Gov Murphy’s Budget Fails to Fund DEP, Address Climate Change

Trenton- Today the Assembly Budget Committee will be holding a public hearing for the FY 2019 State Budget. The proposed FY2019 budget includes initiatives for clean energy and fighting climate change but continues the pattern of slashing the DEP budget. This year the agency is allocated $275 million; down from $321 million from last year’s budget. The budget also diverted $140 million from the Clean Energy Fund. Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, released the following statement:

“We’ve had eight years of Christie cutting the DEP, raiding environmental funds, and ignoring climate change and sea level rise.  Despite promises made during his campaign to address sea level rise and climate change, the budget also does not reflect those efforts. There is not enough funding within the DEP to reopen the Office of Climate Change. There isn’t enough funding to work on adaptation and mitigation for sea level rise and increased storm events. The coastal areas of New Jersey are the fastest growing parts of our state and have seen exponential population increases. As the population of coastal communities keeps growing, the potential for disaster will be greater. We need to fund coastal agencies to make New Jersey stronger than the next storm.

“After years of DEP being cut consistently, their budget is being cut again. Millions of dollars are being diverted from the Clean Energy Fund, as well as other DEP programs, to fill more holes in the budget. We need more funding for the DEP, so we have enough people to do the many jobs of the agency, including re-writing the rules Christie rolled back. We need staff to not only maintain our parks bur keep them open during the busy season. We’re down from 1,000 to 400 parks and forestry workers while we’ve added 40% more land to open space. This could lead to parks getting closes, hurting our economy. If we don’t have enough staff, we won’t be able to properly review permits from businesses and developers to grow our economy without delay.

“When Chris Christie put out a budget like this last year, we were very critical, and we will continue to be so. The budget is still full of false statements and leftover propaganda from the Christie Administration. For example, they claim 85% compliance for regulated entities but it’s impossible to know if inspections are down by 70%. The boasts of 78% of our shellfish beds are open is misleading since only a third of our waters can even have shellfish beds because the rest are too polluted. The Legislature needs to make sure there is enough money going into these important programs and there are enough inspectors to make sure our air and water are clean, fight climate change and sea level rise, and clean up toxic sites.

“The Clean Energy Fund is being raided once again; this time by $136 million or even higher. This includes $80 million for NJ Transit, $50 million for lights in government buildings, $2 million to the BPU and $5 million to implement RGGI. This Fund is meant to support projects that make our homes more resilient such as weatherization, along with energy efficiency and green jobs. Yet, ever since Christie has been Governor, the Clean Energy Fund has become the state’s ATM. Christie consistently used the money to balance the budget. He took $1.5 billion from the fund, now we are taking more. This has become a hidden energy tax on consumers. Instead of using this money for the environment and creating jobs, it is used to plug budget holes.

“The DEP has seen a 40% cut over the last 10 years, and it is being cut again. The budget cuts the DEP budget overall by 14% but what is worse is that they are cutting operations from $213 to $207 million.  We need to start hiring more people to do the core work of the department. Based on NJDEP’s online database, total enforcement actions issued from 2008 to 2013, fell by 77 percent and site inspections have seen an 80 percent drop under Christie. Lack of testing and oversight has put New Jersey at risk, especially when it comes to lead in the drinking water. It will be important to build up morale and funding in the department that’s been disheartened and slashed over the last eight years.

“On top of the clean energy fund raids, $80 million dollars are being diverted from the DEP. This is funding for important programs that would go towards cleaning up toxic sites, brownfield redevelopment, and watershed protection. This will have a real impact on the agency because by diverting those funds, they are not hiring enough staff for DEP to do its job. If we want our economy to grow, we need to have people in the DEP in charge of permits and projects. What makes it worse is that there is more money coming into the DEP from NRD including the $200 million gas station settlement, the $75 million Volkswagen settlement and RGGI benefits. Plus, they are going to raise the corporate business tax by 4% for DEP programs but none of that is reflective in the budget. The DEP would have enough resources to do its job if the budget stopped diverting it.

“This budget also holds Board of Public Utilities (BPU) funding flat. This means we cannot move forward on renewable energy and energy efficiency programs. While we are supposed to do all these programs on offshore wind, solar, and energy efficiency, we may not have enough staff to put the programs in place. Delaying RGGI for two years will cost us as well, especially when it comes to implementing clean energy programs. This will make it very difficult for New Jersey to reach Governor Murphy’s goal of 100% clean energy by 2050. Under Governor Christie we fell behind in renewable energy and energy efficiency. It’s important that we fund the BPU and other agencies to get these programs moving and make New Jersey a leader once again.

“The DEP is losing funding and staff in this budget. This means there may not be enough people to do the job that needs to be done to grow the economy while protecting the environment. We cannot improve the environment without improving funding for those programs. In the past we have gone after Christie’s budget when it raided funds and cut programs. Unfortunately, Murphy’s budget is all too similar. We know Christie dug a huge financial hole and it will take time to start digging us out of it, but we need to start now.  We need the Legislature and the Governor to put the resources in this budget that are necessary for the environment and for a greener economy. We need to work together and make this happen.”