“This content has been removed and is no longer available”
DEP flushes climate change down Orwell’s “memory hole”
DEP has been totally politicized in a gross abuse of power
[Update – 12/12/15 – DEP inserted a brand new webpage – very likely in response to our criticism. DEP website now displays this when you hit the Climate Change link
http://www.nj.gov/dep/aqes/adapting.html – end update]
Although this may sound like another Yes Man stunt, sadly it is true.
If you go to the NJ Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) website and click on the “Climate Change” link (see left hand column), here’s what you get:
The DEP took down many climate change related documents, including a legislatively mandated DEP Report on recommendations to implement the Global Warming Response Act, historical documents related to NJ’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) before Governor Christie unilaterally withdrew NJ from RGGI, and DEP’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory, and DEP’s now defunct former Office of Climate Change and Energy, among other important public scientific and regulatory documents.
It is obvious that DEP took down these documents to avoid embarrassment of Governor Christie and DEP Commissioner Martin, in the wake of Christie’s “climate change is not a crisis” comments.
The documents would show that Christie’s own DEP has concluded that climate change is in fact a crisis.
Based on those Christie comments, I recently called for DEP Commissioner Bob Martin to resign.
Obviously, if intrepid campaign reporters in New Hampshire or Iowa were do discover those DEP documents, they could accuse Gov. Christie of ignoring the recommendations of his own DEP state scientists.
That would put Commissioner Bob Martin in a political hotseat.
So, to avoid that and protect the Governor politically, Martin chose to simply take down public documents and DEP scientific and regulatory Reports and recommendations.
That is an unprecedented and outrageous suppression of science and public information that can not go unchallenged.
But while the Christie DEP has scrubbed the website of all the historical climate science and regulatory documents, they have created an entirely new page and link to political documents supporting DEP’s lawsuit again the Obama Clean Power Plan.
Where is the NJ media? Where are NJ Legislators? Where are environmental groups?