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Bill WolfeGovernor Jon Corzine

Corzine Administration Caves on Governor’s Signature Environmental Issue
Chemical Industry “Commends” DEP for Voluntary Rules
Despite Governor Corzine’s repeated campaign pledges to mandate new strong chemical plant safety rules, the Department of Environmental Protection has adopted voluntary chemical plant safety regulations, according to internal agency documents posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). These state rules were warmly praised by the chemical industry and condemned by unions representing plant workers in formal comments.
Promulgated under the state’s Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act, the rules were supposed to implement Governor Jon Corzine’s pledge to require the use of “inherently safer technology” (IST) to prevent catastrophic chemical accidents or acts of terrorism at an estimated 100 chemical plants throughout the state. Widely praised by environmental and labor groups, IST is supposed to require that industry adopt practices eliminating use of dangerous chemicals so as to reduce risks.
The regulations, which will appear in the next New Jersey Register, the state’s official legal publication, have three major weaknesses that are drawing criticism:
1) Implementation of IST is voluntary. The rules only require industry to conduct an IST review but do not require industry to take any action based on that review;
2) The IST reviews are deemed secret and therefore not subject to public or worker scrutiny; and
3) The chemical industry is allowed to base IST feasibility decisions on economic grounds, thus subjugating public health and safety to industry profit margins.
“‘Inherently safer technologies’ was supposed to be the most effective solution for managing the safety, security, and health risk associated with chemical plants, but what New Jersey produced is only a faint echo of what should have been enacted,” stated New Jersey PEER Director Bill Wolfe. “This is like the IRS requiring people to fill out tax forms but making actual payment of taxes voluntary.”
Not surprisingly, the Chemistry Council, representing industry, submitted comments in which it “commends the Department for not mandating the implementation of IST in this rule proposal and limiting the scope of IST to completing reviews…” By contrast, the New Jersey State Industrial Union Council, representing plant workers, blasted the secrecy of the IST reports.
As the nation’s most densely populated state with a large petrochemical industry, New Jersey has been in the national spotlight on chemical plant safety. Reflecting fears of stringent state regulation, the chemical industry recently battled in Congress to block states from going beyond minimum federal Homeland Security requirements. That battle allegedly ended in December with a mixed result.
“Experience has shown that voluntary compliance does not work, and due to the huge stakes, chemical safety is the last program that should be made voluntary,” added Wolfe, pointing to studies showing that a chemical accident or terrorism event at even one of 15 chemical plants could kill more than 100,000 people who live nearby. “If New Jersey’s chemical plant safety rules are going to be this weak, why should anyone care if they are preempted?”
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Read the new chemical plant rules
http://www.nj.gov/dep/rules/adoptions/adopt_080505a.pdf
Read the PEER analysis of those rules
http://blog.nj.com/njv_bill_wolfe/2007/12/chemical_plant_safety_decision.html
Look at the praise from the chemical industry
http://www.peer.org/docs/nj/08_13_5_chem_industry_letter.pdf
View the State Industrial Union Council objections
http://www.peer.org/docs/nj/08_13_5_union_letter.pdf
Revisit the Corzine campaign pledge for “tough mandatory” chemical plant rules
http://www.corzineforgovernor.com/i/pdf/plan_environment.pdf
New Jersey PEER is a state chapter of a national alliance of state and federal agency resource professionals working to ensure environmental ethics and government accountability.

“NJ schools are intensely segregated along racial and class lines. The concentration of poverty is extreme. In Abbott districts, racial minorities makeup 90-95% of enrollments and students classified as in poverty represent 90-93%“
David Sciarra, Education Law Center

Bill WolfeAvery Grant, Long Branch, moderated

The South Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance (SJEJA) held a statewide conference on “The Crisis of Building Schools on Contaminated Sites and Unhealthy Schools in New Jersey” last Saturday at Thomas Edison College in Trenton.
The event focused on huge disparities in educational opportunity and the disproportionate environmental health threats that urban and minority children face at school.
The Conference featured special guest speaker Lois Gibbs, the nationally recognized upstate NY “housewife” who founded the anti toxics movement based on her family experience at the notorious “Love Canal”.

Bill WolfeRoy Jones, Co-Chair, SJEJA

Remarkably, the NJ School Construction Corporation (abolished and reestablished as the School Development Authority) has spent hundreds of millions of dollars of educational funds intended to benefit disadvantaged black children on acquisition of contaminated land and construction of schools on toxic waste sites, including Superfund sites. Such a practice would not be tolerated and never happen in wealthy suburban white school districts. Here’s a link to the video of the presentation by SJEJA Co-Chair Roy Jones (thanks to Peter Montague for shooting and sharing video):
http://www.motionbox.com/video/player/a098dfb9121fe328/

Bill WolfeDavid Sciarra, Director, Education Law Center, legal champion of the “Abbott v. Burke” equitable school funding decision

David Sciarra spoke about the continuing challenges facing Abbott districts. He emphasized the need for additional $2.5 billion in school construction funding and the gross segregation and concentration of poverty in the Abbott school districts.
Lois Gibbs was astonished that – 30 years after the tragedy of Love Canal where a community was built on top of a toxic chemical waste dump – that she was speaking in NJ (of all places) to oppose construction of new schools on landfills and toxic waste sites. Gibbs explained how government policies based on cost benefit analysis and risk assessment decide who lives and who dies. “The system is set up to keep us from winning… The results of cost benefit analysis really mean that poor and working class people don’t matter. We are expendable.” she said.

Bill WolfeLois Gibbs, of “Love Canal” fame, Director of the Center for Health, Justice and Environment

Bill WolfeDr. Peter Montague, longtime anti-toxics activist, founder of Rachel’s Hazardous Waste News, and nationally recognized proponent of the Precautionary Principle

Peter Montague, longtime anti-toxics advocate, presented recent scientific findings about health effects of industrial chemicals, which have shown to mimic hormones and impact human growth and reproduction at extremely low levels. He highlighted the ned for a precautionary approach. This would put the burden on the chemical industry to show reasonable evidence of no harm before marketing and introducing chemicals into the environment.

Bill WolfeDr. A.S. Mahdi Ibn Ziyad, Congressional candidate in NJ’s First District, environmental justice activist, teacher and adjunct professor

Dr. Ziyad spoke of the need for social and economic change to promote justice – he is a candidate for Congress in NJ’s 1st Congressional District. He emphasized that one of his platform priorities in environmental justice.

Bill WolfeAlgernon Ward, chemist adn community activist, Trenton

Algernon Ward presented a case study of successful community organizing to block construction of the Martin Luther King Jr. school in Trenton. Toxic soils were imported to the site and used as “clean fill”. The outraged community organized and forced the SCC to demolish the partially built structure ($27 million loss) and cleanup the site before building a new school there.

Spew the Big Lie that environmental protection hampers housing market – Builders attack clean water and toxic site cleanup safeguards

Bill WolfeFat cat lobbyists for the NJ Builders Association – the $600 suits – hog the front row before the Senate Legislative Oversight Committee hearing.
That Pastoral Mural in background is ironic, no?

In an orchestrated attack that played on real economic hardship, lobbyists for NJ Builders Association lashed out at the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and clean water and toxic site cleanup regulations, before a Senate Legislative Oversight panel today in Trenton.
The spectacle was understandable, given economic distress over the recession in the home construction industry, caused by the home loan mortgage crisis and the bursting home equity bubble. But – even by Trenton’s dog and pony standards – the Builders’ show hit an all time low. So low in fact, that only 3 members of the Committee even showed up for the hearing – the no shows distancing themselves by avoiding the embarrassment [Note: error – the Cmte. has 5 members, only Sen. Lesniak was absent].

Bill WolfeHomebuilders – real people, not the $600 suits crowd – are shunted off to the side and rear meeting rooms at today’s hearing.

In rhetoric unhinged from science, fact, or law, the Builders’ lobbyists attempted to make DEP and environmental regulations the scapegoat for the current economic recession. But the smear backfired, and in the process, the Builders’ lobbyists destroyed what little credibility they had. Their efforts were ineffective and a disservice to the little guys that make up the dues paying membership of the NJ Builders Association.
Here’s the story (listen to the full May 1 hearing here: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/media/archive_audio2.asp?KEY=SLO&SESSION=2008

DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson and Larry Baier, Director Of Watershed management, brief the Senate Legislative Oversight Committee on water quality management planning rules (AKA “swer rules”).

DEP recently proposed two sets of regulations. The first, known as “sewer rules” are designed to protect water quality from sewer plant discharge and the impacts of development: http://www.nj.gov/dep/rules/proposals/052107a.pdf. The other, the “soil cleanup criteria” set minimum standards for toxic site cleanups to protect public health: http://www.nj.gov/dep/rules/proposals/050707a.pdf
Environmental advocates have criticized both rules as political compromises that are far too weak to address NJ’s toxic industrial legacy, assure clean water, curtail NJs overwhelming sprawl development pattern, or revitalize and cleanup NJ’s most disadvantaged urban communities.http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=832
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=910
Under the NJ Constitution, the Legislature has power to oversee regulations adopted by State Agencies, and may veto those regulations legally deemed “inconsistent with legislative intent”. Today’s oversight hearing focused on two DEP rules, the so called “sewer rules” and toxic site cleanup soil and groundwater standards.
At the outset of the hearing, Committee Chairman Sarlo made it clear that the hearing focus was NOT on a Legislative veto to strike down the DEP rules as inconsistent with legislative intent, and NOT a forum to bash DEP. To his credit, Sarlo was well prepared and substantively questioned DEP staff and environmental groups. At the same time, playing both sides of the fence, he teed up softball criticisms for the builders lobby.

Bill WolfeSenator Nia Gill (D/Essex) asked tough questions of builders lobbyists.

Republican Senators Cardinale (R/Bergen) and Kyrillos (R/Monmouth) complained the DEP rules were “too complicated to understand” – but they both admitted that they had not even read the rules. In shameful pandering, both Kyrillos and Cardinale drank the cool-aid and criticized the DEP for harming the econony. Kyrillos claimed the rules “may not be workable” because they “look like Chinese – or Hebrew – something I don’t even understand” (without having even read them!).

Bill WolfeSenator Paul Sarlo (D/Bergen) Chairman was careful to emphasize that hearing was not intended to “bash DEP” or exercise the Constitutional Legislative Veto power

The most thoughtful questions of the day came from Senator Nia Gill (D/Essex) who observed that the national economic recession was the cause of the problem. She asked Builders to document the claim that DEP regulations harmed the construction industry. Rejecting Builders’ attacks and defending environmental safeguards, Gill cut straight to the core:
“Command and control to me is as important as certainty is for the development industry”. Later, crystalizing the real policy conflicts, Gill said “What may be unacceptable to investors may be necessary to protect public health in my communities.”.

Bill WolfePanel representing NJ Builders Association

In over the top testimony, the Builders Association claimed that the DEP water quality and toxic site cleanup rules would cause “a devastating downward spiral” leading to a “full blown recession”. Yet they offered not one shred of evidence to support these claims or any legal analysis to support a claim that the DEP regulations were not authorized by or inconsistent with legislative intent. 

Bill WolfeNJ Business and Industry Association lobbyist joins Builders’ attack on clean water and toxic site cleanup environmental safeguards

The only surprise of the day was the support of the NJ Business and Industry Association (the Chamber of Commerce sat this one out). It was a surprise that NJBIA affiliated themselves with gross exaggerations and falsehoods, including the economic recession claims, and absolutely false scare tactics that the rules would impose a “development moratorium”.
This reckless rhetoric does not advance sound public policy.

Bill Wolfe

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