EPA Calls Out DEP’s Irrelevant EJ “Supplement” To Clean Air Plan
I am working on a post regarding the recent Trump Presidential “Proclamation” that exempted over 47 coal power plants from Biden EPA mercury and hazardous air pollution requirements.
(Real Presidents issue Proclamations to do BIG things like liberate people from oppression and preserve sacred native American lands – Trump does that to protect polluters)
I wrote a warning about that weeks ago, see:
In doing the background research on the Trump Proclamation, particularly on what is called “interstate transport” under the Clean Air Act, I came across this superb gem, which I will share now in advance of the larger post.
Even the Biden EPA called bullshit on the Murphy DEP’s environmental justice spin.
As I’ve written numerous times, the entire NJ DEP environmental justice program, i.e.: 1) the Governor’s Executive Orders; 2) the Commissioner’s Administrative Orders; 3) the EJ legislation; 4) the DEP regulations; and 5) the stressor Guidance document, are a sham, because they all do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to change the underlying scientific, technical, and regulatory bases for pollution controls and DEP permits.
Now here is the Biden EPA saying exactly the same thing, but in their restrained banal bureaucratic regulatory language. Check it out:
II. Environmental Justice Considerations
New Jersey provided a supplement to the SIP submission being approved with this rulemaking on May 16, 2023. The supplemental submission briefed the EPA on Environmental Justice (EJ) considerations within New Jersey by detailing the State’s programs and initiatives addressing the needs of communities with EJ concerns that have been ongoing since 1998. For more information on New Jersey’s EJ initiatives, the EPA refers the reader to the proposal published on July 1, 2024. See89 FR 54397. Although New Jersey considered EJ as part of its SIP submittal, the EPA has determined that conducting its own comprehensive EJ analysis is not necessary in the context of this SIP submission for interstate transport for the 2010 1-hour SO2 NAAQS, as the CAA and its applicable implementing regulations neither prohibit nor require such an evaluation of EJ in relation to the relevant requirements. […]
The analysis was done for the purpose of providing additional context and information about this rulemaking to the public, not as a basis of the action.
Did you get that? “Not as a basis of the action“. The NJ EJ policy was a “brief” to EPA, not a SIP amendment or real regulatory strategy. The EJ review is “not necessary” or required under the Clean Air Act. Irrelevant. In other words, spin. Just Bullshit.
Regardless of what DEP Commissioner LaTourette thinks about their EJ program, it is not recognized by the federal Clean Air Act and is not “relevant” to clean air regulatory requirements.
We’ve been saying that for many years now.