New Raids to DEP Hurts the Environment

Today, S20 (Sarlo/Cunningham) was released by the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee. The bill amends and supplements FY20 appropriations act to effectuate extension of fiscal year through September 30, 2020. They are looking to take around $82 million from the Department of Environmental Protection, as well as another $20 million from the Clean Energy Fund for NJ Transit. Earlier this month, Governor Murphy released the NJ Interim Budget Report, which froze over $4 billion, including about $310 million in environmental programs.

“The environment has been shortchanged for years. We’ve been raiding and cutting environmental programs for a long time, but now we’re going beyond that. They are taking $82 million directly out of DEP programs and capital, on top of the nearly $310 million that was already taken for environmental programs. They are also taking an additional $20 million from the Clean Energy Fund for NJ Transit. We are concerned that with these raids, DEP may not be able to function. We believe that taking this money from DEP and other environmental programs could be dangerous at a time when air pollution has been linked to coronavirus risk,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “These are the biggest raids to environmental programs since 1993. This severely limits DEP’s ability to do its job.”

The bill takes $19.9 million from the Department of Environmental Protection’s CBT dedicated funds. This includes $3.9 million from Environmental Management and Preservation CBT Dedication and $15.9 million from Environmental Management and Preservation CBT Dedication, which contains $6.6 million for Hazardous Substance Discharge Remediation Loans & Grants, Hazardous Substance Remediation, and Private Underground Storage Tank Remediation. New Jersey voters have approved these funds to be dedicated to these purposes from the Corporate Business Tax.

“Money that is constitutionally dedicated for environmental purposes is now being raided. This is more than a red flag. This money was dedicated to prevent it from being taken, so the question is how are they grabbing this money. This is the first time that the state has tried to take CBT dedicated funds. This raises questions on how it is possible to take that money when it is dedicated for these programs like watershed monitoring and hazardous remediation. These are important programs that create jobs and protect our environment and public health,” said Jeff Tittel. “We know that New Jersey is facing serious budget problems, but we don’t understand how it is possible to redirect constitutionally dedicated funds.”

The bill takes a total of $82,472,000 from the Department of Environmental Protection. This includes:

• $24.4 million from Community Development and Environmental Management, Natural Resource Management (including Forest Resource Management, Parks Management, and Natural Resources Engineering)

• $12 million from Science and Technical Programs (including Water Supply, Water Monitoring and Resource Management, Land Use Regulation and Management, and Environmental Policy and Planning)

• $21.5 million from Site Remediation and Waste Management (including Constitutionally Dedicated funds for Hazardous Substance Discharge Remediation Loans & Grants, Private Underground Storage Tank Remediation, and Hazardous Substance Discharge Remediation)

• $9.9 million from Environmental Regulation (including Air Pollution Control, Water Pollution Control, and Radiation Protection)

• $8.4 million from Environmental Planning and Administration

• $6.2 million from Compliance and Enforcement (including Air Pollution Control, Water Pollution Control, Land Use Regulation and Management, and Solid and Hazardous Waste Management)

“DEP has been cut to the bone in the past, and now they are cutting through the bone. DEP needs more funding so that we have enough people to do the many jobs of the agency. Instead, they’re taking another $82 million from DEP. 15 years ago, the overall DEP budget was $516 million. Despite inflation and rising salaries we were down to $342 million, and with these raids DEP is at $262 million. They are extending the FY2020 budget as well as taking more funds, so our concern is that it could lead to furloughs and potentially even layoffs. This could create a situation where we don’t have enough people to write permits for businesses as they reopen, oversee water pollution regulation and enforcement, or keep our parks and beaches open,” said Tittel. “DEP needs enough staff to deal with the lead crisis, clean up toxic sites, and make sure our air is clean to breathe and our water is clean to drink.”

DEP staff is already at an all-time low. The Environmental Integrity Project found that New Jersey is 10th in the nation for environmental funding cuts, with a 20% cut in DEP staff from 2008 to 2018. The agency went from 4,400 staff members in the mid-1990’s to 2,321 in 2008. Now we are down to 1,858.

“They are raiding $9.6 million from the parks budget even though DEP hardly has enough resources to keep our parks open. State parks are falling apart, but we have $500 million in backlogs. Even though the state reopened state parks during the pandemic, they don’t have the resources necessary to keep all facilities clean and open. Our park system has been significantly underfunded for years, and DEP staff levels have dropped by 57% since the mid-1990s,” said Tittel. “Governor Murphy promised to have 100 more DEP staffers than under Christie, but we are more than 150 below Christie – or 250 below what the Governor promised.”

They are taking funds for air and water pollution regulation and enforcement. A recent Harvard study analyzed 3,080 counties in the United States and found a link between coronavirus risk and air pollution exposure. We should be reducing our air pollution instead of cutting regulation and enforcement.

“Taking money for air pollution regulation and enforcement will have significant impacts on the environment and public health. Air pollution has been linked to coronavirus risk, so we should be increasing enforcement and regulation instead of raiding it,” said Jeff Tittel. “They are also taking funds for dealing with water pollution problems. This will mean more algae blooms in our lakes and beach closings. Last year, over 50 of our lakes and reservoirs were closed or under advisory for harmful algal blooms. This year could be worse. We could end up seeing dead zones, fish kills, and even ecological collapse without real action to clean up our lakes.”

The new bill also raids an additional $20 million from the Clean Energy Fund for NJ Transit. This brings the total amount raided from the Clean Energy Fund for NJ Transit for FY2020 to $102 million. The proposed FY2021 budget for New Jersey has already raided $113 million from the Clean Energy Fund.

“They are now taking an additional $20 million from the Clean Energy Fund. What’s worse is that they’re already planning to raid almost half of the fund next year too. This is a time when the Clean Energy Fund is needed most. These funds go toward saving families money while creating good jobs and reducing air pollution, especially in overburdened communities that are already hit hard by the pandemic. This is critically important, especially during the health and financial crises,” said Tittel. “Governor Murphy committed to stopping these raids, but they continue. About $1.8 billion has been taken from the Clean Energy Fund since 2010, making it the state’s piggy bank.”

The budget raids include $5.79 million from Natural Resources Engineering. This category includes shore protection engineering, flood control projects, and other projects that aim to protect, maintain, and establish sustainable natural resources.

“Our coast is under threat from sea-level rise and erosion. We’re close to slipping away, and taking $5.8 million for climate change and natural resource engineering makes no sense. This means that we’re hurting ourselves in the long-term. Without these funds we won’t be able to plan for climate impacts or expand our shore protection or flood control projects. New Jersey is one of the most vulnerable states to climate impacts and sea-level rise. We are already seeing climate impacts with streets going underwater during full moons. Fish are living in storm drains in LBI, and even on sunny days flooding is occurring at high tides. We need to be making New Jersey more resilient to climate impacts, and these budget cuts will not help,” said Jeff Tittel.

Overall, the bill takes $63,900,000 from the Department of Environmental Protection Direct State Services, $455,000 from Grants-in-Aid, $3,375,000 from State Aid, and $14,742,000 from Capital Construction.

“We are facing financially uncertain times, with some businesses still closed and rising unemployment. We understand the need to fill the gaps, but we cannot keep using environmental programs to fill those gaps. They are taking everything that isn’t nailed down and pulling millions of dollars from environmental programs in the process. This is short-sighted and will directly impact public health and the environment now and for future generations,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “We need to look at long-term fixes to make up for the budget shortfalls, like ensuring the wealthy pay their fair share, closing corporate loopholes, ending corporate subsidies, and using money from environmentally disruptive projects. When we cut environmental investments we are cutting investments in ourselves and our future.”