Tag: environment

Republicans may have doneenvironmentalists a favor

U.S. Senate Republicans have blocked efforts by the Democratic majority to move climate change legislation to the full Senate floor.

Democrats are portraying the maneuver as an example of Republican recalcitrance on climate change — a point on which they are correct — but the failure of the bill is not the defeat that the majority is making it out to be.

Before anyone writes me to complain that I’m some kind of oil-company stooge, I’m not denying climate change — on the contrary, we are at a crisis point on global warming. But the bill on the table — sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) — was far weaker than was necessary to effect real change.

According to The Washington Post, the bill

would have introduced a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases as part of provisions to cut emissions linked to global warming nearly 70 percent by 2050.

That’s not enough, according to many in the environmental community:

The bill aimed to stabilize atmospheric carbon concentrations at 488 parts per million, rather than at 350 parts per million, which climate scientists such as NASA’s James E. Hansen see as necessary.

“Any bill that does not set us on track to reduce atmospheric carbon levels to 350 parts per million is wishful and dangerous thinking,” wrote Kierán Suckling, of the Center for Biological Diversity, in an e-mail. “We’re thankful the bill was introduced, but more thankful that it did not pass.”

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Green v. Green

The Assembly Housing and Local Government Committee has approved legislation that would extend the permits of stalled building projects for up to six years, a bill at odds with environmental stewardship.

Called the Permit Extension Act, the proposal would extend for six years all permits and approvals given to developers by the state and local governments — even those that have expired. It would enable projects permitted in past years but stalled for financial reasons to avoid having to comply with subsequent changes in environmental law, public health standards, building codes or local zoning.

Supporters — which include builders and labor — are calling this necessary to protect builders during the downturn, with one of its sponsors, Assemblyman Louis Greenwald, D-Camden, having described it in May as “part of an economic stimulus package.”

“We want to be more competitive with neighboring states like Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, where business is going to. This is no different than other permit extensions in the past when we faced similar recessions. It is designed to help stimulate the economy and vital to the financial recovery from the doldrums we are currently in.”

Assemblyman Joe Cryan, D-Union, said earlier today,

“The expiration of permits can have a devastating impact on our building and construction industries and the thousands of jobs they support,” said Cryan (D-Union). “Without this relief, it could cost business tens of millions of dollars for re-permitting. Allowing already approved projects to go ahead once the economy turns around will send a strong message to businesses that we want them to stay in New Jersey.”

I’m not convinced. Builders, who bet on the economy when they set out to develop a property are protected by their permits and board approvals for the life of those approvals. The idea is that they should be able to secure funding and get their projects going. If they can’t get funding or if the economy sours, they shouldn’t be allowed to change the rules.

Here is what the Sierra Club New Jersey Chapter has to say about it:

The Permit Extension Act would extend all permits and approvals for developers at the state and local levels for six years, allowing projects that were permitted many years ago to avoid changes in environmental law, public health standards, building codes, or local zoning. This bill is one of the biggest giveaways to developers in the history of New Jersey. It will result in more flooding, more people living on toxic sites, more sprawl, and more pollution.

The act would allow projects whose permits or approvals have expired within the past two years to be brought back to life, even if those projects would cause environmental harm or damage to public health.

It would undermine the state’s Pollution Discharge Rules, Flood Hazard Rules, Site Remediation Rules, Category 1 Rules, and others, preventing their appropriate implementation in violation of the laws that brought these rules into existence. In fact, the bill’s language specifies that the permit extension would be in effect from January 1, 2006, to December 31, 2012, due to the current economic situation. Disguised as a fix to a short-term problem, the Permit Extension Act is a long-term giveaway to New Jersey’s development lobby.

The act would also arbitrarily extend permits affecting federally-designated programs, such as the Wetlands Act and Clean Water Act, violating Memoranda of Agreement between the state of New Jersey and the federal government. In essence, this would mean that the Bush Administration, with its atrocious environmental record, would be more protective of the environment than the New Jersey legislature.

Do builders need help? Given the wild speculation and construction that has transformed the state — and this region in particular — over the last two decades, it would appear that builders should be providing the state’s citizens with aid in the form of money for school construction, mass transit and affordable housing, problems they helped create.

They certainly do not need a state bailout in the form of arbitrary extensions. If they bet wrong, so be it. And if, between the approval and expiration of a permit, the rules change, they should have to abide by the new rules — as all of us little people out here at home must do.

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States take the lead

As has been the case during the last seven years, the real activity on environmental issues is coming from the states.

The latest salvo in this battle is a lawsuit filed today by 12 states — including New Jersey — the District of Columbia and New York City. The suit, according to the Associated Press, alleges that federal ozone standards are weak and will not “protect the elderly, children and people with respiratory problems.”

A bevy of environmental and health groups — Earthjustice, American Lung Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, National Parks and Conservation Association and the Appalachian Mountain Club — are also suing.

The suit claims that the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s new ozone standards, issued in March, “disregard(ed) the overwhelming evidence and the advice of respected experts,” according to Bernadette Toomey, president of the American Lung Association.

The new standards now require

that airborne concentrations be lowered from a maximum 84 parts per billion to 75 parts per billion.

But, as with every environmental decision under President George W. Bush, there is more to this than the setting of a tougher standard.

(A)n EPA science advisory board — and most health experts — had recommended a limit of 60 to 70 parts per billion to adequately protect the elderly, people with respiratory problems and children.

The EPA also did not go as far as the science panel had recommended in setting a separate standard to protect the environment, especially plants, forests and wildlife, from smog. The EPA lowered the standard equal to the primary standard safeguarding public health, but it rejected a more beneficial “seasonal standard” urged by conservationists.

EPA and White House officials have acknowledged that the seasonal standard had been opposed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, which oversees government regulation. The issue was settled after President Bush intervened directly on behalf of the White House staff only hours before the rule was announced.

Hence, the lawsuit:

David Baron, an attorney for Earthjustice, said the Clean Air Act “requires EPA to adopt standards strong enough to protect our lungs and our environment” and that the EPA standard fails to do so.

Toomey of the Lung Association said it “is a decision that we cannot allow go unchallenged.”

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