NJ Has The Some Of The Worst Air Quality In The Region
Gov. Murphy’s DEP Just Approved Another Fossil Power Plant In Newark
DEP Seeking 9 Year Delay For Compliance With National Ozone Standards
Gov. Murphy & DEP Have A Poor Record On Clean Air And Environmental Justice
(Source: NJ DEP, 7/18/24)
According to the Murphy DEP’s own data, NJ has the some of the worst air quality in the region.
As of July 17, 2024, NJ had exceeded the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ozone 13 times, a number likely to rise to 15 or more in the next report this week.
Ozone is a serious threat to public health and has huge impacts on children and the elderly, leading to elevated hospitalization rates and deaths from asthma, respiratory distress, heart attacks, and stroke. Climate change driven extreme heat days will make this air pollution significantly worse.
Connecticut – a downwind State who’s poor air quality is impacted by air pollution from NJ – leads the tri-state region with just one more day.
Despite this seriously unhealthy air quality and violation of federal NAAQS, the Murphy administration is approving major new sources of air pollution, including huge expansions of capacity of the NJ Turnpike, Port Newark, and Newark Liberty airport and approval of new fossil power plant in Newark.
The Gov. also opposed the NYC congestion pricing program, which would have reduce air pollution from cars and trucks.
The Gov. also recently ended the electric vehicle tax incentives, which will slow the pace of EV conversion and has done almost nothing on building electrification, which also would slow the rate of growth of greenhouse gas emissions and ozone forming pollution from buildings.
According to environmental group EarthJustice, who recently submitted testimony that opposed the Murphy DEP’s request for a 9 year delay in compliance with the ozone NAAQS:
the State of New Jersey has been taking actions that would increase onroad emissions in the entire tri-state nonattainment area. This includes an expansion of the New Jersey Turnpike to the Holland Tunnel into New York City, which is expected to increase traffic on the roadway at least 22%, but with no corresponding expansion of the Holland Tunnel, so will likely result in an even higher emission increase given increased congestion as traffic from the widened New Jersey roadways waits to funnel into the narrow tunnel. The State has also filed a lawsuit to stop New York City’s congestion pricing program, which the federal government recognized would reduce VOC and NOx emissions in the nonattainment area, including in New Jersey counties.
New Jersey should not affirmatively take actions that increase NOx emissions, and then use that as an excuse to say that it needs a 6-year extension because NOx emission reductions are unattainable by the Clean Air Act deadline
Simply put, Governor Murphy and his DEP have a poor record on clean air and closely related climate and environmental justice issues.
Few people (and media and environmental groups) seem to recall that the Murphy DEP even went so far as to deny a formal petition for rulemaking that would have blocked the expansion of new fossil power plants, see:
That petition denial by DEP was a very clear signal that the Murphy administration is not serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The rhetoric of the administration is not matched by policy and regulatory action. The Gov. and has DEP Commissioner have a big hat and no cattle.
The same rhetorical gaslighting applies to the Murphy and DEP commitments to environmental justice, a fact exposed to plain view by the recent DEP approval of another fossil power plant in Newark, one of NJ’s leading environmental justice communities, see:
As I’ve written many, many times, DEP Commissioner LaTourette has been gaslighting the community about the DEP’s environmental justice and climate programs for years.
Yet despite the poor record and obvious writing on the wall, remarkably, climate and environmental justice groups have long aggressively supported the Gov. and his DEP Commissioner:
Kim Gaddy, Clean Water Action and Maria Lopez- Nuñez, Ironbound with First Lady Tammy Murphy
Yet, despite all this, they now somehow feel “betrayed” by Gov. Murphy.
Here’s Food and Water Watch’s recent rant:
Yesterday was an appalling and disgraceful day for the Murphy Administration.
The Governor’s DEP held a closed-door press conference to announce their approval of the inadequate, unjust and deceptive environmental justice review for the PVSC gas plant proposed in Newark…
Hours later the Governor’s Board of Public Utilities held a closed-door stakeholder meeting on their forthcoming new Energy Master Plan. In a Trumpian move, the Governor’s administration prohibited four of EmpowerNJ’s seven steering committee members from participating. As you know, EmpowerNJ is our state’s largest climate coalition with over 140 organizations representing hundreds of thousands of collective members
So, what are they going to do about?
Don’t hold your breath waiting for real accountability, at least from the Trenton based groups who have backed and provided cover for the Gov. and his DEP Commissioner (e.g. Environment NJ, Clean Water Action, Sierra Club, NJ LCV, et al), non-existent legislative oversight, and a depleted and lazy press corps.