“evaluating greenhouse gas impacts is outside of the scope of the Ozone SIP.” (NJ DEP – response to my public comment #44)
NJ residents will be breathing unhealthy air until at least 2033, according to a Murphy Clean Air Act final “Ozone Attainment” plan adopted by the DEP yesterday (read the DEP’s Ozone State Implementation Plan.)
Another decade is far too long to wait for clean air.
The Murphy DEP’s failure to crack down on polluters and plan to extend the clean air compliance date by 9 years faced strong public criticism by environmental justice groups and residents. Critics included Earthjustice, IronBound Community Corp., South Ward Environmental Alliance, Clean Water Action, and Don’t Gas the Meadowlands Coalition.
Notably absent were Sierra Club and Environment NJ, groups that historically have provided leadership on clean air issues but now cheerlead for the Murphy DEP. That’s a disgrace, given that current NJ Sierra Executive Director Anjuli Ramos Busot is a former DEP clean air technician.
DEP got absolutely hammered on a 9 year (not 6) extension of the date of compliance with clean air act ozone standards:
The people of Northern NJ should not have to wait an extra 6 years (a total of 9 years from today) before they breathe air that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers healthy, especially if NJDEP is not taking action to significantly reduce smog-forming emissions from transportation and goods movement. (Earthjustice)
DEP also faced strong criticism on many key clean air and public health issues, including climate change, environmental justice, transportation (mobile source) impacts, turnpike expansion, port emissions, and lack of adequate monitoring.
Comment: …. NJDEP has also noted that ozone impacts are “particularly concerning in Environmental Justice areas that already experience a higher-than-average share of at-risk communities. During 2016, asthma affected 15.7% of African American children and 12.9% of children of Puerto Rican descent, while it affected only 7.1% of white children. African American children were burdened by 138,000 asthma attacks and 101,000 lost school days each year.” (Earthjustice)
19. Comment: There’s no ozone monitoring in Newark. My jaw dropped when I saw that. I reached out to the mayor of Newark, and I tried to make contact with environmental justice groups in Newark. Are they aware of the fact that their community’s air is not being monitored for ozone compliance? That’s incredible to me. Again, I’m not in the air program. I’ve been out of state for a number of years. I haven’t been on the ground with the environmental groups; I used to work with Sierra Club. I also used to work for the NJDEP. And I’m just astonished by that. What’s the explanation for why the Newark station was closed, and why hasn’t another station in Newark been established? (Bill Wolfe)
DEP’s repose to my comment about the failure to consider the impacts of climate change on ozone air quality levels was shocking:
“evaluating greenhouse gas impacts is outside of the scope of the Ozone SIP.” (NJ DEP, response to my public comment #44)
That response contradicts climate science and US EPA policy, which elucidates how increasing temperatures exacerbate ozone formation and air quality impacts:
Climate researchers are learning that warming temperatures and heat waves resulting from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions could adversely affect air quality in the United States and increase deaths from air pollution exposure. This effect is referred to as the “climate penalty.”
Higher levels of GHG emissions from vehicles, power plants, and other human-made sources are contributing to warming, which will increase ozone. Exposure to this pollutant can aggravate asthma, cause heart attacks, and exacerbate other respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. Air quality managers need to know how climate change will affect air quality and public health throughout the 21st century. New modeling approaches by EPA are providing this information for states as they work to implement the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. In one modeling simulation, researchers showed that full implementation of enacted air pollution regulations could reduce the increase of ozone despite warmer temperatures, thus reducing potential deaths from exposure. (US EPA, 2022)(better download that document before the Trump EPA takes it down!)
More recently, EPA reiterated that science: (updated March 3, 2025)
The effects of climate change on air quality will continue to vary by region. In many areas of the United States, climate change is expected to worsen harmful ground-level ozone, increase people’s exposure to allergens like pollen, and contribute to worsening air quality.2 It can also decrease visibility so that it is harder to see into the distance.3 Changes in the amount of outdoor air pollutants can also affect indoor air quality.
Not surprisingly, the DEP tried to bury these critical public comments and DEP’s lame response in to them in “Appendix 10.1”, at the end of a long and extremely complex planning document. (read the public comments and DEP responses).
DEP also ignored the known significant adverse health effects of fine particulates wood burning, DEP prescribed burns in NJ forests, and wildfires. Despite the fact that science shows significant adverse public health effects from smoke, the DEP limited responses to the ozone issue and ignored everything else!
On top of ll that, DEP buried my criticisms at the end of the buried response document. Here’s just a few:
21. Comment: And then there’s the other questions of the extent of the monitoring network.
Is it geographically and spatially representative? Is it — from the elevation standpoint does it measure street level or does it — are these stations up 60, 70 feet in the air? They should be located in places where people actually breathe the air and are exposed. Is that the case? None of the information is provided, as far as I known, as to where to find the technical details of the monitoring network, as to whether it’s reliable, representative and valid. (BW)
25. Comment: The NJDEP is seeking compliance relief based on an exceptional event demonstration that alleges that wildfires constitute an exceptional event. … All climate models project future warming and, among other things, increasing frequency and severity of wildfires in the locations involved. Thus, wildfires are likely to recur at the particular locations in question.
Wildfires also are not “natural events”, due to causes related to anthropogenic climate change and, among others, logging and forest mismanagement. Accordingly, the wildfires in the demonstration are likely to recur and are not “natural events”; thus, the demonstration does not comply with the EPA regulatory requirements and should be rejected by EPA….
One of the fires, or a series of the fires from the Midwest that impacted NJ and you’re relying on for your demonstration, was created by a prescribed burn that got out of control. So, the NJDEP is promoting a program of prescribed burn that creates emissions, has the risk of getting out of control, and has been known to create air impacts in NJ that you’re now seeking relief from.(BW)
28. Comment: Even if the wildfires constitute valid exceptional events, they involved only 4 days of non-compliance. The data in the SIP indicates that there were 17 days on non- attainment in 2023. Eliminating the 4 wildfire day exceptional events still leaves 13 days of non-attainment. (BW)
29. Comment: …
Number three, the U.S. Air Force, in their own REPI program documents admits they create a wildfire in the pines every ten to 14 days. That’s by the U.S. Air Force data; they’re growing out, I think the Warren Grove range.
You’re working cross purposes here, and I think you need to walk away from the prescribed burn program because it’s just for emissions alone, if you don’t have to deal with all the other forestry issues that are relevant to that program. So, I would urge that you don’t get that exemption from EPA and abandon the prescribed burn program. (BW)
33. Comment: In one of the appendices, there’s growth projection assumptions by source category, and some of your economic growth assumptions and your emissions assumptions were running at I think 1.4% per year for natural gas. That can only increase greenhouse gas emissions. Yet everything in it, governor’s executive orders and the Global Warming Response Act and all those programs you summarized in your introductory remarks, all create the appearance that emissions are being reduced. (BW)
44. Comment: And there was no kind of global warming assessment of those natural gas emissions projection increases, right? And I think you’re required by NJ law to do the 20-year time horizon on your warming potential emissions, which would then create even additional warming potential from those emissions in terms of your greenhouse gas inventory. (BW)
Apparently, the US EPA Region 2 Office signed off on DEP’s plan.
Another decade is far too long to wait for clean air.