Burden Is On Christie’s DEP Nominee to Show Senate He’s Qualified

Bob Martin (L) with Christie Whitman (center) (photo: Werener-Graf)

If confirmed, Martin would be the first DEP Commissioner with absolutely no academic, professional, or employment experience related to protecting the environment or public health.

Martin’s privatization and finance experience could make the Corzine “assset monetization” sale of the Turnpike seem like a picnic.

Incoming NJ Governor Chris Christie named Bob Martin as his nominee for Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

Martin is a retired corporate executive. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Martin would bring a business background to DEP. He’s a retired executive from the international firm Accenture L.L.P. and served as a policy adviser in Christie’s campaign, focusing on energy policy. Christie wants to make New Jersey a manufacturing center for solar panels and wind mills.

While promising to protect the state’s natural resources, Christie also said he would strip the DEP of regulations that hamper economic development.

Martin must be confirmed by the Senate. The confirmation process reflects constitutional principles of separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. The confirmation hearing provides an opportunity and excellent forum for both the Senate and the nominee to explore policy issues – particularly when the Governor and Legislature are of different political parties – thus promoting both transparency and democratic accountability.

Although the confirmation process theoretically raises a hurdle, traditionally, an incoming Governor is given wide deference in naming his Cabinet and the Senate confirmation process is primarily ceremonial. Exceptions arise in very limited cases where a nominee has legitimate questions related to qualifications, temperament, or ideology or controversial policy views outside the bounds of mainstream NJ tradition. As such, there is a presumption of confirmation and a heavy burden on the Senate.

In Bob Martin’s case, given his lack of a NJ record and corporate experience, I think there are several legitimate questions he must answer during the Senate confirmation process. Because he has no record or environmental credential, the burden of confirmation shifts from the Senate to Mr. Martin.

Here are my initial set of issues and questions on Mr. Martin’s background that Senators should probe during the confirmation process before they decide whether he is qualified to run DEP. We will be doing more research on these issues – this is the first shot and things are clearly tentative and expressed as questions.

I) Qualifications

DEP is a public regulatory agency that makes most decisions based on science and law. All prior DEP Commissioners have had academic degrees, professional licenses, training and government or professional experience in directly relevant areas of law, science, and/or public policy.

Martin has a BA in economics and a master’s in finance. His corporate professional experience appears unrelated to the environment. From what I can tell at his point, it is unclear whether he has experience in managing a large budget or large staffed organization. He has no government experience and has not held any political office. According to my sources, Martin has had no involvement in environmental issues at the local level in his Hopewell home town or at the state level.

Martin’s lack of experience shifts the burden to Mr. Martin to demonstrate that he is qualified and capable to run the DEP effectively.

The Senate should closely probe the question of Martin’s qualifications for the job. He is clearly outside the NJ tradition in terms of prior DEP Commissioners.

II) Policy views and ideology

Martin is reportedly a strong proponent of the highly controversial technique called “cost benefit analysis” (CBA).

According to NJ Biz:

Martin said it is taking “too long to get permits through” and that regulations must be based on science, facts and “good cost-benefit analysis.”

The use of CBA is strongly opposed by most environmentalists because it has been used as a back door tool by industry to kill and/or sharply scale back protections for public health and the environment, often on false or inflated factual grounds. CBA has theoretical and practical limitations – industry has a long record of grossly exaggerating the costs of environmental regulations, while the ecological and public health benefits are extremely difficult to quantify. Thus, CBA strongly biases decisions in favor of corporate polluters and against protection of the environment and public health.

But CBA isn’t merely a technically flawed tool – it raises grave ethical concerns, including placing a dollar value on human life  (talk about “Death Panels”!).

Because it is based on the total dollar value of a person’s lifetime employment earnings, CBA discriminates against and assigns low economic value to the elderly, minority, and working class people who are low income and earn less. CBA has been rejected for those fatal flaws.

CBA is not now conducted by DEP and there are no NJ laws or regulations that authorize it.

The Senate needs to closely question Mr. Martin about his views on CBA, including:

1. please identify your academic training and professional knowledge and experience with CBA;

2. please provide examples of decisions you have made that applied CBA to practical real world problems;

3. please describe, in detail, the provisions of federal and state environmental laws that you believe authorize the use of CBA;

4. would you implement CBA at DEP? If so, exactly how.

5. Are you aware that DEP has only 1 economist on staff and that he is not trained in CBA? Given this limitation at DEP, would you hire economists or allow private industry – like Exelon and Dupont – to prepare CBA for DEP to use?

6. would you apply CBA to determine if cooling towers are the “best available technology” at Oyster Creek and Salem nuclear power plants? How would CBA apply to the legal mandate for DEP air permits to incorporate “advances in the art” of pollution control? How would CBA apply to water pollution discharge permits that must include effluent limits that achieve water quality standards?

7. would you apply CBA in establishing drinking water, water quality, air quality, and soil cleanup standards?

8. would you apply CBA to determine pollution control requirements for industries that discharge pollutants to air and water?

9. would you apply CBA to natural resource management programs, like wetlands protection, open space, fish and wildlife, and coastal and ocean resources?

10. How would you apply CBA to chemical safety programs, like the Toxic Catastrophe Prevent Act program?  How would you balance industry compliance costs against the deaths that would occur in the event of a chemical accident?

According to my sources, Martin has a record of outsourcing and off-shoring US jobs, as well as privatization of government services and deregulation of public water systems and other government functions. Sources say that Martin’s firm Accenture, grew out of Arthur Anderson accounting collapse associated with the Enron scandal.

11. did you have any involvement in the Enron matter? Who were your energy industry clients? Will you have conflcuits with energy firms in NJ?

12. a source provided this important background information on Martin’s firm Accenture:

A small but critical part of the work that B.C. Hydro farmed out five years ago to Accenture — under orders from the Liberal government — is being “repatriated.”

The procurement function — buying all the goods and services the giant utility needs over the course of a year — was among the routine office functions outsourced to a local Accenture offshoot in 2003.

That was a $1.4-billion, multi-year arrangement that saw Hydro shed 1,500 direct jobs and was pitched as a cost-saver and potential money maker. Despite the touted benefits, it prompted a heated political argument.

Critics, including the opposition, the unions involved and even a Liberal MLA at the time saw it as the sneaky start to a privatization campaign. “ (see “Hydro retreats, a little, on outsourcing“)

Hmmmm…  from Tom Hester’s newjerseynewsroom.com article:

“Martin also has international experience. He lived in England from 1991 to 1995 and worked with several large UK water and electric utilities as the companies privatized and the markets deregulated. He also spent extensive time working with utility and energy companies throughout Europe and Canada.”

please describe your prior professional corporate work with respect to outsourcing jobs and privatization and/or deregulation of water systems.

13. would you support additional privatization and/or deregulation of DEP programs? If so, which ones?

14. would you support privatization of public water and sewer services?