Friday before President Biden came to NJ on Monday to promote his climate & infrastructure bills. The story was published the day after Biden appeared – AND WITH NO MENTION OF BIDEN!  ~~~ end update]

(Photo – Ticonderoga, NY – the local tourist slogan is “America’s Fort”.)

[Update – 10/22/21 – At the outset, we felt that this climate protest was political cover. We wrote that it was:

designed to provide cover for Congressional Democrats, like their “progressive” friends AOC and Co., who are NOW caving to Manchin/Sinema

Well, right on time, here they are:

Echoing the demands of demonstrators who were arrested outside the White House throughout last week, Congresswoman Cori Bush led a dozen other progressive lawmakers Friday in pressuring President Joe Biden to block fossil fuel projects and immediately declare a climate emergency.

But still, progressives did nothing with their legislative power, they merely wrote a letter to Biden, that praised him!

While praising the president’s commitments to climate action and serving frontline communities, the 13 House Democrats sent Biden a letter to express their “grave concern that ongoing actions by your administration threaten to undermine our shared goal to further climate, racial, and economic justice.”

Lame and shameful – again.

[Update: 10/14/21 – I need to clarify this post. Of course – and I shouldn’t have to say this – I support climate activists taking direct action, occupying public space, and protesting to hold political officials (like Biden) accountable and demand real climate action. See just one example, from 2014:

• The Way To Beat The Frackers –Mass Movement Politics – Resistance – Street Tactics – Political Accountability 

But the timing, location, target, message, and demands for this action are all wrong, i.e. “Build Back Fossil Free” or People Versus Fossil Fuels.

Perhaps hypotheticals might help:

• suppose anti-Vietnam war activists, during the DNC Chicago 1968 convention, instead held a protest at the Pentagon demanding cuts to the military budget?
• Suppose anti-globalization and anti-corporate protesters, instead of engaging the Battle In Seattle, went to Washington DC HQ of the WTO or World Bank and demanded loan forgiveness for third world countries?
• Suppose the original Occupy organizers went to San Francisco to target Silicon Valley to protest the internet’s treatment and harm of women and young girls, instead of to Wall Street to protest income and wealth inequality and the abuses of the 1%?.

Get it: wrong place, wrong target, wrong time, wrong demand – and they missed the real target. (even though the issues and targets were legitimate grievances).

The time to organize and mobilize protesters to focus demands on Biden was BEFORE the election. The time to Occupy Washington DC to focus on Biden and demand strong executive branch actions (i.e. Executive Orders, policy, regulatory, legal strategy, and appointments/personnel) – or to “declare a climate emergency” – was during the period after the election and before the Inaugural (i.e. the transition). That action could have been sustained through the first 100 days.

Activists did none of that. Biden’s executive branch agenda is locked in – and it sucks.

In contrast, now is the critical time to focus on Congress and the infrastructure and climate reconciliation bills. Democrats are caving to the hostage taking of Manchin and Sinema. Those Senators are blocking an already drastically watered down and weak climate package and the infrastructure bill has lots of really bad stuff in it, including: promotion of logging under the guise of wildfire prevention; rollback to NEPA; new loopholes in other environmental regulations; huge subsidies to carbon capture and nuclear; more privatization and deregulation; and lots of pork barrel traditional road building projects that will INCREASE carbon emissions. Yet activists are silent on all that.

Worse, by now focusing on the Biden executive branch agenda, they throw in the towel on the Congressional battle and divert resources from the real battle.

And all that is just either incompetence, more over-reliance on cultural and identity politics issues, or designed to provide cover for Congressional Democrats, like their “progressive” friends AOC and Co., who are NOW caving to Manchin/Sinema – or all of the above. Strategy and tactics matter and require careful thought, planning, organizing, and discipline. I see none of that.~~~ end update]

My head is spinning right now upon reading this.

After negotiating a compromise with Biden (e.g. the Sanders – Biden Taskforce, et al), and months of praising his Administration;

And then walking away from the Green New Deal (and now even the CCC) in favor of “pragmatic progressivism”;

And then neglecting to organize or mobilize massive public support for the Congressional battle on infrastructure and climate legislation;

And now, just at the moment we’re getting screwed by Democrats in Congress on Infrastructure & Climate, the activists abandon that fight & shift focus to Biden’s Executive authority!

• ‘To Change Course of History,’ US Climate Movement Takes Aim at Biden White House

WTF are they doing? Clueless clowns.

For Years, Pipeline Opponents, The DEP, and The Media Ignored The DEP Regulatory Tool They Now Claim To Have Used To Kill The Pipeline

Instead, Opponents Pursued A Failed Two Prong Strategy That Focused On FERC And Eminent Domain

If you’ve read NJ Spotlight lately (see this and this and this and this), then you believe these truths to be self evident:

1) that the PennEast pipeline is dead.

2) that it was killed by Gov. Murphy and DEP.

3) that the murder weapons were DEP’s denial of permits and the Clean Water Act’s Section 401 Water Quality Certificate – acting on the direction of Gov. Murphy.

4) that the DEP’s accomplices in the murder were Rethink NJ (Tom Gilbert), NJ LCV (Ed Potasnak), Environment NJ (Doug O’Malley), Delaware Riverkeeper Network (Maya Van Rossum), and wealthy landowners in Hunterdon County.

5) that the motives were to protect water quality and address the climate crisis by blocking new fossil infrastructure.

6) that this represents some powerful new precedent that will block future fossil infrastructure projects, as NJ Spotlight’s speculative fact free story claimed and headline blared:

• Fossil-fuel projects may face greater scrutiny after PennEast scraps pipeline

But, I’ve been conducting my own inquest and forensic analysis, and have come to some very different conclusions that completely destroy every one of the above 6 elements of the Spotlight narrative:

1) We’ve not recovered the body.

The closest we’ve come to finding a corpse – and a motive, cause of death and suspect – is not in NJ Spotlight  coverage, but in a Philadephia Inquirer story about corporate investors writing off millions of dollars in “impaired” investment.

(just Google: “tax rules on write off of impaired investments”)

2) There has been no autopsy or inquest – And no coroner’s Report, with an official cause of death.

Just the opposite: in fact, DEP is erecting obstacles to access to the public regulatory documents that would provide evidence of what really went on. Senator Bateman has declined to provide the letters to DEP he claims to have written – as have other legislators.

3) The actual motives of the suspects contradict the publicly asserted motives.

In fact, the alleged suspects and accomplices were focused on and brandishing other deadly weapons that not only failed to kill the victim, but had nothing to do with the alleged murder weapons.

In fact, former Christie Administration DEP Commissioner Bob Martin testified to the Legislature that DEP could NOT deny permits and WQC approval.  Martin provided highly misleading responses, basically saying that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) preempted DEP environmental reviews. Martin responded:

They (FERC) are the overall controlling entity on it at the end of the day. They could over-ride anything we could even do from the State of New Jersey. […]

We can not fight that .. If we did reject a pipeline it would end up in court very quickly.

Current Murphy Administration Treasurer Muoio validated Martin’s lies.  As Assemblywoman and sponsor, Muoio introduced a Resolution and said the intent was to:

ensure that FERC provides a comprehensive consideration of cumulative impacts, and gives deference to competing state policy determinations, especially open space and farmland preservation.

Notice the failure of Muoio’s Resolution to mention State policy determinations under Section 401 WQC powers. I was shut down by Chairman Reed Guscioria for making this point in my testimony when I testified:

So what I want to focus on are the competing state policies in NJ that are key, because I don’t think that it is properly and fully understood that under the Natural Gas Act, state and local laws, policies, and standards are pre-empted, with 2 exceptions.

And that’s State powers under the Clean Water Act and State powers under the Coastal Zone Management Act.

Both those powers were recently used in the State of Connecticut to deny a pipeline permit and in the State of New York to deny a pipeline permit.

Those should be the leading cases that we should focus on as a State, because we currently have that authority at the Department of Environmental Protection – right now – to deny permits for these pipelines.

This Administration is not utilizing those powers.

So if the Legislature wants to express a progressive state policy to FERC AND to the Administration and to the people of the State, there has to be inclusion in this  Resolution of the powers of the State under the Clean Water Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act.

The Rethink NJ people, their advocates Assemblywoman Muoio and Chairman Guscioria, and the press all worked hard to suppress my testimony and any focus on the DEP 401 WQC issue.

And DEP themselves, like the denials of Peter, never asserted 401 WQC review authority and instead subtly denied those powers.

4) In fact, we’re not sure the victim is even dead:

a) PennEast Pipeline’s statements are vague and conditional;

b) PennEast has not withdrawn or surrendered FERC approvals, which were extended and remain valid;

c) PennEast has not withdrawn DEP permit applications and publicly stated they would not seek DEP approvals.

d) The status of the Pennsylvania segment of the pipeline is equally vague, leaving open the possibility of re-routing in NJ;

e) the NJ Attorney General has not secured finality in pending litigation.

f) FERC is contemplating regulatory policy changes that could impact the pipeline;

g) there is legislation pending in. Congress that could impact the pipeline.

h) President Biden issued an Executive Order that could impact the pipeline.

5) We’ve not recovered the murder weapon – there is no smoking gun, no fingerprints and no crime scene: 

a) there is no document by DEP denying permits (final agency action, on the merits, with prejudice); (My Central Jersey)

The DEP denied the permits because adequate information had not been submitted to complete the application, but it said PennEast could submit a new application.

b) there is no document by DEP denying the WQC (final agency action, on the merits, with prejudice);

c) the DEP Commissioner is silent about and has not publicly explained DEP’s position, or confirmed, praised, or taken credit for the kill – or even supported the policy alleged to have caused the kill;

d) Gov. Murphy’s public statements support the death, but they do not take credit for the kill;

e) the DEP just denied a petition for rulemaking that would have committed DEP to promulgating regulations to block new fossil infrastructure like PennEast;

f) Gov. Murphy’s BPU Energy Master Plan projects continued reliance on natural gas, particularly as a backup source for off shore wind and renewables.

6) The alleged accomplices were nowhere near the murder scene and had no involvement in the alleged murder weapon.

In fact, the alleged accomplices not only ignored and diverted public attention from the alleged murder weapon, but they actively undermined the use of that weapon by others.

Let me now expand upon and provide evidence to support these curious conclusions that directly contradict the narrative created by NJ Spotlight.

That analysis will be forthcoming in our next post.

[End Note: The bald headed guy on the left above the “Deny” placard is your author. [Photo Credit: Burlington County Times]

Actually, its kind of creepy. Reminds me of the appearances by Alfred Hitchcock in his movies.]

False Assertion Of DEP Permit Denials Damages Credibility Of All Involved

False Basis Diverts From Real Issues And Rewards Incompetent Opponents

Last week, I filed an OPRA request to DEP for all communications they received and issued on the PennEast pipeline. My objective was to get the facts and report the real story, which was being falsely presented in NJ media circles. We will soon have the facts.

I copied NJ Spotlight reporter Jon Hurdle on that request as a way of urging him to rely on facts, not false assertions and false narratives (including to challenge fact free, speculative, and false claims he already had reported).

Curiously, today, instead of waiting a few days for the facts to emerge, Mr Hurdle and his editors at NJ Spotlight rushed to publish not only a premature but a false and misleading narrative, see:

• PennEast opponents say community activism was key to beating pipeline

NJ Spotlight is not some neutral and objective party to this dispute.

Their reputation and credibility are at risk, because, for years, despite being asked to do so, they failed to report on the alleged basis for cancelling the project: i.e. DEP Water Quality Certification (WQC) under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act. Spotlight also falsely reported on alleged prior DEP permit denials.

The same criticism holds for “PennEast opponents”, who similarly failed to focus on and publicly pressure the Governor and DEP to deny the WQC and instead spent years and millions of Foundation grant and membership dollars in pursuit of a totally failed two pronged strategy: 1) FERC review and 2) eminent domain and land owner issues.

As we all know, FERC issued all approvals and provided an extension of them. Similarly, the US Supreme Court rejected the opponents legal arguments and granted PennEast eminent domain power.

For example, while “opponents” spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal work and technical consulting Reports on FERC and property issues – backed up by press releases, public events, Op-Ed’s, and legislative lobbying – I am not aware of any funding for a project or public campaign to appeal to the Governor and DEP to deny permits or WQC, e.g. a Technical Report by Princeton Hydro on how DEP could enforce WQC requirements under flawed DEP regulations.

NJ Spotlight also has financial issues as well as reputational issues at stake: because they are funded by the same Foundations and corporations that the “PennEast opponents” they selectively choose to quote as sources for their false and diversionary narrative. Imagine that: Foundations fund “opponents” to pursue a failed strategy; then they fund Spotlight to report on that same failed strategy by those incompetent opponents they funded. Then, they craft  a false narrative and declare victory!

I loath these people:

• Some PennEast Pipeline Opponents Want To Take Their Open Space Ball And Go Home

But the nightmare is not over: those same incompetent and corrupt “opponents” use this “victory” as evidence of their effectiveness and pursue even more Foundation grant money to fuck things up even worse.

On top of all this, the false narrative does severe damage to DEP’s credibility and institutional integrity – as well as that of the legislature – for “politicizing” regulatory decision-making and evasive delay driven decision-making.

And I really resent how Spotlight has twisted this narrative, to hide their incompetence (and that of “opponents”) behind the skirts of legitimate citizen activism!

My resentment is compounded by the fact that I wrote extensively about and actually tried to educate and organize opponents and get them focused on the Gov. and the DEP WQC issues, but those efforts were undermined intentionally by diversions by these same “opponents” who now declare victory! (of course, Spotlight never focused on the WQC issue either).

We had a small success with this from the Chesterfield/Bordentown folks I worked with, but “Rethink NJ” (Tom Gilbert) and Patty Cronheim immediately undermined that work, see:

• Anti-Pipeline Activists Target Christie DEP’s Clean Water Act Powers

In case they all missed it, we’ve been following and urging a 401 WQC NJ campaign for YEARS: (regulatory arguments in red posts):

• Don’t Frack NY – Albany Protest Photos (September 2012)
• By The Time They File for State Permits, It’s TOO LATE!
• While PennEast Pipeline Foes Focus on FERC, Pennsylvania DEP Quietly Issues Water Quality Certificate
• Why Is NJ Media Keeping NY Gov. Cuomo’s Pipeline Kill A Secret?
• NY Environmentalists Call On Gov. Cuomo To Use Clean Water Act Power to Kill Gas Pipeline
• Continuing Misplaced Focus Diverts Pipeline Foes
• Lack of NY State Water Quality Permit Blocks Constitution Pipeline
• Strategic Advice To NJ Pipeline Foes: Build A Public Campaign To Pressure DEP To Deny Clean Water Act 401 Approval
• Advice for PennEast and All NJ Pipeline Opponents On Upcoming DEP Permit Hearings
• Citizen’s Guide To Using The Clean Water Act To Kill Pipelines
• Connecting the Dots Between Pipelines and Clean Water
• Christie DEP FERC PennEast Review Again Dodges The Only Hook That Could Kill The Pipeline

It really matters who and what killed JR – if the public and media are misled by the false narrative that substantively hollow, politically cowed, and technically misdirected advocacy can kill a major corporate initiative, then there will be very few in the future. Strategy and tactics matter:

• Here’s How To Really Kill The PennEast Pipeline

(Keep in mind the context and the effect of this false narrative and incompetent advocacy on the several pending fossil infrastructure projects and delays in DEP climate PACT regulations).

When I receive DEP’s OPRA reply, I will tell the factually based story and destroy this false narrative.

In the meantime, all those issues are suggested in my letter to Senator Bateman just now – I will back it up with another very specific OPRA request to DEP today.

I’m guessing that Bateman refuses to provide his “letters” to DEP.

Dear Senator Bateman:

According to today’s NJ Spotlight:

“[Senator] Bateman said he wrote “at least twice” to the DEP, asking it to deny permits, and said many other lawmakers and officials also responded to public pressure.”

https://www.njspotlight.com/2021/10/penneast-pipeline-throws-in-towel-ends-quest-natural-gas-nj-public-private-land-grassroots-opponents-celebrate/

I am doing a forensic policy and regulatory analysis of the PennEast pipeline case, focusing on the alleged publicly asserted basis for the cancellation: DEP regulatory review, especially the Clean Water Act Section 401 Water Quality Certificate.

I filed an OPRA request last week to DEP for all communications.

As DEP may assert an OPRA privilege on legislative communications, I was wondering if you would provide a copy of those letters to DEP, the ones you sent “at least twice”, which are now a matter of public record and have lost all OPRA and legislative privilege.

I’d also like your comment on the optics and institutional legitimacy issues the Spotlight narrative has created:, i.e that purely political pressure from land owners, public officials, and State legislators led to DEP – covertly and without formal regulatory action –  somehow letting PennEast know that their permit application and WQC request would be denied (or created sufficient “regulatory uncertainty” and “delay” to achieve the same result).

I know of no technical analysis submitted to DEP by project opponents that would form the basis of denial of a WQC (e.g. a Report by Princeton Hydro). The DEP OPRA response will clarify that issue.

I am aware of multiple technical and legal analyses paid for and/or prepared by project opponents on FERC and related eminent domain and property issues, but none were related to DEP WQC or permits (as far as I know).

My concern is that this narrative effectively totally politicizes DEP regulatory review, and destroys the integrity and credibility of DEP as a regulatory agency.

It also reinforces the regulated community’s longtime attacks on both DEP permit review delays and “regulatory uncertainty”. This too is damaging to DEP as an institution.

Finally, I don’t recall any open legislative oversight hearings and development of a public record on DEP regulatory review issues. Again, this lack of transparency damages public confidence and trust in both the legislature and the DEP, in terms of “politicizing” public policy and regulatory decisions.

I appreciate your timely reply.

Bill Wolfe

[End Note – here’s my second OPRA and note to Mr. Hurdle (I sent first on 9/27/21, so DEP’s response is due this week):

Jon – I just filed this second OPRA, so the facts will out soon:

“According to today’s NJ Spotlight story:

“[Senator] Bateman said he wrote “at least twice” to the DEP, asking it to deny permits, and said many other lawmakers and officials also responded to public pressure.”

https://www.njspotlight.com/2021/10/penneast-pipeline-throws-in-towel-ends-quest-natural-gas-nj-public-private-land-grassroots-opponents-celebrate/

I therefore request the letters Senator Bateman sent to DEP regarding his opposition to the PennEast pipeline.

I also request copies of, specifically reiterating and clarifying my prior OPRA request, the letters from all NJ legislators, County officials, and local officials opposing the PennEast pipeline that are referenced in the NJ Spotlight story linked above.”

This is now about competence, credibility, and integrity.

The facts will out. We’ll see who opposed the pipeline and on what basis.

Wolfe

The Voluntary Local Approach Abdicates State Government’s Role

Toothless State Plan Can Not Be Effective

The Whole Approach Is Designed To Fail

Regardless, here are my ** initial review comments I sent to the Office of State Planning just now:

Thank you – I would like to make the following comments for your consideration:

1) “extreme weather” must explicitly include excessive heat waves or excessive heat events. Did I miss that in this draft?

2) “resilience strategies” must explicitly include mitigation of urban heat island effects and other preparation and response actions to excessive heat events. This would include an urban forestry and parks component. Did I miss that in this draft?

3) disproportionate and disparate impact analysis in “environmental justice communities” must be explicitly addressed in the Guidance. Did I miss that in this draft?

4) I understand that the State Plan and this Guidance are voluntary and not regulatory, but there still needs to be a more aggressive planning policy to encourage municipalities to actually implement the Guidance via enforceable means, including zoning and land use ordinances.

Perhaps your Office might consider holding public hearings and developing a policy planning paper on related issues, such as Statewide versus local responsibilities, and voluntary versus regulatory approaches. 

Clearly, voluntary and local based approaches have not been and will not be effective. We must move towards a more Statewide and mandatory policy.

5) where will the funding come from to respond to this Guidance?

6) Are there any science based technical standards that govern? e.g. statistical frequency of storm events (500 year storm?) It is my understanding that DEP’s various stormwater, coastal, and flood management regulatory programs are based on the 100 year storm, which fails to consider climate science and the actual flood events over the last 10 years in NJ.

Even FEMA strongly criticized these DEP flaws, which remain and have not been reformed by the Murphy DEP, see:

• FEMA FLAYS DEP STORMWATER PROPOSAL

7) There needs to be a much greater focus and far more detail on implementation of the resilience strategy.

8) Under the authorizing legislation and this Guidance, municipalities are limited to “resilience” (climate adaptation) planning and appear to have no role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) or promoting energy conservation, energy efficiency or renewable energy. These are serious flaws.

9) It is inappropriate for a State Agency Guidance document to include incorporation of recommendations of private groups, including NJ Future and Sustainable NJ. This is a subtle form of outsourcing and privatization.

On what basis were these groups’ work incorporated in this Guidance?

For example, supposed the NJ Builders Assc. or NIAOP developed their own recommendations – would your Office include them as well?

I appreciate your consideration and response.

Bill Wolfe

** these comments were expanded after I submitted them and links included

Update: 10/5/21

Bill,

While we made some minor languages changes based on your suggestions, much of your references are already included in the links.  Additionally, a link is provided to the 2020 scientific report that informed development of the Climate Change Resilience Strategy, which you can find online.

We fully vet efforts by non-governmental agencies and will include the references if they are in line with state policy.  Further, Sustainable Jersey is quasi-governmental organization and NJ Future has worked with DEP in the past on several related issues. We are comfortable including their work in this document as they are in line with state policy.  In fact, one link in this document, the NJ Developers Green Infrastructure Guide, involves contributions from the NJ Builders Association was a partner in developing that document.

I agree that there must be additional focus on implementation; in fact this document is OPA’s first step in providing just that kind of focus.  A recent change to the Municipal Land Use Law requires incorporating resiliency assessment and strategies in the Master Plan.  Keep in mind, however, that this guidance and these requirements will continue to be updated and refined as DEP’s Strategy evolves.

Discussion are underway at/with DEP regarding public hearings and working with municipalities for local input which is something that is planned for early next year.

Other items that you reference such as funding for this guidance is currently under discussion.  This document provides guidance for those municipalities that choose to go further in their planning and implementation than is currently required in MLUL, but we cannot wait to plan for finalization of funding options and other issues.

The matter will be discussed at tomorrow’s SPC meeting.

Donna A Rendeiro

Executive Director

State Planning Commission

Office of Planning Advocacy

NJ Business Action Center

Office of the Secretary of State

33 W. State Street, 4^th Floor

PO Box 820

Trenton, NJ 08625-0820

609-292-7156