DEP and “Fast Track” Implicated in Federal Criminal Indictments

Another Legislator Indicted  for Pushing DEP Approvals – Will Christie Repeat Corruption in Expediting DEP Reviews?

The recent FBI Operation Bid Rig resulted in convictions of NJ legislators for taking bribes to expedite DEP approvals. (for all criminal complaints see this).

Today, the US Attorney issued more indictments involving political intervention in expediting and securing DEP approvals, so lets trace some recent history.

Even before the Corzine administration era Bid Rig scandals, we always knew that efforts to “Fast Track” DEP permits and approvals were fundamentally corrupt, in terms of compromising protections of public health and the environment for the economic profits of special interests and developers.

After Governor McGreevey signed the Fast Track bill into law in July 2004, we led a succesful statewide environmental group campaign, which led directly to Acting Governor Codey’s Executive Order #45 which established a moratorium on implementing the law.

Subsequently, but prior to the Bid Rig indictments, the Encap Meadowlands project became the poster child for abuse of Fast Track and Pay To Play.  Our assessment of DEP’s role in Encap:

“It’s an egregious failure in oversight,” said Bill Wolfe of the New Jersey chapter of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

We noted:

Bill Wolfe, of the New Jersey Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said the loan “is a deep conflict of interest” for state environmental regulators who must also approve the validity of EnCap’s plans to close the landfills and clean up ground water in the Meadowlands.

“These limited state funds should be targeted to give us the biggest bang for the buck in terms of reducing water pollution — not more bangs for those with the biggest bucks,” Wolfe said.

Now it looks like those efforts were criminal too.

According to today’s US Attorney’s criminal indictments of former NJ State Senator Wayne Bryant and prominent attorney Eric Wisler:

BRYANT provided a consistent vote for legislation that was favorable to WISLER’s clients, such as a 2004 amendment to the Redevelopment Area Bond Financing Law that facilitated bond financing for the Meadowlands project, appropriations legislation by which the Meadowlands project received more than $200 million in loans from the New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust (“NJEIT”) and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (“NJDEP”), and “fast-track” legislation that required the NJDEP and other state agencies to expedite their review of applications for permits or have those permits deemed granted. BRYANT also sponsored a bill in 2005 for a $112 million loan from NJEIT to be used for the Meadowlands project.

Bergen Record reporer Jeff Pillets deserves a lot of credit for investigating and breaking the Encap story that led to these indictments – we like to think we helped him do so!

More to follow as details emerge.

[full disclosure: I witnessed attorney Eric Wisler in action in my capacity at DEP during loan negotiations on incinerator loans – federal investigators should look into the Newark incinerator financing.]