As US Supreme Court And Trump Dismantling Proceeds, Will NJ Learn Lessons?

The NJ Constitution mandates retirement of Supreme Court justices at age 70.

Three of the current Justices are now 65 or older, which means that the next NJ Governor likely will have 3 judicial slots to fill, including replacement of current Chief Justice Rabner, who has served on the Court for 18 years (since 2007).

Curiously, Trump had 3 US Supreme Court appointments (plus many more federal District and Appellate Court appointments), an ideological reshaping of the Supreme Court made possible in part by failure of Ruth Bader Ginsberg to retire before she died in Office. So things happen.

I recently wrote about how right wing legal doctrines that have been effective in the federal Courts in terms of dismantling environmental regulations are now being deployed in State Courts.

This could be an organized strategy, similar to the Koch Brothers’ American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) attack on State legislation.

The national and NJ Democrats took big hits in the ’24 election.

Trenton politics might change dramatically around January 2026 when a new NJ Governor is sworn in – very possibly a Republican.

As we can witness with the Trump Regime’s assault, Big Things can change very fast.

If people aren’t planning for how to prevent this, then they’re bigger fools than I imagined.

Senator McKeon is quietly seeking to raise the mandatory retirement age to 72 (see SCR 46).

But that is just one small part of the larger problems we’ve seen exposed by Trump (e.g. Executive Orders, impoundment of funds, dismantling of federal agencies, firing watchdogs and thousands of civil servants and experts, scientific gag orders, et al).

A comprehensive strategy is required.

And even McKeon’s minor move (SCR 46) has been stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee for over a year and without a hearing, so Democrats have not made this issue a priority.

When will they ever learn?

Welcome To The Reich

[Update: Judge in US District Court in Rhode Island just found Trump administration had violated the prior restraining Order blocking the funding freeze. The Court noted criminal liability for defying Court orders. The judge ordered Trump to restore frozen funding. Good sign from the Court, but really bad sign that Trump openly defied a Court order. ~~~ end update]

Will The Judiciary Survive?

“Vice President J.D. Vance, who would take over the office of the presidency if the 78-year-old Trump can no longer perform the duties of the office, posted: “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

• Congress’ legislative and purse powers already gone.
• War power may be next.
• Media dismantling and replacement 60% complete.
• Science and information suppression 75% complete.
• Universities muzzled.
• Dissent effectively intimidated and largely suppressed.
• Internet under control by Trumpian algorithms.
• Foreign institutions dismantled.

NJ Democrats Failed To Educate Voters And Take Steps To Prevent Trump Rollbacks BEFORE The election

They Are Now Offering Up A Fake “Resistance”

[Update: 2/13/25 – As usual, NJ Spotlight’s story gives NJ officials a pass. I give the guy the story and still get screwed! ~~~ end update]

The DEP and the AG are issuing MISLEADING and false press releases designed to create the appearance that they anticipated and are fighting the Trump attacks.

As far as I know, the Legislature has done nothing.

The Governor has made vague press statements but no specific commitments, at least regarding environmental, climate, and energy issues.

The administration is consistently caught flat footed and reacting to events. And the reactions are ineffective. DEP’s responses also have diverted attention from their failures as well.

If this lame cat and mouse fake resistance is allowed to pass muster with the NJ environmental community and media, we are surely doomed.

The Murphy Administration – via recent press releases issued by the Attorney General (AG) and Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) – is creating the false impression that they are fighting Trump attacks on core environmental and climate laws, regulations, and programs – including Trump’s takedown of Governor Murphy’s off shore wind program, the foundation of the administration’s renewable energy and climate strategy.

The cynical game they are playing was made obvious by a press release issued by DEP on electric vehicle (EV) grant funding, which was issued the day after Trump’s Department Of Transportation ordered a freeze on the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program created under President Biden’s 2021 Infrastructure Investment And Jobs Act.

The EV echo was not the first.

So let’s trace the pattern (in reverse chronological order):

I) Trump EV Freeze And DEP Response

On Thursday February 6, 2025, Trump’s Department of Transportation issued the following Order to State Transportation Departments. The Order froze funding and mandates a new federal policy review of State EV infrastructure programs:

• Suspending Approval of State Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment Plans

NJ was provided $82,182,866 in FY 22 – 25 under the NEVI program.

According to federal DOT NEVI data, NJ has not opened ANY (ZERO) EV charging stations funded by that $82 million federal NEVI funding.

Repeat: no EV charging stations opened with $82 million in federal NEVI funds.

On Friday February 7, 2025, DEP issued this press release:

• MURPHY ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCES AVAILABILITY OF $35 MILLION FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT VEHICLE ELECTRIFICATION PROJECTS

TRENTON – The Murphy Administration today announced the availability of $35 million in grants to help local governments electrify their shuttle, school bus and truck fleets to protect public health and the environment, leveraging proceeds from New Jersey’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

The DEP press release does NOT mention the Trump NEVI freeze.

The DEP press release does NOT mention the $82 million in NEVI funding that was frozen or the fact that NJ has opened ZERO EV charging stations with all that money.

Instead, the DEP diverts attention to the RGGI funding – about a third of NEVI funding – and other EV programs. Yet charging stations are the crucial factor in overcoming a lack of consumer confidence in the EV technology.

I am calling BS on the DEP for this misleading garbage.

[Update 2/10/25: Judge in US District Court in Rhode Island just found Trump administration had violated the prior restraining Order blocking the funding freeze. The Court noted criminal liability for defying Court orders. The judge ordered Trump to restore frozen funding. NJ is a plaintiff in this lawsuit. Good sign from the Court, but really bad sign that Trump openly defied a Court order. ~~~ end update]

II)  Trump’s Dismantling Of NOAA, FEMA, And Climate Adaptation Programs And DEP’s Response

On January 20, 2025, Trump issued a barrage of radical and illegal Executive Orders, which among other things, included the dismantling of NOAA and FEMA, a freeze on federal grant funding, and elimination of existing federal climate adaptation programs.

On Tuesday February 4, 2025, DEP issued this press release:

• NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION GRANTS BRING FEDERAL FUNDING FOR RESILIENT NJ PROGRAM TO $26.5 MILLION SINCE 2021

TRENTON – Recent coastal ecosystem-restoration grants to Sayreville and Long Beach Township through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s National Coastal Resilience Fund have brought federal funding for communities participating in the state’s innovative Resilient NJ program to $26.5 million since 2021, Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette announced today.

While the DEP press release does mention federal funding (a pittance of $26.5 million and is backdated to 2021 explicitly to reflect the Biden administration), it does NOT mention any of the Trump Executive Order attacks on what DEP calls “Resilience” programs!!!!!!!

WTF kind of lame diversion is that?

III) Trump’s Project 2025 Executive Orders To “Dismantle The Administrative State” (and put the final nail in the coffin of Murphy’s Off Shore Wind Program) And The NJ AG and DEP Response

On January 20, 2025 Inauguration Day, Trump issued a barrage of illegal and radical Executive Orders, including Orders that, among other things, killed Governor Murphy’s off shore wind program and energy policies that threaten NJ’s coast while destroying any gains of DEP’s climate programs and BPU’s Energy Master Plan.

So, what was the Murphy Administration’s strategy and response?

I’ll remind readers that 15 months BEFORE the election, on July 28, 2023, I warned the DEP Commissioner and Legislators about the implications of Project 2025 and a Trump administration, urging that they:

I strongly urge you to get out in front of and do everything within your power to derail this freight train. This includes a strong public defense and expansion of regulatory programs, which is something both you and Gov. Murphy consistently either fail to defend or overtly run away from (“we’re not mandating ….” et al).

This warning was ignored.

I repeated this warning after the election, on November 13, 2024:

• Despite Being Warned, NJ Democrats, Environmental Groups, And Media Totally Ignored The Threat of Trump’s Project 2025

So, what did the Murphy AG and DEP do AFTER the election to prevent damage from Trump’s hostile takeover?

On January 17, 2025 the AG issued this press release, (which was re-issued by DEP on January 21, 2025, the day AFTER Trump’s Inauguration and series of Executive Orders:

• AG Platkin Files Actions to Protect and Defend Federal Environmental Regulations from Legal Attack

TRENTON – Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin today announced three actions to defend key federal environmental protections that protect the health of all New Jerseyans. These filings come at a time when the incoming Trump Administration has threatened to reverse science-based regulations that protect clean air and water.

While appearing to challenge the Trump administration, this press release is a fraud and it is lame as well.

First the fraud.

The three actions mentioned by the AG press release DO NOT INVOLVE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACTIONS. They were taken by the Biden EPA before Trump was elected.

The first is only an amicus brief in support of an (EPA) Final Rule establishing nationwide drinking water standards for certain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Trump has since withdrawn that rule.

The AG’s amicus brief is lame and ineffective.

The second AG action is equally lame and ineffective: a motion to intervene to defend an EPA Final Rule to strengthen the standards for lead in drinking water under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Trump EPA Administrator Zeldin has suspended that litigation.

The third is New Jersey joining a coalition of other states and local governments are asking to intervene in lawsuits to defend California’s Clean Air Act waiver for several vehicle emissions regulations.

Trump tried to block that lawsuit as well, but the US Supreme Court just stopped him.

The AG’s press release certainly served to highlight important issues, but it accomplished nothing substantively.

Governor Murphy has already lost his keystone off shore wind program, a large chunk of his EV program, his entire climate resilience and emissions reduction programs, his Energy Master Plan, and many, many other core elements of NJ’s environmental and public health protection program to the Trump attack.

I’ve been calling on State officials to develop a political, legislative and regulatory strategy to insulate NJ from Trump’s attacks for almost 2 years now.

Yet all I hear out of Trenton is crickets and cowards.

[End Note: Over the last 4 years, the Murphy DEP has issued numerous partisan press releases touting distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars of Biden – Harris infrastructure money to various NJ projects.

Trump has impounded all that money and frozen or dismantled all those programs.

Why can’t DEP just go back and consolidate all those prior releases into a Report on the devastating impacts of Trump’s dismantling?

NJ Environmental Laws Are Vulnerable To Similar Challenge

Legislators Urged To Shield NJ Laws From The Trump Dismantling

You don’t have to be a lawyer to see what is going on. None of this is a secret. The strategy is right out in the open and successfully has been underway for several years.

It is equally obvious that Democrats and environmental groups have been very slow to respond.

Trump and right wing corporate interests have long sought to “dismantle the administrative state”, and the Trump administration is now in the process of doing so through a series of illegal Executive Orders.

One of the legal tools that they have used to block environmental (and other) regulations are lawsuits in federal courts which wind their way to the right wing US Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has struck down many critical EPA regulations on climate, clean air, and clean water.

To kill these regulations, the current Supreme Court has relied on reinterpretations of legal doctrines and precedents, including reversal of “Chevron deference” to administrative agencies; revival of the pre New Deal “non-delegation doctrine”; and manufacture of a new “major questions” doctrine.

The Supreme Court, in 2022, used the “major questions” doctrine to kill EPA climate regulations (West Virginia v. EPA, 142 S. Ct. 2587) (a federal District Court struck down EPA environmental justice regulations on that basis was well).

It now looks like the same corporate interests and right wing legal attacks are being deployed at the State level.

A lawsuit just filed by developers in Arizona against State water supply regulations illustrates that strategy in action, see: HOME BUILDERS ASSOCIATION OF CENTRAL ARIZONA vs. ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF WATER RESOURCES

The Arizona water supply regulations require that developers demonstrate adequate water supply to meet the water demand of new development. These kind of regulations should have been enacted decades ago, because common sense says you don’t build in the desert where there’s no water, see:

• The American Dream (Water Not Included)

NJ DEP long has had similar regulations, pursuant to the 1981 NJ Water Supply Management Act.

The Arizona Builders legal attack asserts claims that echo federal attacks on the “administrative state” that rely on the “major questions” doctrine (emphases mine):

“12……. [the regulation] is not specifically authorized by statute, and that is therefore invalid under Arizona law. See, e.g., A.R.S. § 41-1030.

13. Neither of the Invalid Assured Water Supply Rules is specifically authorized by statute as required by Arizona law.

14. This challenge is brought pursuant to the Arizona Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), A.R.S. Title 41, Chap. 6.

[15. – 59]

60. On January 13, 2025, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, in her State of the State address, discussed her assured water supply program and stated, “As I said when Istood before you last year, we must act now to protect Arizona’s water. And when the Legislature did not, I did. … [M]ark my words, if this Legislature fails to act. I will … Again,” or words to that effect. Transcript: Governor Hobbs 2025 State of the State Address, Office of Gov. Katie Hobbs (Jan. 13, 2025).2

Very few, if any, NJ State environmental laws “specifically authorize” specific NJ DEP regulations. Instead, the NJ laws delegate broad power to DEP to use their expertise to flesh out broad legislative goals, vague standards, and policies. Similarly, NJ’s Administrative Procedure Act is silent on these questions. Thus, NJ DEP regulations (and many others) are highly vulnerable to attack under the “major questions” doctrine.

As I just wrote to warn NJ Legislators (Senate Environment Committee Chairman Bob Smith and members of his Committee):

Although NJ courts have not currently embraced this right wing “major questions” doctrine, the future is up for grabs. It is almost certain that such legal attacks will be filed in NJ. NJ’s environmental laws are vulnerable to this kind of legal challenge.

Accordingly, to preempt this kind of attack, I strongly urge you to enact legislative amendments to the NJ Administrative Procedure Act.

I’m not holding my breath for them to move a bill, but maybe the Trump assault has at least woken them up! (no pun intended).

Trump Is A Full On Fascist

(Caption: “Dog Democracy”, posted on February 19, 2017. Shortly after, I hit the road for a massive 7 year western adventure! Luckily, I missed the first Trump term as well as COVID)

Some of us have been warning about the Trump Fascist threat for a long time.

Among the many posts on Trump’s fascist project, I think this one had the clearest headline:

• It Not Only CAN Happen Here, It IS HAPPENING Here

We noted that it became official on Inauguration Day, see:

• Trump Just Declared Himself Dictator – “L’État, C’est Moi”

Maybe now that a prominent Yale historian has recognized the Trump – Musk Fascist regime as engaged in a “coup”, the mainstream press and institutions that are critical to civil society and democracy will wake up to the threat and get into the streets.

I post the text of Mr. Synder’s Substack complete post below, without permission. Sue me.

Of course it’s a coup

Miss the obvious, lose your republic

TIMOTHY SNYDER

FEB 05, 2025

Imagine if it had gone like this.

Ten Tesla cybertrucks, painted in camouflage colors with a giant X on each roof, drive noisily through Washington DC. Tires screech. Out jump a couple of dozen young men, dressed in red and black Devil’s Champion armored costumes. After giving Nazi salutes, they grab guns and run to one government departmental after another, calling out slogans like “all power to Supreme Leader Skibidi Hitler.”

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Historically, that is what coups looked like. The center of power was a physical place. Occupying it, and driving out the people who held office, was to claim control. So if a cohort of armed men with odd symbols had stormed government buildings, Americans would have recognized that as a coup attempt.

And that sort of coup attempt would have failed.

Now imagine that, instead, the scene goes like this.

A couple dozen young men go from government office to government office, dressed in civilian clothes and armed only with zip drives. Using technical jargon and vague references to orders from on high, they gain access to the basic computer systems of the federal government. Having done so, they proceed to grant their Supreme Leader access to information and the power to start and stop all government payments.

That coup is, in fact, happening. And if we do not recognize it for what it is, it could succeed.

In the third decade of the twenty first century, power is more digital than physical. The buildings and the human beings are there to protect the workings of the computers, and thus the workings of the government as a whole, in our case an (in principle) democratic government which is organized and bounded by a notion of individual rights.

The ongoing actions by Musk and his followers are a coup because the individuals seizing power have no right to it. Elon Musk was elected to no office and there is no office that would give him the authority to do what he is doing. It is all illegal. It is also a coup in its intended effects: to undo democratic practice and violate human rights.

In gaining data about us all, Musk has trampled on any notion of privacy and dignity, as well as on the explicit and implicit agreements made with our government when we pay our taxes or our student loans. And the possession of that data enables blackmail and further crimes.

In gaining the ability to stop payments by the Department of the Treasury, Musk would also make democracy meaningless. We vote for representatives in Congress, who pass laws that determine how our tax money is spent. If Musk has the power to halt this process at the level of payment, he can make laws meaningless. Which means, in turn, that Congress is meaningless, and our votes are meaningless, as is our citizenship.

Resistance to the coup is the defense of the human against the digital and the democratic against the oligarchic. If Musk controls these digital systems, Republican elected officials will be just as helpless as Democratic ones. The institutions that they voted to create can also be “deleted,” as Musk puts it.

President Trump, for that matter, will also perform at Musk’s pleasure. There is not much he can do without the use of the federal government’s computers. No one will explain this to Trump or to his supporters, of course.

A coup is underway, against Americans as possessors of human rights and dignities, and against Americans as citizens of a democratic republic. Each hour this goes unrecognized makes the success of the coup more likely.