Governor Signs Enviro Bills – Good Day for Environment

Today, Governor Murphy signed the following enviro bills into law.

“Today has been a very good day for the environment. Overall, eleven bills were signed today that impact everything from climate change to illegal ATVs, solar to offshore wind, dirty dirt to open space. With all of these bills now signed, New Jersey can move forward with renewable energy, protecting our state from climate change, improving our recycling markets, and much more. A few bad bills were stopped, including a bill that would have removed beaver trapping limits, and a bill that would have privatized the electrical grid and encouraged fossil fuels over renewable energy,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.

S4162 (Smith/Greenstein) / A6014 (Vainieri Huttle): establishes NJ Climate Change Resource Center at Rutgers University and appropriates up to $500,000. The resource center will carry out interdisciplinary research activities to help New Jersey adapt and prepare for climate change.

“Establishing a Climate Change Resource Center is a good step forward when it comes to being prepared and stronger than the next storm, but $500,000 is not enough money to get the job done. New Jersey is one of the most vulnerable states when it comes to climate impacts, but our state is doing nothing about it. We are the only state in the region without a Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Plan. Rutgers is spending $4 million a year on a new football coach, but we can only spend $500,000 for climate change research. They need to get their priorities straight. This is a fumble when it comes to climate change,” said Jeff Tittel. “This Resource Center will help use the latest science to put climate and sea level rise in DEP rules and state legislation, but more money needs to go toward this center for it to be effective.”

There have been multiple recent reports showing how vulnerable New Jersey is to climate change impacts. The Department of Environmental Protection recently released a study projecting dramatic sea-level rise in New Jersey of up to 8.8 feet over 2000 levels by 2100. A different study based on data from the Union of Concerned Scientists shows New Jersey with 9 communities among those in the nation with the greatest percentage of homes at risk of chronic flooding by 2060 and 2100.

“This new center will help New Jersey prepare and adapt to climate change,  but we need to do more. Study after study are showing that New Jersey is one of the most vulnerable states on the East Coast. Our state is still dragging its feet and we must take extreme actions to plan for climate change and sea level rise. The Murphy Administration needs to move forward on strengthening important water protections and regulations including the Flood Hazard Rules and CAFRA Rules. Nature is already planning for us with flood after flood,” said Jeff Tittel. “We need to act and act now. We must build a green wall around New Jersey to fight back against climate change and protect us against the next storm.”

S3939/3944 (Smith) / A5681/5682 (Pinkin): establishes a Recycling Market Development Council. The Council would look at existing recycling markets and recommend ways to stimulate recycling and how to reduce contamination of collected recyclables.

“Setting up a Recycling Market Development Council will help deal with the serious recycling problems in New Jersey. We need to change everything we do when it comes to solid waste, and establishing this council will help streamline New Jersey’s recycling. We need to first reduce, reuse, repurpose and then recycle. Our recycling and solid waste programs are decades out of date. Some towns are moving to single-stream recycling, which means more waste gets collected but results in a dirtier product,” said Jeff Tittel. “We also need legislation to reduce plastic wastes and solids. The less we recycle, the more greenhouse gases and pollution we have from emissions from landfills and new product manufacturing.”

The Recycling Market Development Council would consist of six members, including the Commissioner of Environmental Protection and the State Treasurer. The other members would be citizens of the State, two who are actively engaged in the recycling industry and two with expertise in the reuse and processing of recycling material.

“We are glad that Governor Murphy signed this law because we’re seeing a major drop in recycling in New Jersey. In the early 1990’s, we recycled over half of municipal and household waste. Now we are down to 37%. China’s decision to no longer import plastic waste has caused the recycling market to collapse. Some towns are no longer taking plastics. Recycling facilities are closing, or opening only once or twice a month. This law says that New Jersey needs to develop new recycling markets. Rutgers has invented the first plastic lumber that uses recycled plastics, and more innovation needs to be encouraged,” said Jeff Tittel. “We need to focus on coming up with more markets for recycling, and establishing a Recycling Market Development Council is a step in the right direction.”

A5583 (Pinkin) / S2919 (Smith): prohibits sale, lease, rent or installation of certain equipment or products containing hydrofluorocarbons or other greenhouse gases.

“This law is a step in the right direction when it comes to reducing GHG’s from the products we use everyday. Hydrofluorocarbons represent around 1% of total greenhouse gases but their impact on global warming can be hundreds to thousands of times greater than that of carbon dioxide. They can be found in cooling products like refrigerators, air conditioning for our homes and cars, aerosols, and more,” said Tittel. “We thank Governor Murphy for signing this bill into law. It is important that we prohibit and phase out all products containing HCF’s and greenhouse gases so that we can mitigate our impact to global warming.”

S721 (Greenstein): authorizes use of electric school buses. It  provides that the maximum overall width of an electric school bus operated in this State is not to exceed 102 inches, excluding accessories. The increased permissible width set forth in the bill would apply to electric school buses exclusively. Current regulations restrict the width of all school buses to 96 inches, excluding accessories.

“We need the legislature to do more than just expand the width of school buses. They need to come up with a real program to get electric school buses on the road. It’s important to get EVs moving when it comes to school buses. Not only will this reduce air pollution for the children riding it, but for the entire communities that the school buses go through,” said Jeff Tittel.

S4201 (Codey)/A5970 (Lopez): Amends list of environmental infrastructure projects approved for long-term funding for FY2020 to include new projects, remove certain projects, and modify estimated loan amounts for certain projects.

S4202 (Bateman)/A5971 (Mukherji): Authorizes NJ Infrastructure Bank to expend additional sums to make loans for environmental infrastructure projects for FY2020.

“We need to step it up when it comes to funding critical environmental programs for New Jersey.  We have major problems with lead including $8.2 billion worth of pipes that need to be fixed, $4.6 billion for getting lead out of our water and a $6 billion combined sewer overflow fix. Overall, we need at least $46 billion to fix New Jersey’s environmental problems. We also need to tie fixing our infrastructure to energy efficiency and renewable energy as well as green building including blue and green roofs to reduce flooding,” said Tittel. “If we don’t consider climate change, we could end up wasting billions of dollars of taxpayer money.”

S4203 (Greenstein)/A5972 (Pinkin): Makes changes to New Jersey Infrastructure Bank’s enabling act.

“We are glad that Governor Murphy signed this bill because it changes language that will allow for planning and engineering grants. These language changes will allow cities and towns to receive loans for planning and engineering work. This will allow them to plan for and complete important environmental infrastructure projects, including critical water supply and wastewater treatment projects,” said Jeff Tittel.

A6109 (Armato) / S4276 (Corrado/Bateman): Appropriates $32,153,936 to State Agriculture Development Committee, and amends 2017 appropriations for stewardship activities, for farmland preservation purposes.

A6112 (Freiman) / 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.

A6108 (Taliaferro) / 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.

A6106 (Houghtaling) / 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.

A6114 (Carter) / 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.

A6111 (Giblin) / 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.

A6110 (Moriarty) / 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.

A6107 (Mejia) / S4309 (Turner/Cruz-Perez) appropriates $13,902,723 from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues to State Agriculture Development Comm. for grants to certain nonprofit organizations for farmland preservation purposes.

A6113 (Speight) / S4311 (Greenstein/Bateman) appropriates $77,450,448 from constitutionally dedicated CBT revenues and various Green Acres funds to DEP for local government open spaces acquisition and park development projects.

“New funding for open spaces is now in place, but the funding formula actually takes money away from urban areas and state parks and sends it to wealthier rural exurban areas. More and more people are moving into urban areas in New Jersey, but our cities have a real shortage of open space and this funding fails to address that. Our state parks are falling apart and in desperate need of repairs, but this money is being shifted to rural areas and stewardship instead,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “Murphy says that he wants to protect parks and help urban areas, but these bills he signed do the opposite. Money that should be used to build playgrounds in our cities is instead going to planting bushes in wealthier rural areas.”