WolfeNotes.com

Urges Gov. To Withdraw Corporate Nominees And Start Over

NJ LCV & PPA Continue to Collapse

Troubling Revolving Door On Orsted Nominee

We need to do a quick update on the Pinelands disaster created by Gov. Murphy (see: “Green Masks Are Off”).

1) Important Star Ledger Editorial

Yesterday’s Star Ledger editorial slammed Gov. Murphy’s attempt to stealth 3 corporate lobbyists onto the Pinelands Commission during a lame duck session, correctly calling it a “craven power play” and likening his abuse to worse than those of Gov. Christie:

We’ve come to expect mischief during lame duck, when lawmakers try to rush things through stealthily in their final two months in office.

But we didn’t expect the governor who preaches environmental protection to make a craven power play at the Pinelands Commission – picking folks who represent corporate interests to replace environmental stalwarts on the board. Not even Chris Christie was so brazen as to appoint a corporate lobbyist.

Murphy needs to rethink his nominations, which include Laura Matos of Kivvit, a prominent public affairs and communications firm, and a guy who works full time for an offshore wind company, Davon McCurry of Ørsted.

I’d bet SL Editorial Board editor and likely author of that wonderful editorial, my old homie friend Tom Moran, would be surprised to learn that his views on this sham are very close to mine. (I published first!) Moran and I grew up together but don’t agree on politics and he has called me a “radical” “bitter” blogger in prior disputes.

The SL editorial concludes with a harsh rebuke and call for the Gov. to withdraw his nominees:

Christie tried to bully this commission and the message Murphy’s sending now is a similar one. If this is a squabble over personnel, it should be worked out internally, not with another act of retribution. Governor, stop this scheme before the Senate acts. 

This needs to be sent around the world to get people informed and activated.

How can it be that a newspaper editorial board is stronger in advocating for the Pinelands than conservation groups whose mission is to protect the Pines? Which takes me to my next point.

2) NJ LCV and PPA Continue to Fold

Both NJ LCV and Pinelands Preservation Alliance issued virtually identical “Updates” to their members that expose the fact that they are engaged in a corrupt deal with the Governor’s Office and are misleading their members.

They both are delusional in suggesting a “slate” of candidates that could make the Pinelands Commission “stronger”.

Ed Potosnak of NJ LCV went even further with this absurd statement – which at least Carleton Montgomery did not:

The Governor’s team tells us that the other two nominees will be good environmental advocates on the Pinelands Commission. We look forward to getting to know each better and seeing them grow into Pinelands leaders.

What?

If a Trump supporter said that Trump’s White House staff assured him that Trump’s EPA Administrator would be a “good environmental advocate” he would be laughed at and denounced as a delusional cultist (and possibly “cancelled” in our current political culture).

That statement also reveals that NJ LCV views this as a done deal (“we look forward to working”) and is not opposing the Gov.’s move, a total corrupt capitulation.

I always knew Ed Potosnak was an unprincipled partisan hack, bootlicker, and cheerleader, but I never thought Carleton Montgomery was and assumed he had far more integrity and courage. But, as they say, know a man by the friends he keeps.

3) Deafening Silence From Other Environmental Groups and Activists

I’ve heard absolute silence from many NJ conservation and environmental groups I would expect to support the Pinelands. Where are these people:

• Michele Byers, NJCF
• Doug O’Malley, Environment NJ
• Amy Goldsmith, Clean Water Action
• Dave Pringle (I think he consults for Empower NJ)
• Eric Stiles, NJ Audubon (Murphy initially nominated Kelly Mooij from NJA)

I suspect that a combination of their political support for Murphy, their warped transactional politics thinking that criticism of the Gov. would harm their other more important priorities and pet projects ($$$), and drinking the diversity Kool-aid may explain this cowardly failure.

Where are all the activists that came out to fight the Pinelands pipelines and always show up to defend the Pines?

They all have thrown the Pinelands under the bus for their transactional politics. Shame on them.

4) Troubling Revolving Door Backstory On Devon McCurry, the Orsted Nominee 

The Gov. nominated Devon McCurry who works for off shore wind developer Orsted. Orsted is working closely with the Murphy administration and seeks to gain millions in profits from Administration approvals and subsidies.

The Gov. has issued press releases for virtually everything he claims to have done, and diversity and off shore wind development are high on his priority list. Yet there was no press release announcing McCurry’s nomination by the Governor. Only after getting strong criticism for the stealth move, he now claims his intent was to diversify the Pinelands Commission. We strongly doubt that. Here’s why.

This is why offshore wind developer Orsted hired Devon McCurry: (Orsted bio)

McCurry will help develop and implement strategies to ensure the successful advancement of existing projects, Ocean Wind 1 and 2, inform efforts to secure additional business and shape Ørsted’s position and standing in the state.

Obviously, those strategies will involve the Pinelands Commission and the shaping of public opinion about Orsted and their “existing projects” and “efforts to secure additional business”.

On this ground alone, he must be withdrawn as a nominee or not confirmed by the Senate because of gross conflicts of interest and the unacceptable practice of corporate interests on what was created by the Legislature to be an independent quasi-legislative and regulatory body.

But, McCurry’ background is actually far worse and even more troubling.

Before he went to Orsted, he served at the Murphy DEP as Director of the Office of Legislative Affairs – which is another gross example of revolving door abuse: (Orsted bio)

Prior to joining Ørsted, McCurry was Director of Legislative Affairs at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), where he served on the commissioner’s senior leadership team managing the department’s intergovernmental relations with the state legislature and the congressional delegation. He also guided NJDEP’s legislative team in responding to pending legislation.

Before working at NJDEP, McCurry served as an aide in the Office of Appointments and the Office of Constituent Relations within the Murphy Administration. McCurry worked at a statewide government affairs firm before beginning his time in state government.

Holy crap, he worked in Gov. Murphy’s Office of Appointments! That’s The Office that screens and recommends nominees. He worked for the Office that recommended him! Total inside job. He previously made contacts there as a corporate lobbyist. Wow.

While that is a triple revolving door (in a very short period of time), McCurry is not just an example of the run of the mill revolving door abuse. His placement in the Gov. Office (from a corporate lobbying firm) and then DEP and then departure to Orsted, a corporation with very close relationships with Gov. Murphy, and seemingly coming out of nowhere as a Pinelands nominee are deeply troubling.

I worked in that same DEP Office of Legislative and Inter-Governmental Affairs for 4 years during the Florio Administration. By the time I got there, I had 6 years of experience in the DEP, my wife had been at DEP for 10 years, and I worked on several Department-wide projects (including with the Governor’s Office and Legislature) that gave me a broad view of policy and the entire Department. I had studied for a Master of Regional Planning at Cornell graduate school and a Bachelors degree in environmental science and public policy.

(I also passed the Civil Service test for environmental planner. Bizarrely, I still recall that the only person who scored higher was Dan Van Abs. The only question I got wrong was the multiple choice question for the definition of “gabion”. It is so ironically apt that NJ DEP tested for knowledge of the definition a bag of rocks, while I had spent years studying the intellectual foundations of planning and public policy and government. Perhaps that test would have been more appropriate for working at DEP if it asked questions about the definitions of “agency capture” and “public choice theory” and the “the public interest” and required an essay of the ethics of loyalty to the chain of command when loyalty conflicts with science and the public interest.)

McCurry’s bio does not come close to that. He had ZERO DEP experience. He had ZERO actual legislative experience (as a legislator, drafting legislation, etc). How was he possibly qualified to even work at DEP? And he was the Director of the DEP Office of Legislative Affairs!

Of more relevance to illustrating just how far professional standards at DEP have slipped and been politicized, consider the fact that I reported to Assistant Commissioner Norman Miller and Director of Legislative Affairs Greta Kiernan. Between those two, they had over 40 years of directly relevant legislative experience. Norm was head of the Office of Legislative Services (OLS) Environment Section for over 20 years and drafted key NJ laws, like the 1976 Spill Act (precursor to federal Superfund). Greta had been a NJ Assemblywoman and had years of legislative experience and many professional and personal relationships with Legislators and legislative staff.

McCurry’s highly political career path and out of nowhere nomination to the Pinelands strongly suggest a much larger strategy is underway. Which takes me to my final and most troubling observation.

5) Gov. Seems To Be Committed To A Flagrantly Bad Move, Suggesting This Is Part of a Larger Deal

I’m very disturbed by the fact that the Gov. did not immediately pull the plug on this extremely unpopular and transparently corrupt and absurd fiasco when it exploded, and find a face saving way out or blame it on a misunderstanding or low level staff error.

The fact that he has not done so and instead dug in so strongly suggests that this is not some minor effort to diversify the Pinelands Commission, but is really part of a much bigger power play and strategy.

That larger power play also explains why Senate President Sweeney has gone radio silent and would not respond to his friend and supporter Tom Moran at the the Star Ledger Editorial Board (Moran recently wrote that Sweeeny’s departure from the Senate is a “crippling blow to the State”).

This will be much harder to kill that I initially imagined, especially with the support and political cover being provided by NJ LCV and PPA, enabled by the cowardly silence of all the other environmental and conservation groups.

I strongly urge Pinelands supporters to organize protests and complain to the NJ LCV and PPA Boards – we only have a few weeks to kill this monster.

[End Note: Jon Hurdle, who called this debacle a “significant win” for the environmental lobby and Tom Johnson who touted the “remarkable solidarity” in the environmental community (and their NJ Spotlight editors) have egg on their face and must feel like the total assholes they are.

For Over A Decade, DEP Flouts Laws Mandating Submission Of Critical Annual Reports

Corporate Polluters Get A Pass

What You Don’t Know Can Kill You

Once upon a time, there was this big bad regulatory agency called the DEP. They used to serve the public and go after corporate polluters, take prisoners, and name names.

I’ll let the DEP explain:

New Jersey was one of the first states in the nation to require public reporting of toxic and hazardous chemical storage, or inventory, data and chemical throughput and multi-media environmental release data, and to establish a mechanism to promote public awareness of the information.

But today, remarkably, for over a decade, DEP has failed to submit annual public Reports to the Legislature and Governor as required by the Clean Water Enforcement Act and the “Doria Permit Activity” Environmental Management And Accountability Act.

The DEP has also failed to prepare and publicly release annual Reports of the critically important data on manufacture, use, storage and discharge of toxic and extraordinarily hazardous chemicals collected under the NJ Worker and Community Right to Know Act, the Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act, and the Pollution Prevention Act. DEP had annually released public reports of that data for decades, prior to 2010.

There are several other important reports on environmental conditions that DEP used to prepare and release to the public that they no longer do.

These failures at DEP have gone unchallenged by any Legislative oversight or media coverage.

Environmental groups who used to work on these pollution and corporate accountability issues have abandoned the field for corporate foundation funded “greener” pastures.

The public has no way of knowing about any of this.

As a result, DEP has been transformed from an agency that historically promoted disclosure of critical scientific and environmental information to the public to literally an unaccountable black box.

DEP’s lame attempt to shift the burden to the public to conduct individual discrete website queries via their dysfunctional “Data Miner” is no substitute for DEP preparing Statewide data and analysis in a public Report. And it doesn’t comply with the law.

I just filed OPRA public records request for all these reports over the period 2010 – 2020 to make this post “official”.

Then when DEP denies the OPRA’s and is forced to admit that these Reports don’t exist, maybe the NJ press corps and environmental groups will get off their lazy incompetent assess and do something about it.

Because, you know, hey, shit happens. But you can just duck and coved and shelter in place, right?

• Toxic Train Wreck – “Shelter in Place” is Modern Version of “Duck & Cover”

But then again, there’s always the good old reliable duct tape: (a true story)

• NJ School Used Duct Tape To Respond To Toxic Oil Spill

Below, I highlight what’s at stake.

The public disclosure provided by these annual reports promoted important common benefits. These Reports were historically used to:

• hold individual corporate toxic polluters accountable
• hold DEP accountable
• provide the public with information about risks to their health and environment
• empower environmental groups to pressure polluters and lobby for stronger environmental laws
• educate the media about environmental and public health issues
• provide information to draft legislation and allow legislators to conduct legislative oversight and DEP budget review
• provide baseline data required to analyze trends in environmental quality

I) Clean Water Enforcement Act

The Clean Water Enforcement Act was passed in 1990. The Act was made necessary by DEP’s gross failure to enforce violations of water pollution permits by industry and local sewage treatment plants. The Act established mandatory penalties for violations of permits.

Importantly, the Act also: (per DEP)

The CWEA requires the department to submit a report on the implementation of the CWEA’s requirements to the Governor and the Legislature by March 31 of each year. The statute also specifies the items that the department must include in the report. The department has organized the required information into several categories, including Permitting, Enforcement, Delegated Local Agencies, Criminal Actions, Fiscal, and Water Quality Assessment.”

As you can see from DEP’s Clean Water Enforcement Act webpage, the last annual CWEA Report was submitted in 2010.

The CWEA Reports would identify specific toxic water polluters, by corporate name.

Environmental groups would routinely use these Reports for their own Reports and press events that were designed to pressure DEP and corporate polluters to do better.

Obviously, corporate polluters hated that, as did DEP regulators.

No wonder those Reports are down the memory hole.

II) “Doria” Permit Activity Report

The “Doria” “Permit Activity Report” law – named after sponsor and former Assembly Speaker Joe Doria – was enacted during the Florio administration in the early 1990’s largely in response to the business community’s attacks on DEP permit processing delays.

The law requires detailed reporting of all permit, enforcement (e.g. scroll down to see annual air enforcement reports, which haven’t been issued in a decade), and related activities at DEP. (see DEP website)

Here’s an example, from the 2002 DEP Doria Report:

III) Worker and Community Right To Know Report

I’ll let DEP’s Executive Summary of the last issued 2009 Report  explain what this is all about:

Here’s an example of the kind of information that Report provided – no wonder the corporate polluters killed it:

Where is that data now?

When was the last time a NJ based environmental group issued a Report and held a press conference blasting these corporate polluters for poisoning NJ?

When was the last news report you read about all this?

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

IV) Pollution Prevention Report

The Pollution Prevention Act, passed in early 1990’s during the Florio administration, was a huge step towards forcing corporations to reduce the manufacture and use of toxic chemicals. It required submission of Pollution Prevention plans by individual chemical plants showing how they would do that.

The law enabled DEP to mandate toxic use reduction requirements in DEP air, water and waste permits, an incredibly strong power DEP never used.

Regardless of DEP’s do nothing appeasement, the Big Corporate polluters correctly perceived this law as an existential threat and they killed it.

Again, I’ll let DEP summarize what this is all about, from their final 2012 Report, issued before the corporate polluters killed the program:

V) Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act

These are the “Bhopal” facilities, were an accident literally could kill thousands of people nearby.

In fact, DEP TCPA regulations require a chemical facility to prepare a map that show’s the “kill zone”.

They hide the “kill zone” behind the Orwellian bureaucratic euphemism “off site consequence analysis“.

Thousands dead is some “consequence”, eh?

Do you live in a “kill zone”? Does you child go to school in a “kill zone”?

Don’t ask DEP – and they won’t tell.

Just go to DEP’s TCPA website and see if you can find out anything. Anything at all about any of that.

Still think this is all about just red tape and bureaucratic paperwork?

VI) Contaminated Sites, polluted groundwater, and remedial cleanup priorities

Is you house near a toxic waste site? How’s DEP doing in cleaning up toxic site in your town? Is your drinking water well threatened by groundwater pollution from a toxic waste site? Should you be sampling your tapwater? Was your child’s school or daycare facility built on an old toxic waste site? Are underground vapors migration into your basement?

Don’t ask. The DEP’s toxic site cleanup program has been privatized.

But don’t worry be happy, DEP has a FAQ on that.

Oh, it’s useless?

But, hey, you can still go to DEP’s website and see what you can find on the dysfunctional “Data Miner”.

Or file an OPRA and see what comes back. Be sure to have the name of site, ID number, lot and block number, etc. Good luck.

VII) Other Important Data and Information No Longer Routinely Distributed To The Public

DEP used to make data available and issue reports on everything from hazardous air pollutant levels, drinking water quality (Private Well Testing Act statewide data and Source Water Protection program data), cancer maps, litter cleanups, recycling rates, solid waste generation, pesticide use, changes in land use/land cover, water use, beach water quality, wetlands loss, enforcement fines and penalties, to trends in environmental quality  ….. I could go on.

DEP used to regularly update and hold statewide public hearings on important Statewide Plans, like the Solid Waste Management Plan, Sludge Management Plan, Coastal Zone Management Plan, Clean Air Act State Implementation Plan (SIP – ironically now subject to public comment for an important Ozone compliance update you’ll never read about in the news or hear anything about from environmental groups) and more.

DEP even used to issue an annual “State of the Environment” report – with a press release and public distribution of the Report – that tracked trends in key environmental and public health indicators. (DEP now buries that trend data in an obscure website the public has no clue on how to locate or interpret the data.) That Report was terminated by DEP Commissioner Brad Campbell in 2002 in response to propaganda abuses by the Whitman administration, who used the Report as cover for her budget cutting and deregulation at DEP.

They are all gone now. Polluters literally own DEP (an additional report on that coming soon).

The only major Report DEP still issues is the Bi-Annual Dirty Water Report and list of polluted waters. But those reports don’t name corporate polluters or provide any data on how much toxic pollution is being discharged to NJ waterways and drinking water sources (and they ignore groundwater pollution).

DEP only continues to issue this report because it is federally mandated by the Clean Water Act and EPA would revoke DEP’s funding if they failed to issue that Report.

Clean Water Enforcement, Permits, Community Right To Know, & Pollution Prevention Laws Ignored.

No Transparency, No Public Information, No Legislative Oversight, & No accountability.

Hey all you techies out there: find me a Google Maps or App for these data layers, with an accessible analysis about what they mean.

Who will tell the people about all this?

[End Note: So, don’t worry, be happy.

As you and your family are poisoned by polluters and climate and ecosystems collapse, you can take solace in all the earth shaking work that NJ Audubon is doing – while fundraising my email for the billionth time. (BTW, Eileen Murphy, the head of NJA Government Affairs, is the former Director of DEP Science and Research. She knows all this, was the target of gag orders and retaliation by DEP managers, and shamefully keeps it all to herself. And the NJA fundraiser left a few important “successes” out: they didn’t mention their new Exxon minted head of Stewardship and the Highlands logging projects. And the Sparta Mt. golden wing warbler “success” is a flat out lie. NJ Audubon didn’t “measure” that success, they outright fabricated it (just ask them for the documentation supporting that claim – May 2020 after the fact, by DEP):

Thanks to you, New Jersey Audubon can keep doing what we do best:

• We celebrate stewardship each time a landowner makes a conscious choice to manage the land for American Black Duck, Northern Bobwhite, Ruffed Grouse, and other declining wildlife.
• We welcome partnerships that preserve the Delaware River Basin, advocate for the strongest plastics laws in the nation, protect pollinators against toxic pesticides, and serve as a leading voice for responsibly developed offshore wind energy
• We measure success in the presence of Golden-winged Warbler in a patch of young forest habitat at Sparta Mountain, Bog Turtles thriving in the restored wetlands of Salem County, and Black Skimmer chicks fledging on the enhanced dunes at Stone Harbor Point.
• We glance into a healthier, more equitable future when children at a Jersey City middle school are empowered to build a rain garden that resolves their neighborhood drainage concerns.

Don’t Be Duped By Diversity Or Deals

Make no mistake, this is a corporate power grab

The Pinelands Commission is not some East German State Owned Enterprise For Sale

A True Howard Beale Moment

It’s crunch time for the Pinelands. Please immediately contact Gov. Murphy’ Office and demand that he withdraw his slate of 3 corporate cronies for the Pinelands Commission. Do everything you can to convince the Gov. to abandon his horrible proposal. Nothing else will work.

The only leverage we have to stop this is strong public opposition that embarrasses the Gov. Private, quiet, negotiated deals – especially from a position of weakness – are a fools errand.

The Gov.’s concession to withdraw the worst of his 3 horrible nominees is totally unacceptable.

By nominating these individuals, the Gov. is leaving the final decision of whom to confirm in the hands of Senate President Sweeney, a longtime force hostile to Pinelands protection. The Gov. can not  guarantee the outcome of any “negotiated deal” and dictate the Senate’s choices of whom or what slate to confirm or replace at the Commission. Trying to lobby the Sweeney Senate is a fools errand.

What we have here is a true Howard Beale moment: like he said, go to your window (your keyboard, your public square, library, pub, supermarket, community group, or the streets, etc) and yell: “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”. Let me explain.

Perhaps the only thing more odious than Gov. Murphy’s cynical attempt to stealth 3 corporate cronies through a lame duck Senate into seats on the Pinelands Commission – justified as promoting “diversity” and “environmental justice” – is the complete collapse of leading conservationists, after their initial efforts to generate public oppostion to block that move.

Think about it:

The Governor of New Jersey – by far THE most toxic state in the country – just nominated a lobbyist for the CHEMISTRY COUNCIL to serve on the Pinelands Commission! WTF!

The Pinelands are not only a NJ ecological jewel and the largest block of forested land on the east coast, it is a National Biosphere Reserve  and designated a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Gov. Murphy made his Goldman Sachs Wall Street multi-million dollar fortune by monetizing, privatizing, and selling off former State Owned Enterprises (SOE) in East Germany. He needs to be told that the Pinelands Commission is not some SOE for sale to corporations! 

Governor Murphy’s other 2 nominees are also corporate lobbyists for major corporations with huge economic interests in the Pinelands, including off shore wind developer Orsted, a foreign corporation to boot. Orsted wind development is also linked to their major investor PSE&G.

Carleton Montgomery, head of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, who was blindsided by the Gov.’s corrupt stealth move – in his reserved and rational way – did a great job of explaining why the Governor’s nominees were totally inappropriate and unacceptable.

In a Friday afternoon alert to thousands of his members, Montgomery wrote:

In a truly shocking move, Governor Murphy today nominated three corporate lobbyists for the Pinelands Commission. They would replace three seasoned environmental leaders with years of service for the Pinelands.

All three of the new nominees appear to have fundamental conflicts of interest due to their employment as lobbyists for industry.  Only one of the three appears to have any prior interest at all in environmental protection. …

The new nominees would replace Ed Lloyd, New Jersey’s most prominent environmental lawyer with decades of experience in the Pinelands, Rick Prickett, a retired science teacher who has worked his whole life to protect the Pinelands, and D’Arcy Rohan Green, a long-time advocate for Barnegat Bay and the Pinelands.

I respect Carleton Montgomery’s intelligence and commitment to the Pines, but not his leadership, judgement, and courage.

Montgomery has since run away from his initial strong criticism and strategy to urge his members and those who love the Pines to demand – publicly and loudly – that the Gov. withdraw his entire corporate slate of nominees. Instead, he is negotiating – in private – some kind of deal.

Sadly, as I wrote, after taking a firm and principled stand in opposition to the Governor’s slate of corporate cronies, urging people to contact the Gov. and demand he withdraw it, and scheduling a Monday morning press conference in Trenton to blast the Gov., Montgomery abruptly cancelled the Monday press conference on Sunday and agreed to a private meeting with the Governor’s appointments team.

What followed was a complete collapse.

Compounding the error of calling off the press conference and asking his members to stand down while he privately negotiated with the Governor’s office, Montgomery apparently not only backed off his original absolute opposition, it seems Montgomery cut a truly horrible and corrupt deal.

The Gov.’s Office agreed to withdraw the Chemistry Council nominee and retain strong environmental Commissioner Ed Lloyd. But the Gov. is sticking with 2 other cronies and replacing good pro-conservation Commissioners Rick Prickett and D’Arcy Rohan Green.

Adding 2 corporate cronies and removing 2 conservationists is a massive 4 vote shift in power at the Pinelands Commission and would undermine the Comprehensive Management Plan and subvert the public interest to corporate interests.

Montgomery seems desperately trying to appease the Governor – apparently in a naive and delusional hope of securing the confirmation of Murphy’s prior pro-conservation nominees, retired DRBC planner Jessica Sanchez and former PPA staffer Theresa Lettman (and retaining Prickett and Rohan Green). Delusional.

Yesterday, Montgomery put out a lame “update” statement to his members defending this collapse and capitulation.

In that statement, he did not brief his members about what went on in the private Monday meeting or reveal anything he agreed to. He declared victory for killing the Chemistry Council nominee.

Most importantly, while he urged his members to continue to pressure the Senate, Montgomery made no mention of and therefore completely surrendered a public campaign to target and pressure the Governor to withdraw the entire slate of corporate nominees.

Montgomery is targeting only the Senate. But that is a seriously flawed stagey for several reasons:

First, by submitting the nominations to the Senate, the Gov. surrenders control of the final outcome to the Senate and therefore Senate President Sweeney, a longtime hostile force to Pinelands protections. The Senate will decide which nominees to confirm of those submitted by the Governor, not Gov. Murphy.

Second, the Senate is a hopeless cause, because this is important to outgoing Senate President Sweeney, a longtime opponent of strong Pinelands protections.

Third, the Gov. can fix the problem he created by simply withdrawing his nominees. The Gov. must be the target of activists.

Montgomery seems to be under some kind of delusion that this is about making the Pinelands Commission “stronger”.

The only thing that will get stronger is corporate access, influence and control of the Pinelands Commission. That is the Gov.’s objective: to make corporate and his own political influence stronger. He hates independent and pro-conservation Commissioners and wants power and control  just as much as Gov. Christie did!

Montgomery wrote:(under a giant font headline taking credit for the chemistry council kill – emphasis in original)

Events continue to unfold and we will not know the true outcome until the end of the current Senate session in early January. Our goal is to achieve a Pinelands Commission that is stronger than it is today. …

So the current plan would weaken the Pinelands Commission by losing two proven guardians of the Pinelands unless the Governor ensures his other pending nominees are also approved by the Senate. That complete slate would give us a stronger Pinelands Commission.

“Unless”? Are you kidding me? That complete slate is never going to happen and even if it did, it still would not make the Commission stronger because corporate influence and power would be injected, with deep conflicts of interest to boot. 2 Conservationists do not offset 2 powerful corporate lobbyists. It doesn’t work that way. Orsted and PSE&G and very other corporate client represented by the other lobbyist would be in the room.

Remarkably, after getting blinded sided and screwed by the Governor, Montgomery actually THANKED the Gov.:

We thank Governor Murphy and his team for hearing our corners and starting to repair a bad situation. But it is only a start, and the process is ongoing – we need to see the Governor and the Senate advance a full slate of nominees that makes the Pinelands Commission strong.

Another case of battered wife syndrome – and revealing total political weakness and personal spinelessness.

Just as bizarre and Orwellian – if not unexpected – is NJ Spotlight’s description of this collapse as a “significant win for the environmental lobby”.

What planet are reporter Jon Hurdle and NJ Spotlight editors on?

For 4 years, Gov. Murphy has ignored the Pinelands. He retained controversial Executive Director Nancy Wittenberg (recently deceased). He refused to fight for confirmation of his original conservation oriented nominees. And he appointed a corporate lawyer as head of DEP and had done virtually nothing on environmental protection.

These all are losses for the environmental lobby and show how how weak it is. To think this is a “win” or about making the Pinelands Commission “stronger” in terms of being more pro-conservation is delusional.

Forcing the Gov. to withdraw a truly obscene Chemistry Council lobbyists nominee in a lame duck session is not a win – if that now defines victory, we are surely through the looking glass.

Everything about this situation is corrupt, absurd, and cowardly.

The only sane voice of integrity I’ve heard is from my friend Georgina Shanley, Pinelands activist and with Citizens United for Renewable Energy (CURE). In a widely distributed email, Georgina wrote:

Dear NJ Environmental Leaders,

Don’t betray your positions as protectors of our environment, and especially DO NOT BETRAY the Pinelands!! Not only are your reputations, and that of your organizations at stake but also the most vulnerable Pines.

DEP Failed To Even Note The Gov.’s Ex. Order Goal of 50% GHG Reduction By 2030

Murphy’s Invisible Executive Order Got Good Press & Lapdog Praise

Just a little over 3 weeks ago, on November 11, 2021, Gov. Murphy held a press conference to announce “bold action” – what he claimed was a major step forward in his climate policy. Murphy began his remarks, ironically, by emphasizing the most recent massive climate driven flooding.

The Gov. announced issuance of his Executive Order # 274, which boldly declaimed:

It is the policy of the State to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 2006 levels by the year 2030.

Of course, the stenographers in NJ media and the Gov.’s sycophants gave the Gov. high praise:

“The Governor understands we can’t afford incremental change, we can’t be patient, we have to do better, not only in New Jersey, but worldwide,’’ said Kim Gaddy, Environmental Justice Director for Clean Water Action.

“The science tells us that we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2030, and that is what the Governor’s EO will do — otherwise we face cataclysmic effects to our environment that cannot be reversed,’’ she said.

Of course, the same day, we wrote to call bullshit on the Gov.’s toothless and blatantly misleading claims:

In direct conflict with NY’s law, Gov. Murphy’s Executive Order makes it very clear that his new 50% greenhouse gas emission reduction by 2030 goal is not enforceable, in DEP regulations or DEP permits. The EO provides:

Nothing in this Order shall be construed to confer any legal rights upon entities whose activities are regulated by State entities, nothing shall be construed to create a private right of action on behalf of any such regulated entities, and nothing shall be used as a basis for legal challenges to rules, approvals, permits, licenses, or other action or inaction by a State entity. Nothing in this Order shall be construed to supersede any federal, State, or local law.

Get that? Let’s repeat:

the new 50% greenhouse gas emission reduction by 2030 goal is not enforceable, in DEP regulations or DEP permits. 

“Bold action” my ass. No action is more like it. Symbolic gesture is all that Order was.

So, just 3 weeks after the Gov.’s self serving press conference, we were not surprised to read on Monday that DEP’s long awaited major climate PACT rule proposal completely disregarded the  Gov. Executive Order!

DEP’s proposal not only disregarded the Gov.’s Executive Order, it completely ignored it! Not even a mention. To DEP, it’s as if it never even happened. The Invisible Executive Order! But some Murphy Orders were mentioned and implemented by the proposal, including Executive Orders No. 28 and 100.

But it’s even worse.

The lame DEP climate proposal not only disregards the Gov. Executive Order’s accelerated climate goals, it explicitly fails to even try to meet the goals of the 2009 Global Warming Response Act. DEP openly admitted this:

this rulemaking is not meant to be viewed as the definitive action by the Department to ensure the State meets the 80×50 goal.

So now that the Green Masks Are Off, perhaps the NJ press corps can correct the false narrative they manufactured about the Gov.’s so called “leadership” on reducing greenhouse gas emission.

And the Gov.’s sycophantic cheerleaders are so discredited now that not only are they not credible sources in the media, but they should be ashamed to show their faces in public.

The Pinelands Putsch Is Murphy’s Chris Christie On The Beach Moment

Gov.’s Office Defends Brazen Move As Promoting “Diversity”

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made…” ~~~ The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

This is Phil Murphy’s notorious Chris Christie On The Beach moment. (I won’t bother writing. You can read the disgusting details here and here and here)

Sometimes a man does something that so perfectly exposes his essence and reveals the true self that it becomes iconic.

And it generates true revulsion and disgust.

Gov. Murphy’s exposure may lack an embarrassing photo that is splashed across newspaper covers and run in endless TV video loops, but Gov. Murphy’s brazen attempt to ram the confirmation of corporate cronies as Pinelands Commissioners through the Sweeney legacy Senate in a lame duck session just before the holidays – completely reversing his prior nomination of leading conservationists to the Commission, who he failed to support and fight for  – is one of those iconic, character revealing, defining moments.

Christie Christie was a selfish slob and everyone knew it. His solo weekend at the beach photo – when the beach was closed to the public – perfectly captured his essence. And Christie had his own disgusting retaliatory war on good people at the Pinelands Commission:

• Gov. Christie Cans Pinelands Commission Chairman

Phil Murphy is what some might call a dick. Or an arrogant clueless prick. Or a new monied rich piece of shit. Or a power mad raging corporate Neoliberal Wall Street parasite.

Take your pick.

President Obama appointed Murphy – a man with zero diplomatic training or experience – as Ambassador to Germany.

Phil’s only credentials were his money and all the political connections and cronies that it buys. He made that money as a Wall Street cannibal. His European experience was in privatizing public goods and transferring wealth from poor people to Oligarchs, the only experience that counts in his crowd: (Wiki)

[Murphy] engaged in a number of transactions with the German government’s Treuhandanstalt agency, whose purpose was to conduct the privatization of formerly state-owned enterprises within the boundaries of no-longer-extant East Germany. .

That’s how Phil rolls.

Obama got zero criticism for that. Phil was praised.

Murphy spread a little money around in New Jersey to buy political support of sycophants and he was able to use that to support to buy the Governorship of NJ and a nice little gig for his trophy wife, Tammy. Tammy the trophy – has a nice ring to it.

Murphy appointed a “diverse” man – a former corporate lawyer for some of NJ’s largest corporate polluters who has egregious conflicts of interest – as his DEP Commissioner, a brazen move in and of itself – and got zero criticism for that and support from the “diverse” sycophants he bought along the way.

So why shouldn’t he ram through corporate cronies to the Pinelands Commission – and publicly prostitute his “diverse” sycophants in the process?

Isn’t Phil just being Phil?

Those tactics worked before. It’s how Phil rolls.

Incredibly, here’s how the Murphy press office defended the move (source: Michael Zhadanovsky, Deputy Press Secretary – check out his bio – campaign for Hillary, to intern at corporate KPMG,  to Phil’s campaign)

After collaborative talks this afternoon with Pinelands advocates, we are moving forward with two nominees to the Pinelands Commission. The Governor is committed to diversifying the Commission and ensuring that it’s actions promote environmental justice and accountability to those most impacted by it’s decisions.

Get that? Diversity. It’s the diversity, stupid!

Phil has a “diverse” corporate man at DEP (with far more power and far worse conflicts than his Pinelands cronies. Curiously, the “green group” sycophants never said a peep about any of that).

Now he can have “diverse” corporate cronies at the Pinelands Commission (and a corporate Latina).

That is the twisted notion of “diversity” that Professor Nancy Fraser called “Progressive Neoliberalism”.

It masks corporate Wall Street policies behind the facade of cultural politics.

Again, its how Phil rolls.

Right up there with the Governor’s most disgusting move of the decade – an incredibly corrupt move, even for slimy NJ politics – is the collapse and capitulation of the conservation groups: NJ League of Conservation voters, led by Gov. Murphy’s most “diverse” cheerleader, Ed Potosnak, and the Pinelands Preservation Alliance.

(Around Phil, Eddie P. is like a little boy in short pants, desperately trying to walk faster down the sidewalk and catch up to reach up and hold daddy’s hand. And if anyone doubts that characterization or finds it over the top, just watch Little Eddie perform at the Gov. recent press conference.)

These groups issued an alert and angry press statements late Friday afternoon. (a veteran NJ journalist sent me one for comment).

Little Eddie blasted “the slate” of 3 nominees – all 3, not just the Chemistry Council nominee – and demanded:

The governor’s plan is unacceptable. We are asking him to immediately change course in order to keep his promise to New Jersey voters to protect our state’s clean drinking water, clean air and open space.”

They generated immediate support of thousands of people to contact the Gov. and Senators and strongly oppose the Gov.’s move.

They scheduled a State House Press Conference for Monday to blast the Governor and demand that he rescind the nominations.

So far, so good.

Then something happened over the weekend. Someone got a phone call.

They cancelled the press conference on Sunday. Here’s the last minute lame excuse PPA offered up to their members for that sellout:

We are canceling the event in order to provide an opportunity to reach a better outcome for the Pinelands through further discussion with the Governor. 

And on Monday they had a “collaborative talk” with the Governor’s Appointments Office. 

Pathetically, they sold out to low level Murphy bureaucrats. They did NOT meet with the Governor, as they informed their supporters. So in addition to a sellout, they are lying about who they sold out to.

My Trenton sources tell me that:

The Governor is moving forward with the nominations of Laura Matos and Davon McCurry. Elvin Montero’s nomination has been pulled.

How does a conservation group go from a Friday fight to a Monday collapse and capitulation?

How do you sell out the thousands of people who immediately rose to defend the Pinelands?

How do you throw two excellent Pinelands Commissioners under the bus? (NJ Spotlight)

Mark Lohbauer, a current commissioner, declined to comment on the nominated candidates but praised the contributions of the three incumbent commissioners. “The three people who are being replaced are great public servants who have been very courageous in their votes in defense of the Pinelands, and I think the people of New Jersey owe them a debt of thanks,” he said.

Worse, even in his hissy fit blasting the Gov., Potosnak revealed a classic battered wife syndrome – he again praised and lied about the Gov.’s record: (NJ Spotlight)

Potosnak said the nominations don’t match the rest of Murphy’s environmental record, and, to the environmental community that supported him, feel like a rejection.

“It’s like a great stab in the back because we’ve been great supporters of the governor,” Potosnak said. “He has been a strong environmental champion, and he ran on a legacy of environmental protection, and this is completely the opposite of that.”

Yes, Potosnak has been an embarrassingly cheerleader for the Gov. But how does one walk back a comment like this:

“This slate of nominees amounts to a massive corporate giveaway of one of New Jersey’s greatest environmental treasures in a move so brazen that not even Chris Christie would have attempted it,” said Ed Potosnak, executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, referring to the former governor.

How could Potosnak have a “collaborative talk” with the Gov.’s Office and then fold after saying that?

Contrary to what Meatloaf sang about, 2 out of 3 is bad.

And Little Eddie is lying about the Governor’s environmental record.

As I showed recently, the Gov. is no “strong environmental champion”. His environmental record is actually worse than Chris Christie’s.

Shame on them all. This sets a new low.