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For the First Time Ever, DEP Cites Moody’s

It Is Not DEP’s Job To Protect Wall Street

Today, the Murphy DEP announced an upcoming July proposal of the long delayed climate adaptation regulations dubbed REAL.

The DEP provided a courtesy draft of the comprehensive massive rule proposal.

I am reviewing the proposal now, but felt obliged, after I pulled my jaw up from my desk, to get out an early word on the proposal.

This is astonishing. For the first time ever, DEP is explicitly asserting a regulatory objective of protecting financial investors from financial risks of climate change.

That is a radical departure from DEP’s statutory and historic mission.

Need I state the obvious: DEP is NOT the Department of Banking and Insurance. It is not DEP’s job to protect Wall Street investors.

Specifically, the proposal states:

Given this significant financial exposure and the reality that investment in resilience leads to savings in recovery and an increasing awareness of and desire to avoid unmitigated climate risks among investors …

These findings display that past methodologies, and current standards for assessing and managing flood risk, may not capture all areas at risk of flooding and/or may not accurately reflect the severity of flood risk in known flood-prone areas in the wake of a changing climate.  …

This proposed rulemaking will help those making decisions regarding investments in at risk areas have the necessary information to adequately factor that risk into decisions on where they may want their family to reside, where development should occur, and the types of development that are most appropriate in a particular area.” (p.17)

https://dep.nj.gov/wp-content/uploads/njreal/docs/real-courtesy-copy-5.10.24.pdf

With respect to the second paragraph above, which admits that DEP’s standards are not sufficiently protective, we criticized the July 2023 inland flood rules as “obsolete” because they were based on the 100 year storm event – as are the proposed new REAL rules, see:

• Murphy DEP Flood Rules Are Full Of Holes And DEP Responses To Critics Are Based On Lies

• Billions Of Dollars Spent On NJ Infrastructure “Resilience” Is Already Obsolete, As DEP Fails To Update Regulations To Reflect Climate Science

NJ Has Made Little Progress In Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Small Reductions That Have Been Made Result From Closing Coal Power Plants

A Long Way To Go To Meet Emissions Reductions Goals

Gov. Murphy’s Record Is Grossly Exaggerated

DEP Commissioner LaTourette Gaslights About Emissions “Cap”

(Source: NJ DEP Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory (2021)

I thought I’d add a quick dose of reality to the self congratulatory efforts of NJ State officials – and their sycophantic cheerleaders and media stenographers – regarding alleged progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and seriously addressing the climate emergency.

The latest is Gov. Murphy’s press release on increases in solar capacity, “capping off” Earth Week, see:

• Governor Murphy Celebrates Earth Week by Laying Out New Landmark Solar Investments, Putting New Jersey One Step Closer to Achieving 100% Clean Electricity by 2035

And the Governor always holds these press events at old landfills – never at the farms and forests that are being destroyed by these industrial scale “solar farms”.

And the Governor downplays greenhouse gas emissions or discussion of the specifics on exactly how these renewable energy projects impact emissions and local air pollution.

(NJ has fallen sharply from a leading ranked State in solar capacity to a laggard. California gets almost 30% of electricity from solar, while NJ gets less than 4%.)

NJ Gov. Murphy gives new Sierra Club Chapter Director a hug. She has been a disaster and total cheerleader.

The policy objectives have become more about “promoting environmental justice”, union jobs, corporate subsidies, and economic development. Climate and environmental groups have more than willingly gone along with that shift in program objectives from the need for deep and rapid emissions reductions to promotion of social policy, corporate profits, and partisan politics – they have championed it.

So, for some reality, here is DEP’s most recent greenhouse gas emissions inventory.

The data in that Report are rarely presented in news reports.

The most recent report is from 2021, so it is possible that NJ emissions have actually increased, like global increases and according to EPA, US National emissions, both of which are increasing.

Above is a chart of NJ’s historic emissions – as you can see, while there has been some reduction, the emissions are fairly stable over a 32 year period (1990 – 2021).

As the DEP Report notes, the small emissions reductions that have been achieved resulted from the closing of coal power plants, but even that small reduction is exaggerated and misleading because the large lifecycle GHG emissions from natural gas are not fully considered (e.g. from the fracking wellhead, to gas transmission and distribution pipelines, compressor stations, etc).

As the DEP Report notes, emissions from the transportation sector resulting from more fuel efficient vehicles and electric vehicles have been wiped out by increases in vehicle miles traveled and sales are large gas guzzling SUV’s and trucks.

A Long Way To Go

(Source: NJ DEP Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory (2021)

There is a pattern of highly misleading claims made about increased capacity of renewable energy.

That renewable capacity data is almost always presented in relation to number of homes served or cars taken off the road (and note the Governor’s use of the term “expected”:)

New Jersey’s Solar for All award is anticipated to deliver approximately 175 megawatts of solar energy to benefit 22,000 low-income households within the first five years of funding, resulting in approximately $250 million in total energy bill savings over 30 years for residents in newly connected households. Additionally, the award is expected to result in CO₂ emission reductions of 240,000 short tons and enable 90 megawatt-hours of energy storage associated with multi-family housing.

The false inference that is drawn from these juxtapositions is that one unit of renewable energy replaces one unit of fossil energy. That is not true. That this solar power will be directly distributed to nearby low income homes. That is not true either. Nor will this solar capacity have any impact on local air pollution.

Rarely if ever are claims made about the actual impact on local in state emissions (GHG and other air pollutants).

Rarely if ever are data presented on actual GHG emissions, fossil energy imports, and growth in energy demand, which offset and even eliminate any “expected” emissions reductions from the renewable capacity.

There is confusion about a reduction in the rate of GROWTH, versus real reduction in emissions.

In addition to that, there is the concept of “net emissions”, which allow all sorts of schemes – like offsets, trading, biofuels, carbon capture, etc – that are not real emissions reductions and may not even reduce net emissions.

As the DEP Report documents, actual emissions reductions that have been achieved are related to the shut down of coal power plants. There is a message in that reality:

The only way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to stop the extraction of fossil fuels and the construction of fossil infrastructure, and rapidly phase out existing fossil infrastructure, along with huge changes in lifestyle, consumption, and the entire corporate capitalist economic growth paradigm.

And on that front – although NJ is not a fossil fuels producing state – we do have refineries and gas pipelines and power plants and they are GROWING in capacity and emissions, not being shut down.

As an example of that, watch Murphy DEP Commissioner LaTourette dissemble when asked if he will stop issuing permits to new fossil gas power plants and pipeline infrastructure (direct question posed at time 1:45).

At time 5;25, he gaslighted again about the proposed Passaic Valley Sewage Commission gas power plant. (see also:

• Proposed Newark Fossil Power Plant Exposes Major Flaws In DEP Climate, Air Quality, And Environmental Justice Regulations

And in the course of that gaslighting and dissembling, LaTourette even lied by claiming that he had established a “cap” on emissions (at time 6:45).

I assume he was referring to the Governor rejoining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) – but if so, he left out the fact that that is an emissions allowance trading program, not a true “cap”.

The DEP’s flawed CO2 power plant rule does not establish a cap and instead is based on emission rates.

So, the next time these claims are made, please ask tough questions and look at the data.

COAH Repeal Ignored Environmental Protections

Proposed Legislation Would Mandate That Some Environmental Features Be Considered

Yesterday, Senate Environment Committee Chairman Bob Smith and Senator McKeon introduced a bill (S3065) that is purported to:

Excludes environmentally sensitive and flood-prone land from designation as vacant or available for purposes of affordable housing construction.

It is a flawed and poorly crafted bill that would merely eliminate any mandate to build affordable housing on some environmentally sensitive lands.

It would not block towns from building affordable housing on those lands.

The language to identify environmentally sensitive lands is vague, limited, and confusing as well. The Pinelands and Coastal Zone are not specifically included. The Highlands Preservation Area is, but the Planning Area only gets partial protections in certain voluntary “conforming” towns.

Category One Stream buffers, vernal ponds and buffers, intact forests, steep slopes, T&E habitat, prime soils and agricultural lands, well head protection areas, aquifer recharge areas, the capacity of water supply and wastewater treatment infrastructure, and other environmentally sensitive features are not specifically included.

The bill excludes “regulated” lands. But that broad term is seemingly working at cross purposes to the narrow specific excluded lands. The broad exclusion of lands that are “regulated” opens a can of worms: DEP “regulates” a LOT more land than the bill contemplates, including the coastal zone, sewer service areas, septic service areas, brownfields, or just about every acre of land in the state.

In addition to the flaws and poor drafting, the bill seems intended to fix a major flaw in the recent COAH repeal legislation. (see:

• Proposed Affordable Housing “Reform” Bill Ignores Land Use Planning And Environmental Considerations

Curiously, both Senators voted YES in support of the COAH repeal legislation (see the Roll Call votes).

But that COAH repeal law did not require protections for environmentally sensitive lands!

In a February 13, 2024 NJ Spotlight Op-Ed, my friend, attorney Bill Potter warned exactly about these major flaws in the subsequently enacted COAH repeal bill:

Most troubling of all, the 76-page bill does not so much as mention the municipal mandates to protect the environment in all its many features and human impacts:

• Freshwater wetlands, preservation of natural stream buffers, no-build flood-prone areas, wooded hillsides and steep slopes, as well as such perennial hot topics in land use disputes as controlling stormwater runoff (sure to increase with global warming), traffic impacts, sewerage capacity and water supply, all are given short — if any — shrift in Sen. Singleton’s omnibus legislation.

The Supreme Court in each Mount Laurel decision eloquently described various environmental limitations to the allocation of affordable housing obligations. For example, “They do not extend to those areas where the State Plan discourages growth — namely open spaces, rural areas, prime farmland, conservation areas, limited growth areas, parts of the Pinelands and Coastal Zone areas” among others.

Section 6(b)(4) of S-50 does contain the “land capacity factor … which shall be determined … by estimating the area of developable land in the municipal boundaries that may accommodate development through the use of the land cover data most recently published by the [DEP] and weighing the factors based on the land area type in which such land is located… ”

How’s that? Apparently, this boils down to “the land capacity for affordable housing is the area of land suitable for such development,” a perfect tautology! Is this intended to substitute for the explicit environmental limitations that run throughout the Mount Laurel decisions — as guardrails against what the Court refers to as simply “bad planning?”

Protecting the environment through “sound land use planning” is the oft forgotten twin pillar of the “Mount Laurel Doctrine” — as writ large in Mount Laurel II, 40 years ago. The justices embraced the overarching principle that municipalities have both obligations in their land use plans — they must protect our environment while they also provide a “realistic opportunity” for constructing or rehabilitating much-needed housing for those who need it most.

What explains Smith and McKeon’s vote in SUPPORT of the flawed COAH repeal bill and sponsorship of a bill to correct those flaws just weeks later?

Why didn’t they both fight for floor amendments to the COAH repeal bill if they really wanted to protect the environment?

What the hell is going on here?

Is this just more Trenton Earth Day Kabuki?

The Bridge Did Not “Collapse” – It Was Knocked Down

Lack Of Ship And Harbor Safety Regulations And Strict Liability Standards Led To Crash

Renown public intellectual and Professor Noam Chomsky famously borrowed the phrase “engineering consent” from Walter Lippman, who stole it from Edward Bernays (“the father of public relations” – naming a new term and professional field to replace “propaganda”, which had been discredited by the Germans).

Speaking of engineering consent, the coverage of the Baltimore cargo ship crash presents a perfect case study of literally engineering consent on engineering solutions, a kind of negative variant of Naomi Klein’s “disaster capitalism” (in this case, the disaster is being used to cover up real solutions instead of providing a sham rationale for corporate “reforms” Klein writes about).

One would think that after a series of recent catastrophes – from multiple deadly plane crashes (Boeing), toxic train derailments, and oil and gas well blowouts that were linked to corporate malfeasance and lack of adequate regulatory oversight and strict regulatory standards – that the media would be skeptical of another one involving a cargo ship. Especially when the accident is fully visible on video tape.

One would be wrong.

The news headlines read that the bridge “collapsed”, when in fact it was knocked down.

The “collapse” metaphor attempts to shoehorn a shipping safety issue into an infrastructure investment issue.

As issue framing and propaganda slogan, this does huge things:

1) it blames government and allocates the costs of both the bridge rebuild and future prevention strategies onto the public taxpayer – to wit, Biden immediately pledged full federal funding for bridge replacement; and

2) it lets the entire global logistics system off the hook from multi-billon dollar costs of paying for the bridge replacement and new prevention measures, regulatory shipping and harbor safety mandates like tug boat escorts and dual redundant power and navigation systems on these huge cargo ships, and repeal of liability laws that provide huge subsidies and undermine safety and corporate accountability.

3) it gives the mainstream press permission to avoid real investigative journalism and controversial critical reporting to hold corporate power and government failure accountable.

For example, the Los Angeles – Long Beach California Harbor Safety Plan analyzed exactly the failure that happened in Baltimore (loss of power and navigation) and managed these risks with tug escorts, see:

• History of HSC Tug Escort Guideline And Regulation Development

“The Committee discussed the issue of tug escorts outside the federal breakwater during the 1994- 95 Plan review. Under the existing scheme, all tugs were meeting laden tankers just inside the breakwater entrances. Analysis of marine casualties for vessels operating in the LA/LB port area revealed that an average of 1 in 100 commercial vessels (1 per week) sustained some type of steering or propulsion failure during the inbound or outbound transit. The mechanical problem rate and the ever-decreasing amount of navigable water inside the breakwaters threaten safe transit of vessels through the “relatively” confined breakwater entrances. If a significant allision or collision causes a major oil or chemical release, the environmental and economic costs could be devastating.

The Tug Escort Subcommittee (TES) comprehensively assessed the risk associated with inbound laden tankers approaching and moving through LA/LB breakwater openings. The subcommittee found that the risk of steering failure or power loss justified implementing a tug escort scheme outside the breakwater. In order to develop an appropriate, practical and technically sound scheme, tug capabilities must match tank vessel size, speed and type of casualty. At the time, the San Francisco Glosten Study for Single Failures, (augmenting the less-relevant Dual Failure Study) was nearly complete, and TES felt the study would provide helpful technical insights. The Committee decided to review the Glosten Study results before finalizing a tug escort scheme outside the breakwater. In the interim, the Committees approved the following for the 1995 Harbor Safety Plan:

But instead of reporting on this Harbor Safety Plan (a formal regulatory document), The NY Times dug up some obscure 1980 claim that said the bridge could not survive a cargo ship head on crash ( high school physics – Force = Mass x Acceleration – makes that obvious. No bridge could survive that kind of head on crash).

By ignoring the LA/LB harbor Safety plan issues and reporting only the bridge design, engineering, and maintenance issues, The NY Times is engineering consent.

As an illustration, NPR just interviewed an academic structural engineer. The entire focus was on bridge engineering, possible engineering causes of collapse, and engineered devices to deflect ships away from crashing into bridges.

When the final question was perfunctorily asked: how can we prevent future vessel strikes?, the structural engineer proposed more engineering and said nothing about real ship and harbor safety plans and regulations and liability reforms and corporate accountability.

Three years from now when the NTSB issues its investigation Report, no one will be paying attention.

And the shipping industry and ports will continue on with the deadly status quo.

Neoliberal Globalization Disaster

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – MARCH 26: In an aerial view, the cargo ship Dali sits in the water after running into and collapsing the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Playwright Arthur Miller’s 1955 play “A View From The Bridge” is metaphor:

In his own brilliant way, Miller touched upon almost every basic emotion  – love, desire, obsession, jealousy, and betrayal with the Italian characters reaching for the elusive American Dream.

Miller’s play was the origin of one of my favorite movies, the classic On The Waterfront:

The stories of the making of On the Waterfront are legion. That the film was originally a scenario written by Arthur Miller, who fell out with director Elia Kazan over Kazan’s political choices, and whose own research on waterfront crime would later see light as the distinguished play A View From the Bridge.

[Clarification – a friendly reader rightly takes me to task for obscuring and burying the real story of the conflict between Miller and Kazan (“fell out”) – a mistake I should never have made (with a lazy Google clipped quote, not my own words), especially given that I’m now reading the classic on the McCarthy period Ellen Schrecker’s “Many Are The Crimes”. My friend wrote:

On The Water Front was Elia Kazan answer to Arthur Millers The Crucible – It was a justification for the McCarthy period and for Kazans betrayal of friends and rationalization for his naming name. He put numerous friends on the black list and unemployed .The real irony it was the Communists that battled the mob on the water front in the 1940’s and kicked them off – More Ironic blacklisting of Communist Union members let mob back in control of the docks

The immigrant working class experience in search of the American Dream is something we’ll know nothing about for the six working class immigrants killed while working on the Francis Scott Key bridge that was knocked down by a massive container cargo ship in the Baltimore Harbor.

That accident creates a comprehensive view from the bridge of the disaster of Neoliberal global finance capitalism.

The 6 workers killed on that bridge were immigrants from central America, working the night shift on a dangerous low paying nowhere job – filling pot holes.

The gigantic cargo ship that killed them – and the international manufacturing and logistics supply chain it serves – is the perfect symbol of an out of control global trade regime that has devastated the US working class and the American Dream: from deindustrialization, to low wage Walmart jobs, to Wall Street profits, to a consumption and growth driven climate catastrophe.

The failure to mandate basic port safety requirements – like tug boat escorts and redundant power (propulsion) and navigation systems – on these behemoth “economy of scale” cargo ships – is another egregious example of Neoliberal hostility to government and regulation, in favor of free trade and open markets. Some academics call this “regulatory capture”, but the reality is far worse.

The existence of caps on liability for the maritime shipping industry – just like massive corporate subsidies under the Price Anderson Act for the nuclear industry – shows how corporate interests own government.

President Biden’s pledge to provide full federal funding for bridge replacement – with no mention of the US Justice Department seeking full cost recovery for all damages – is just more evidence of another multi-billion corporate bailout.

Had this been an oil tanker spill, the focus would have been on the cost of pollution damage and government lawsuits to recover the damages. The fact that there is literally no mention of that in news coverage speaks volumes about the corporate lapdog role of the mainstream media. Global trade is immune from scrutiny.

In the wake of the Boeing plane crashes, there really could not be a greater sequence of events that more perfectly illustrates all the corrupt elements of Neoliberal global finance capitalism – what Biden perversely praises as “the rules based order”.

[End Note: I wonder who the local Baltimore Port political broker is, like this one from NY Port:

• The Power Broker: How Christie’s Port Point Man Plays All Sides of Transit Deals

Bill Wolfe, the head of NJ-PEER, an environmental group that has monitored NJ Transit, is critical of the deals for lacking “competitive bidding, transparency, and robust ethical restrictions, which are particularly important given the many real estate and development interests among Wolff & Samson clients.

Update: 3/28/24 – just read The NY Times coverage. The Times very briefly mentions the tug boat escort:

At 1:25 a.m., after the two tugboats detached and turned back, the Dali had accelerated to about 10 miles per hour as it approached the Key Bridge.

But the Times fails to ask the obvious questions, which I submitted as read comments:

Why did the tug boat escort detach when and where they did?

Why don’t Coast Guard and/or Harbor Safety Plan MANDATE tug escorts past all critical infrastructure????

The NY Times story also misleads readers with the Biden Sect. or Transportation Buttigieg quote that those responsible will be held accountable.

I listened to the press conference and he said that those “responsible AND LIABLE” will be held accountable. He knows liability is limited.

Update #2 – as expected, The NY Times did not print the above reader comments that were critical of their reporting.

I just posted another, which, of course, they also will not post:

NY Times reporters should read the LA – Long Beach Port Safety Plan and findings regarding risks and tug escorts. Apparently, Baltimore Harbor Safety Plan (which I was unable to find online) and the US Coast regulations do not mandate tug escorts outbound. Then ask the Coast Guard and NTSB to respond and explain.