WolfeNotes.com

Bill Wolfe

I thought it important to post this extraordinarily brave and cogent letter by Highlands Council member Tracy Carluccio. Obviously, she was on the inside and is knowledgeable of the critical debates and compromises in the Highlands Plan.
Environmental groups are urging Governor Corzine to veto the Plan and send it back to the Council with specific instructions on how to fix fatal flaws and weaknesses. This letter surely strengthens those arguments.
Turned to mush
Thursday, August 07, 2008
The beauty of the Highlands plan is that it was developed based on a policy of analyzing what’s needed for water resources and developing a plan to responsibly safeguard, restore and use what we have.
But then the data showed most of the Highlands was already built out beyond sustainability. There was little room for development. A fatal assumption took hold — that to win over towns to the plan, compromises were needed. The science-based policies unraveled.
The 10 amendments council members offered would have allowed us to remain true to our vision of a plan firmly embedded in what the science required — stopping growth where there isn’t enough water and no longer paving over streamsides, polluting groundwater and streams or allowing politics to define where development can go. These concepts have been hopelessly loopholed to mush.
Chairman John Weingart asks why a pitched battle? It’s not that environmental groups are too powerful, as he claims, or “petulant.” It’s that we have already lost far more than we can ever know, and providing water for half the people of New Jersey requires firecely fighting for all that’s left.

— Tracy Carluccio, East Amwell Township
The writer is a Highlands Council member.
http://www.nj.com/opinion/ledger/forums/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1218083857130230.xml&coll=1

Stage Set – Deadline for Industry dominated Report tomorrow

Bill WolfeDEP Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson – (2006 – )

Back in March, Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson issued an Order creating a “Permit Efficiency Task Force“. The Task force was directed to issue recommendations – within 120 days of their first meeting on April 9 – to streamline DEP permit programs. Task Force members read like a who’s who list of pro-development and anti-regulatory advocates with a long history in NJ environmental politics. (for members, see: http://www.peer.org/docs/nj/08_25_3_task_force_membership.pdf
The current economic recession and the Task Force players represent a dangerous threat to over 30 years of NJ’s hard won environmental protections.
Jackson’s Order sets the stage for the business community and anti-environmental interests to be given a platform to rollback DEP regulations. For Jackson’s Order, see: http://nj.gov/dep/permittf/docs/ao2008-06.pdf
The Task Force originally was stacked with industry lobbyists, with no environmental, community, or public interest group representatives. On March 25, 2008, we blew the whistle on that:
NEW JERSEY ASKS BUSINESS TO REWRITE ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS — Developers See Slow Economy as Lever to Weaken Anti-Pollution Permit Rules
Trenton — New Jersey has created an industry-dominated task force to recommend revising state anti- pollution permit standards and procedures, according to documents posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The action is part of a concerted statewide drive by business lobbyists to blame the state’s recent slumping economy on environmental safeguards.
See: http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1013
In a March 24, 2008 letter to Jackson, we demanded:
Dear Commissioner Jackson:
I request that all deliberations of the Permit Efficiency Task Force created by your Administrative Order 2008-006 be open to the public; that the process be transparent and participatory; and that the highest ethical standards are adhered to.
Jackson promptly denied those demands in an April 2, 2008 reply. For complete letter and Jackson reply, see: http://www.peer.org/docs/nj/08_7_4_jackson_e-mail_re_task_force.pdf
We fired back with this:
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.: See: http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1022
Shortly thereafter, Jackson quietly expanded the membership of the Task Force to include token Sierra Club and NJ Environmental Federation representatives. While excluding the public, DEP did begin to post vague Task Force agenda’s and minutes on the DEP website. See: http://nj.gov/dep/permittf/
Importantly, back in March before the legislation had even been introduced, we predicted a repeat of the controversial “Permit Extension Act” – a bill now on the Governor’s desk. With a strong sense of Deja Vu, we wrote:

Bill WolfeBradley M. Campbell, former DEP Commissioner 2002 – 2006

“The focus of the Task Force repeats an historic pattern of business community attacks on DEP going back to the Florio Administration. Those efforts have resulted in a series of flawed anti-environmental initiatives, from Permit Extension Act I and II to Fast Track.”
See: DEP Fast Track is Back – environmental rollbacks underway
http://blog.nj.com/njv_bill_wolfe/2008/03/dep_fast_track_is_back_environ.html
So, the stage is set.
What will the Task Force recommend?
How will environmentalists respond?
Will Lisa Jackson replay Brad Campbell’s tenure?

We will provide detailed analysis here of the Task Force’s recommendations and other important issues.

McClatchy newspapers is reporting that unions representing US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staffers are blasting EPA chief Stephen Johnson:
Union slams EPA chief for ignoring staff on global warming
By Renee Schoof | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson stunned his staff last month when he publicly opposed their proposals for regulating greenhouse gas emissions, four union officials representing EPA staff working on global warming policies said in a letter provided to McClatchy Monday.

The letter alleges that Johnson subverted the work of EPA staff and damaged the agency’s reputation for “sound science and policy.” The EPA needs public respect and support in order to implement the nation’s environmental laws, it said.
Several Democratic senators recently have called for Johnson to resign, charging that he disregarded science and the law and may have misled them when he testified on Capitol Hill. Congressional committees are investigating whether the EPA’s decisions have been made in accord with the conclusions of its staff and whether the White House interfered with some of the agency’s work.

“I’m sensing there’s built-up frustration among EPA employees,” said one of the authors of the letter, Mark Coryell, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3907, which represents staff members at the EPA’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory.
“Their best efforts to do right by the law and sound science have been subverted by actions taken by or not taken by Johnson, our administrator,” Coryell said. “A lot of them are certainly hurt by the impact on their professional reputations.”

The environmental group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility gave a copy of the letter by Coryell and the others to McClatchy.”
see: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/46406.html
For the PEER press release and copy of the letter, see: CLIMATE STAFF URGE EPA TO COME CLEAN BEFORE CONGRESS — “Professional Staff at EPA Has Nothing to Hide” Says Joint Letter to Johnson http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1086