Corzine DEP Task Force to meet in secret – no ethics restrictions
[Update: 4/24/08 – The chronology reveals a minor victory. The Taskforce held its first meeting on April 9. I filed an OPRA request for Taskforce documents on April 14.
On the legal due date, April 22, DEP posted selective Task Force related documents on the DEP website. see:http://nj.gov/dep/permittf/ However, DEP remains firmly in control of the information and spoon feeds the public what DEP feels they need to know. This is totally unacceptable and a far cry from open, transparent and participatory public deliberations. Even the Whitman Administration held industry dominated Task Force meetings in public and allowed for public comment.]
New Jersey to Consult Industry on Eco-Rewrites in Secret
“Efficiency” Task Force Members Not Barred from Self-Dealing with DEP
Trenton — An industry-dominated task force to recommend an overhaul of state anti-pollution permits and policies will work in secret, according to an e-mail from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Lisa Jackson to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Commissioner Jackson also rebuffed PEER recommendations that materials submitted to the task force are made a public record and that task force members be barred from lobbying DEP for their clients.
Commissioner Jackson created the Permit Efficiency Review Task Force in mid-March to identify administrative, regulatory and statutory changes needed to make DEP programs “timely and efficient.”
The task force will have full access to DEP staff and materials and will report back in mid-July.
On March 25, 2008, New Jersey PEER Director Bill Wolfe wrote Jackson asking that task force sessions be open to the public, materials submitted to the task force be made publicly available and that task force members “be precluded from having any contracts, pending regulatory approvals, or financial relationships with the Department” during the 120-day life of the task force.
In a return e-mail on the evening of April 2, 2008, Commissioner Jackson denied all of PEER’s requests:
· Public input “can only occur once the Task Force has completed its analysis and compiled the group’s thoughts and recommendations. At that time, I will determine how to most effectively seek and obtain input from the public”; and
· “I do not consider it necessary or reasonable to restrict members of the Task Force or their respective employers from having other business before the Department.”
“We all know the state is in tough economic straits but candor and openness do not cost a dime and may save us bundles down the road,” Wolfe stated. “How can the public intelligently review the task force findings if the material upon which those findings are based is a state secret?”
The conflict of interest concern is based, in part, on DEP staff being told that their jobs may depend on what the task force recommends. An April 2, 2008 DEP memo recounting Jackson’s budget briefings states:
“Managers were instructed that they should consider the staff they have now as the most they will have, and they should look at ways to cut back on non‑essential services and prioritize their work. The Commissioner mentioned the Permit Task Force (subject of another postmaster message) as one way that she will get ideas for how to handle things more efficiently.”
“Commissioner Jackson is giving these task force appointees from industry a position of undue influence and then refusing to acknowledge that foxes may use the opportunity to sample the henhouse,” Wolfe added. “Under these circumstances, for a DEP professional to say ‘no’ to a regulatory favor requested by a task force member would require a profile in courage.”
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Read the e-mail from DEP Commissioner Jackson
http://www.peer.org/docs/nj/08_7_4_jackson_e-mail_re_task_force.pdf
See the order creating the Permit Efficiency Review Task Force
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1013
View memo telling DEP employees that their jobs may depend on Task Force recommendations
http://www.peer.org/docs/nj/08_7_4_dep_budget_cuts_memo.pdf
Look at DEP habitual refusal to embrace transparency in dealing with industry
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=885
New Jersey PEER is a state chapter of a national alliance of state and federal agency resource professionals working to ensure environmental ethics and government accountability
Matrix Development and K Hovnanian (NJ’s largest home builder) are on that Task Force.
Those same corporations have various permit applications (and maybe enforcement actions) pending before DEP.
Obviously, disputes arise during the permit review and compliance and enforcement processes.
Knowing that these corporations will be developing recommendations that could directly effect their jobs, how can DEP staffers rigorously enforce environmental laws on these corporations?
Wouldn’t that be like investigating your boss’ wife?
Encap’s lobbyists had lots of foolish recommendations on DEP regulatory policies – look what those inside dealings cost taxpayers!!
Sunshine is the best disinfectant to prevent similar abuses.
An updated NJ version of the old adage, “leaving the fox to guard the henhouse.”
Corzine is as bad as George Bush. Remember a few years ago when industry leaders met in secret with his administration to form a national energy policy? Environmentalists tried to sue for the minutes and atendees of the meetings. No luck with Bush. No luck with Corzine.
They’re probably sitting in Trenton right now planing on how to carve up Sussex County. But don’t be fooled; the Republicans would do the same thing. Now the Democrats and Republicans have something in common.