WolfeNotes.com

Climate Chaos

December 12, 2015 (12:45 pm)

One Reason The Pinelands Were Created Was To Block Oil & Gas Pipelines

Current Commission Betrays Legacy

National Parks Service Raised Concerns With Pipelines and CMP

Ocean and Cape May Counties Fought To Block Pipelines

Twice in the last few years, initially at a Princeton event honoring former Governor Byrne, and more recently at a Trenton press conference, I heard former Governor Florio emphasize an important aspect of the history of the creation of the Pinelands that is not widely known.

The Pinelands National Reserve was created by Congress in 1978 by Section 502 of the National Parks Conservation and Recreation Act. Then south Jersey Congressman Florio was a sponsor of the Act, which created the nation’s first National Reserve, authorized the first Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP), and led to passage of the NJ State law known as the Pinelands Protection Act. The first CMP was adopted before the NJ State law was signed by Gov. Byrne.

The little known historical aspect Florio emphasized was that NJ leaders supported creation of the Pinelands, in part, due to strong public opposition to off shore oil and gas leases and off shore drilling, and plans to run pipelines through the Pinelands. Protection of the Pines could serve to block those pipelines from east to west.

At the Princeton event, Florio noted:

Governor Florio (who served in Congress from 1975 – 1990) shared his national perspective, noting that the Carter Administration and many in Congress – just like today – were concerned about the Nixon Administration’s energy policy, impacts of off shore drilling, and plans to run pipelines across the Pines to refineries along the Delaware River. This prompted Congress in 1978 to create the nation’s first National Reserve in the Pinelands.

I was intrigued by that huge historical irony created by current proposals to run gas pipelines through the Pinelands, so I did a little research to learn more.

Curiously, I could not find the oil & gas drilling and pipeline justification for creation of the Pinelands anywhere in the official Pinelands histories published by the Pinelands Commission, or the National Parks Service, or by the Pinelands Preservation Alliance. Although I found several excellent analyses of the Pinelands as a regional planning and management model, I could not find it in the academic or planning history  literature either. Not one paper mentioned opposition to off shore drilling or pipelines.

Finally I did find an Environmental Impact Statement on the off shore oil and gas leasing program that showed 3 pipelines (2 gas, 1 oil) crossing the Pinelands.

I was surprised to learn, confirming Florio’s observations about strong opposition, that Ocean and Cape May Counties had policies that opposed and sought to block pipelines.

As I was telling this story to the Pinelands Commission yesterday, and contrasting it to today’s cheerleading for pipelines and rubber stamp environmental approvals, Commissioner Avery interrupted and disputed my testimony regarding the policy of the Ocean County Planning Board.

Avery claimed he was on the Planning Board at the time and that I was wrong.

But an excerpt from page 202 of the DEIS on off shore oil and gas leases (see point #3 below) proves Avery doesn’t know his own history.

The Ocean County Planning Baord policy was “opposition to siting any unprocessed gas pipeline corridors within the county”. Cape May County took the position that pipelines were “prohibited through omission”.

I was also able to find an excellent historical Report – which confirms Florio’s observations – that traces how the State’s organized opposition to the federal leasing program, by the Delaware State Geologist, see:

• History of Oil and Gas Exploration in the Mid-Atlantic Region and Delaware’s Involvement in the Federal OCS Leasing Program

And the National Parks Service submitted comments on the DEIS to note that pipelines would conflict with the Pinelands CMP. See this January 2, 1981 NPS letter:

Does the oil and gas industry have such power that they can expunge this strong opposition from the historical record?

This history shows how far public officials have sold out to the fossil industry.

Public opposition has remained strong, while government officials have walked away from a legacy of working to protect the environment from oil and gas development – and all that was BEFORE the science of climate change was widely understood.

The Pinelands Commission met today (more to follow on that) and at the conclusion of the meeting, Chairman Lohbauer took strong personal exception to “words being placed in my mouth – with my picture!” and condemned the fake press release I posted as part of a clearly labelled Yes Men stunt.

I hate fake outrage. Especially when it is designed to divert attention from bad decisions, like this.

If Lohbauer wants to condemn anything, he should condemn the manipulative, corrupt, and deceptive practices of his Executive Director for her handling of the South Jersey Gas and NJ Natural Gas pipeline applications.

Had I written this:

The Onion Visits the Pinelands

The Onion is one of my favorite outfits – their stunts are almost always perfectly conceived and executed.

So, with the above headline and lead, I’m really blowing a real Onion-like stunt.

What the hell, here goes:

then everyone would have known that the allusion and link to the Onion and the word “stunt” meant the the press release was fake news. (ditto if I alluded to Steve Colbert).

The fact that people are not familiar with the work of The Yes Men is their problem, not mine.

(Watch: “The Yes Men Fix The World”)

Even if a reader never heard of the Yes Men, there is no excuse for not hitting the link I provided. The fact that people lack curiosity and don’t hit links and analyze the substance from the page linked to is their problem, not mine. 

After the hearing, I had to explain the stunt – as a tactic – to a reporter from the Press of Atlantic City (had she too never heard of the Yes Men? Or the Onion? Or Steve Colbert’s form of fake news?)

The stunt’s benefits are very simple and obvious: it draws attention to what government should be doing and what they are not doing.

The content of the fake release was technically sound public policy – that’s what makes it powerful – it could and should be the real McCoy, but it’s not.

The AC Press reporter assured me that while she was initially fooled, she checked the release out before writing a a story. But she chastised me for possibly duping young inexperienced reporters into writing what would have been a very embarrassing career damaging story based on a fake press release.

Again, the fact that journalists are so used to writing stories based exclusively on press releases is a big part of the problem. That is not my problem.

I went out of my way to label the blog post a Yes Man stunt.

Had I done a real Yes Man stunt, I would have sent reporters the press release directly as an authentic Pinelands Commission document sent by the Pinelands Commission, not posted it on my blog with a reader warning about it being a “stunt”.

Sorry, but I offer no apologies.

Besides, the stunt was effective in at least 2 ways:

1) it got the Commission and the media talking about climate change; and

2) it laid out the message and framework for how to engage the climate and energy issues under the CMP.

I suspect that Lohbauer’s over the top emotional response stems from a sense of guilt and shame: that he really can’t issue that kind of press release I faked and guilt that he has allowed the Executive Director to usurp his powers and approve gas pipelines.

Staff again unilaterally usurp the Commission’s powers & betray the public interest

I just learned that yesterday, the NJ Pinelands Commission staff, just 2 days prior to tomorrow’s Commission meeting, issued a Certificate of Filing to the NJ Natural Gas “Southern Reliability Link” gas pipeline, paving the way for approval by Gov. Christie’s pro-gas BPU.

Once again, staff bypassed the Commission, completely ignored public comments and strong and well informed opposition, failed to consider climate change, and bent the CMP regulations to favor a corporate fossil energy project.

But this time, given credible allegations of fraud by NJ Natural Gas in fabricating a false military need – credible allegations that have yet to be investigated, while a formal complaint remains pending before the US Pentagon Inspector General – staff have corrupted the review process even further. (see emails)

The Pinelands Commission staff is now complicit in fabrication of what appears to be a fraudulent military purpose: that’s a conspiracy if the applicant “knowingly” misrepresented facts on the application.

Here is the relevant finding from the Certificate of Filing (no link yet, PDF provided upon request):

Public service infrastructure is a permitted land use in a Military and Federal Installation Area provided it will be associated with the function of the Federal installation (N.J.A.C. 7:50-5.29(a)) and certain conditions are met. The applicant has represented that New Jersey Natural Gas currently maintains a natural gas distribution system throughout the Lakehurst portion of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JB MDL). The applicant has further represented that the proposed natural gas main will be associated with the function of JB MDL by providing energy redundancy to the Lakehurst portion of JB MDL. 

NJNG can’t waive a magic wand after the fact, after they are publicly accused of fraud, and merely “represent” that “energy redundancy” somehow complies with CMP regulations.

And the Pinelands Commission staff has accepted NJ Natural Gas’ representations at face value, despite credible evidence to the contrary, and without independently investigating the facts and making independent findings and conclusions.

That alone is outrageous.

This is another stain on the integrity of Executive Director Wittenberg, the Pinelands Commission and the Comprehensive Management Plan – more to follow, as the Commission meets tomorrow.

“This content has been removed and is no longer available”

DEP flushes climate change down Orwell’s “memory hole”

DEP has been totally politicized in a gross abuse of power

[Update – 12/12/15 – DEP inserted a brand new webpage – very likely in response to our criticism.  DEP website now displays this when you hit the Climate Change link

http://www.nj.gov/dep/aqes/adapting.html  – end update]

Although this may sound like another Yes Man stunt, sadly it is true.

If you go to the NJ Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) website and click on the “Climate Change” link (see left hand column), here’s what you get:

The DEP took down many climate change related documents, including a legislatively mandated  DEP Report on recommendations to implement the Global Warming Response Act, historical documents related to NJ’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) before Governor Christie unilaterally withdrew NJ from RGGI, and DEP’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory, and DEP’s now defunct former Office of Climate Change and Energy, among other important public scientific and regulatory documents.

It is obvious that DEP took down these documents to avoid embarrassment of Governor Christie and DEP Commissioner Martin, in the wake of Christie’s “climate change is not a crisis” comments.

The documents would show that Christie’s own DEP has concluded that climate change is in fact a crisis.

Based on those Christie comments, I recently called for DEP Commissioner Bob Martin to resign. 

Obviously, if intrepid campaign reporters in New Hampshire or Iowa were do discover those DEP documents, they could accuse Gov. Christie of ignoring the recommendations of his own DEP state scientists.

That would put Commissioner Bob Martin in a political hotseat.

So, to avoid that and protect the Governor politically, Martin chose to simply take down public documents and DEP scientific and regulatory Reports and recommendations.

That is an unprecedented and outrageous suppression of science and public information that can not go unchallenged.

But while the Christie DEP has scrubbed the website of all the historical climate science and regulatory documents, they have created an entirely new page and link to political documents supporting DEP’s lawsuit again the Obama Clean Power Plan.

Where is the NJ media? Where are NJ Legislators? Where are environmental groups?