NJ League Of Conservation Voters Gets Grant Funded To Fix Huge Blunder on Natural Resource Damages

Yesterday, I ripped off a rant about the Environmental Endowment for NJ [EENJ].

I just updated that post, but now realize that the update needs to be a stand alone post.

This particular EENJ grant to NJ LCV really needs to be exposed – for it perfectly illustrates how incompetent, deceptive, and essentially corrupt these folks are:

17.   New Jersey League of Conservation Voters Education Fund  ($15,000) Trenton, New Jersey: to advance an agenda that protects and enhances the state’s water quality in key regions of the Garden State with three priority issues:  1) NRD Constitutional Amendment, 2) Releasing the Water Supply Master Plan (WSMP), and 3) Establishing Stormwater Utilities.

The EENJ funding for the Natural Resource Damage [NRD Constitutional Amendment] campaign is an outrageous deception and fraud.

Let me explain why. Bear with me, this is complicated and requires context and a brief historical excursion.

First of all, keep in mind that NJ LCV was one of the chief supporters and spokespersons for the Open Space Ballot Question.

As the public just learned, the open space ballot question diverted $32 million per year previously dedicated to State Parks maintenance.

Also keep in mind that the long ignored DEP Natural Resource Damage [NRD] program recently came to the attention of the media, public, Legislature, and environmental groups in response to the Christie DEP’s paltry $225 million sweetheart deal with Exxon.

Just like the State Parks diversion disaster, very few people understand that the open space issue is related to the NRD issue.

Specifically, the original draft of the open space legislation, Senator Smith’s bill, explicitly INCLUDED dedication of NRD money.

Amazingly, NJ LCV and the Keep It Green Coalition OPPOSED inclusion of NRD money in the Open Space bill. As a result, the NRD money was deleted from the open space bill that authorized the ballot question.

The idiots at NJ LCV and KIG made a huge mistake. As I wrote during the open space debate:

The KIG coalition does not want the public to know that – to know that in addition to stealing the entire State Parks capital budget, that they also stole the lease and concession money.

And they also don’t want the public to figure out what a HUGE mistake they made by opposing dedication of Natural Resource Damage (NRD) settlement funds and expanding that NRD dedication to ALL cost recovery and enforcement settlement agreement funds.

The original introduced version of SCR84 included the NRD funds dedication. That provision could have been expanded by a simple amendment. Instead of seeking that amendment, the KIG fools OPPOSED IT ALL!

As I again wrote:

Earlier in the day, the Assembly Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the $225 million Exxon Natural Resource Damage (NRD) settlement.

Jeff Tittel was the only person who connected the dots.

Tittel correctly reminded legislators that Natural Resource Damage (NRD) settlement revenues were dedicated in the original version of the open space initiative and that Keep It Green opposed that and had the NRD revenues deleted from the final version of the Resolution that authorized the November open space ballot dedication.

But it is even worse than a huge blunder – the real reason why the KIG and NJ LCV opposed dedication of NRD money was self serving: Mike Catania had long been involved in DEP NRD Settlements and had allocated tons of NRD money to various NJ conservation groups. As I wrote:

Even more aggressively, the “entrepreneurial conservation” model is defined and proudly laid out in excruciating detail by Mike Catania, who explains the “business model” of his creation: Conservation Resources, Inc. (see: ** “A Ten- Year Journey: Conservation Resources’ Final Report):

“We would also like to acknowledge the handful of farsighted regulators who were open to CRI’s role in matching those members of the regulated community who needed to fund a conservation project in order to satisfy a regulatory requirement with a non profit organization or local government seeking funding for an appropriate project. For their part, the regulated community and their legal advisors and consultants instinctively “got” CRI’s role and welcomed this new way to comply with New Jersey’s stringent environmental regulatory requirements.”

[**Note: To cover his tracks, Catania killed the link to his own self congratulatory Report:“A Ten- Year Journey: Conservation Resources’ Final Report) – just more evidence that these folks are corrupt.]

Dedication of that NRD money to the Open Space program would cut them out of this funding source. As I wrote:

Curious also that given Mr. Catania’s entrepreneurial experience with the DEP NRD program, that the KIG OPPOSED the initial version of the SCR84, which would have dedicated Natural Resource Damage recoveries to the new open space fund. That provision could have been amended to capture all cost recovery settlements and provided significant new funds. But the provision was stripped from the final version, SCR84 SCS.

For them now to fund themselves for a campaign to correct their huge blunder is ABSURD and CORRUPT.