DEP Adopts Christie’s Dirty Diesel Rule

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has adopted their proposed rules, repeals, and amendments to the Air Pollution Control rules that will increase air pollution and greenhouse gases. Former DEP Commissioner Bob Martin signed these rules while Christie was in his last days of office. The proposal includes a revision to New Jersey’s State Implementation Plan (SIP) required by the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA). These changes are rolling back rules and responsibilities to allow more pollution from construction, residential, and any other generators and other industrial facilities. They are getting rid of environmental regulations with the excuse of allowing such facilities to pollute during a severe storm like Hurricane Sandy.

“These new rules that allow more pollution from dirty diesel generations. This means during emergencies there can be burning of diesel and other fuels that will create major air quality problems at any location. These generators will not only release fine particulates, which impact the elderly and children with asthma, but they will further harmful ozone pollution. Diesel generators are so dirty that they emit toxins like benzene, arsenic and formaldehyde and other pollutants that are carcinogenic. What they are doing is allowing these generators to operate for up to 90 days during a calendar year without a permit. This is not just during emergencies such as Hurricane Sandy, it could be a blackout, brownouts or other times when the grid isn’t fully functioning where you can run these generators. The Christie Administration may have adopted these rules with their last gasp of air, but the Murphy Administration needs to step in and stop them,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “The Murphy Administration need to revisit this rule because it sides with polluters over public health and the environment.”

The Department’s new rules, repeals, and amendments proposal is being based on disruptions caused by natural disasters such as Superstorm Sandy, availability of current data and new methodologies for determining hazardous air pollutant (HAP) thresholds, changes in Federal requirements regarding state programs to address emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NOx), and discussions that the Department held with unnamed representatives of various organizations. The problem is these stakeholder conversations where held in secret, without input from the public.

“A major problem with this rule change is there is no cumulative impact analysis required for generators, which means every neighborhood can have tons of diesel generators. By blanketing air permitting exemptions, they can place these generators anywhere at any time and keep polluting for many months without any restrictions. There could be dozens of polluting generators in a neighborhood impacting people’s lungs regardless of air quality. This means there could already be an Bad Air Quality Alert Day, but people can still use these generators causing all types of health risks and hospitalizations,” said Jeff Tittel.

Emergency generators can also be used during non-emergency power disruptions like brownouts or blackouts. They are also giving these generators conditional exemption of qualifying generators from the existing VOC Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT) rules. This means that instead of requiring natural gas or prone, which would be cleaner, they can use diesel and other surface fuels like heating oil.

“While these rules open the door to more pollution during severe storms, they also make it easier to keep burning fossil fuels during brownouts and blackouts. Instead of using natural gas or propane, which would be cleaner, residents can use these diesel and heating oil. They are also exempting construction engines, rental equipment, any kind of excavators or transportation equipment like debris or transportation materials, paper or hard drive shredders. This will significantly roll back air quality protection,” said Jeff Tittel. “Instead of bringing in solar for charging electronics and other home needs, building temporary windmills, or creating small hydro facilities, they are essentially throwing out all of these clean energy alternatives. They could even try to connect to natural gas supplies, which are cleaner than diesel but they are choosing not to.”

Under the Christie Administration, communities throughout New Jersey are being impacted by air pollution and new fossil fuel plants while our open spaces and environmentally sensitive lands are being targeted by pipeline after pipeline. From the fracking wells to pipelines, compressor stations, and power plants, methane leaks have significant impacts to greenhouse gas emissions. There are over 15 proposed pipelines in our state. Instead of taking action to reduce pollution and making our grid more resilient, the Christie Administration has allowed more greenhouse gas emissions and climate change from pipeline leaks and burning the gas. At the same time, in this rule they are changing reporting requirements for Hazardous Air Pollutants; defaulting to weaker standards instead of health protective NJ Standards.

“This polluting rule was made during Christie’s last months in office and that is why we need the Murphy Administration to put stronger protections in place. Instead of allowing for more pollution, we should be implementing distributed generation, microgrids, or battery storage to make us more resilient to blackouts and brownouts during the next storm. With these rules, we won’t only see more pollution, but more climate change impacts leaving the people of New Jersey to suffer,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “The Murphy Administration cares about environmental justice and pollution problems. They really should take another look at this rule.”