Memo To Gov. Murphy – The “Green” Honeymoon Is Over

A First Step on A Path Forward To Implement Your Climate Promises

Gov. Florio’s Executive Order No. 8 Provides A Model

Not 6 months into his tenure, Gov. Murphy’s energy, climate and environmental policy agenda he campaigned on is in disarray and the Legislature has seized control.

I won’t rehash all the details in this post, but the Bergen Record’s recent scathing editorial “A string of losses for the environment” pretty much summed things up:

Big Corporate Polluters 2 — New Jersey, its people and its environment 0.

This is the score we might have expected were Gov. Chris Christie still in office.

On the environmental front, Gov. Murphy has yet to revoke Gov. Christie’s rollback Executive Orders #1 – 4 and Christie appointments still serve as Executive Directors of the Pinelands Commission and Highlands Council.

Murphy’s DEP Commissioner Catherine McCabe took 6 months to get confirmed. As we’ve been noting here, McCabe retained many Christie DEP managers and continuity with Christie DEP policies, and has done virtually nothing during her tenuous tenure other than issue press releases and PR stunts that echo Gov. Christie’s initiatives.

On energy policy, Senator Sweeney rammed a nuclear bailout bill through the legislature that seriously compromised the Gov.’s commitment to a 100% renewable energy pledge.

On climate policy, the Gov.’s policy agenda is limited to rejoining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (more on that soon) and directing BPU to revise the Christie Energy Master Plan to promote 3,500 MW of off shore wind.

Murphy has no governing experience and has surrounded himself with either recycled Corzine hacks or young staffers with no Trenton or regulatory experience. Instituitionalizing legislative control over Murphy’s DEP, Senate President Sweeney’s Legislative aide Eric Wachter was installed as DEP Chief Of Staff and Assemblyman McKeon’s legislative aide was installed as Director of DEP’s Office of Government Relations. (see DEP Org Chart)

In that leadership vacuum, the Pinelands pipeline is seeking DEP permit extensions, DEP decisions on controversial pipelines under Raritan Bay (Williams) and the Delaware watershed (PennEast) are pending, and a proposed new fossil fueled power plant on the banks of NJ’s finest trout stream in the heart of the NJ Highlands has emerged.

Given these awful developments, we thought this brief note on the mechanics of exercising Gubernatorial leadership might help.

Gov. Murphy probably does not know – and lame NJ environmental groups are certainly not letting him know – that former Gov. Florio, among others, provides stunning parallels and a directly relevant model to address the situation he faces right now.

Politically, like Gov. Murphy now faces on pipelines, energy, and climate, upon assuming office in 1990, Florio was faced with stiff environmental and public opposition to garbage incinerators.

On reversing prior policy, like Murphy inherited bad policies from Gov. Christie, Florio’s predecessor, the Kean Administration had promoted a pro-incineration policy. To implement that Kean policy,  DEP approved 21 County Solid Waste plans and incinerator permits for more than $3 billion of new incineration projects. These were all bond financed and/or approved by DEP and/or BPU. Worse, the legislature had effectively deregulated BPU economic review of incinerator procurement contracts to promote the industry (i.e the “McEnroe” law).

In terms of commitments, like Murphy, Florio had made promises to environmental groups – who had endorsed him in the campaign – to develop an aggressive solid waste policy that promoted recycling and discouraged incineration.

Florio not only had to reverse the Kean policy and use DEP power to over-rule and embarrass 21 County Freeholder boards, he had to claw back prior DEP planning, permitting and financing approvals – for $3 BILLION in investment.

This is actually MORE difficult to do than for Murphy to kill pending fossil infrastructure projects.

Here’s how Florio did that – and how Murphy can tackle very similar problems on energy infrastructure and climate policy.

On April 6, 1990 (well before Earth Day and in his administration’s “first 100 days”), Gov. Florio issued Executive Order #8, which established a “Emergency Solid Waste Task Force” and laid out a public planning process going forward. PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THING!

Here’s the core provision that put teeth in the policy:

4. During the Task Force’s deliberations over the next 120 days, the following shall apply:

a. The Department of Environmental Protection shall not issue a final approval of any solid waste management plan that sites increases the capacity of or approves financing for waste-to-energy resource recovery facilities;

b. The Department of Environmental Protection shall not issue a approval of Preliminary or Final Environmental and Health Impact Statements for any waste-to-energy resource recovery site or facility;

c. The Department of Environmental Protection shall not issue tentative or final approval of any solid waste facility engineering design now pending or hereafter submitted for any waste-to-energy resource recovery facilities;

d. The Department of Environmental Protection, the Board of Public Utilities and the Division of Local Government Services within the Department of Community Affairs shall not, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 13:1E-136 et seq., issue any approval or conditional approval of any previously submitted proposed contract for the design, financing, construction, operation or maintenance of a waste-to-energy resource recovery facility; and

e. No State agency, commission or organization shall approve the issuance of debt or extend financing to any person or entity for use in planning, designing, acquiring, constructing, operating or maintaining a waste-to-energy resource recovery facility.

Gov. Murphy could issue a similar Executive Order establishing an Emergency Climate Change and Energy Task Force tied to the BPU Energy Master Plan revision process and the DEP Climate mitigation and adaptation planning & regulatory process (including RGGI).

The Order could impose a moratorium on any DEP and BPU approvals of any fossil  energy infrastructure approvals, such as the Pinelands, PennEast and Williams pipeline and the recently proposed new gas plant in the Highlands.

Problem solved.

So why aren’t NJ’e environmental groups advocating this aggressive approach?

That is more than ironic, as they celebrate Gov. Byrne’s Pinelands legacy. Byrne used Executive power to force the Legislature to pass the Pinelands Act. Similarly, Gov. Kean used Exetuvie power to force passage of the Freshwater Wetlands Act. And Gov. McGreevey created a Highlands Task Force that was used to forge the Highlands Act.

The climate crisis if far more serious than the solid waste crisis that Florio inherited.

We call  on Gov. Murphy to step up and follow the path of his predecessors.

[Full disclosure: as a disloyal whistleblowing DEP bureaucrat, I was directly involved in the development of the Floio EO #8. Despite being requested to staff the Taskforce effort by the Gov.’s Office, I was blocked from participating by my DEP managers. Regardless, I was insubordinate and provided much of the technical analysis and backup data the Taskforce relied on and that formed future DEP Solid Waste Plan. As they say that all good deeds go unpunished, I receive formal discipline by DEP managers (a 1 week suspension) for that work.]