CBT Funding Bills Pass Senate
CBT Funding Bills Pass Senate
The following CBT funding bills were passed by the Senate today, January 9th.
S4276 (Corrado/Bateman): Appropriates $32,153,936 to State Agriculture Development Committee, and amends 2017 appropriations for stewardship activities, for farmland preservation purposes. The bill passed with a vote of 38-0.
S4277 (Greenstein/Bateman): Appropriates $5,000,000 from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues to State Agriculture Development Committee for municipal planning incentive grants for farmland preservation purposes. The bill passed with a vote of 39-0.
S4278 (Greenstein/Bateman): Appropriates $21 million from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues to State Agriculture Development Committee for county planning incentive grants for farmland preservation purposes. The bill passed with a vote of 39-0.
S4279 (Smith/Bateman): Appropriates $1,350,000 from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues to State Agriculture Development Committee for grants to certain nonprofit organizations for farmland preservation purposes. The bill passed with a vote of 39-0.
S4310 (Codey/Bateman): Appropriates $8,872,682 to DEP from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues for grants to certain nonprofit entities to acquire or develop lands for recreation and conservation purposes. The bill passed with a vote of 38-0.
S4312 (Smith/Bateman): Appropriates $36.143 million from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues for recreation and conservation purposes to DEP for State capital and park development projects. The bill passed with a vote of 38-0.
S4313 (Corrado/Bateman): Appropriates $33.915 million from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues to DEP for State acquisition of lands for recreation and conservation purposes, including Blue Acres projects. The bill passed with a vote of 39-0.
“We need to make sure that there is capital set aside for state parks, parks in urban areas, open space, and improvements. For years, state parks and parks in urban areas have been significantly underfunded. We want the new money to fix that problem. We need these funds because there are massive backlogs and parks are falling apart without improvement for years. Over the last decade the parks budget is down 40%, despite us adding 40% more open space,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “We would like to see 40% of open space money dedicated to urban space areas. We are concerned because the definition of stewardship in these bills allows for logging and other things. Stewardship money should be going towards wetlands restoration and stream corridors.”
