Another Victim of Christie’s Final Budget: Communities Recovering from Pollution

TRENTON _ Statement from New Jersey League of Conservation Voters on the governor’s line-item veto of Natural Resource Damages monies in the FY18 budget announced Wednesday:

“For the third straight year, Gov. Christie is attempting to rob communities sullied by industrial pollution of hundreds of millions of dollars meant to facilitate their recovery from toxins contaminating their groundwater and streams,” said New Jersey League of Conservation Voters Executive Director Ed Potosnak.

“By including budget language diverting every cent over $50 million into the general fund, the governor limits the ability of victimized communities – mostly communities of color – to recover from years of manufacturing-based, profit-driven, systemic pollution. Christie added insult to injury by red-lining a clause in the budget inserted by the Legislature that specified a 50-50 split between the state and the polluted communities, and instead is grabbing all the excess funds for the state,” added Potosnak.

Read Christie’s veto here.

“These communities are being failed twice – by a governor who doesn’t care about cleaning up their toxic legacy and by a Legislature that approved a budget allowing Christie to divert the money. Trenton’s inability to keep its hands out of the cookie jar is why the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters led the fight for a November ballot question asking voters to end these unfair money raids once and for all,” Potosnak concluded.

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