Dear Citizens and Elected Officials:
My former environmental colleague and friend from NJ, Bill Wolfe, is a tiger on the history of the regulatory process, such as it is - in our old "home" state and the nation. He's currently on tour somewhere in the American West, in a converted bus with solar panels which he has christened "Climate Chaos" on the front and "Green New Deal" on the back.
As I was reading his latest posting at WolfeNotes.Com (the link is below) this morning (Sunday) on an ugly, major, regulatory Trojan Horse for an LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) facility (using fracked gas) on the Delaware River in Gloucester County, on an old DuPont explosives site no less - I had a troubling memory flashback. Where had I just seen recent praise of New Jersey's decisive action, footage of a unanimous vote in the legislature on a big green bill and singing the praises of NJ's Democratic Governor Phil Murphy?
Well, the light broke through an hour or so later: it was in the last stretch of the documentary mentioned above, now making the rounds: From Paris to Pittsburgh.
This does not come as a surprise to me, because I've been watching Bill Wolfe strip the green halo from NJ Governor Phil Murphy for more than a year now, on regulatory reviews and policy overhauls that share one thing in common: they appear one way to the public in their press releases, and another to someone ready to dig deeper and who still lives with memory traces of the historical policy record - and related events.
May I stick my neck out here? Memory and history still matter; once gone, truth (never uncontested, however) floats free un-moored and becomes whatever the current dominant regime requires. "Rigging" and manipulation become ever so much easier.
OK, enough secular preaching. Here's the press trail, starting from the Philadelphia Inquirer'scoverage: https://www.inquirer.com/business/lng-export-terminal-philadelphia-repauno-fortress-approved-20190612.html
And here is a NJ press source, one of the better ones: https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/19/06/11/drbc-confirms-plan-to-build-lng-export-terminal-at-new-south-jersey-port/
And last, Bill Wolfe's outrage at the content and the process of the NJ Dept of Environmental Protection (sic) clumsy handling of the attempted stealth approval...for a huge LNG facility, no less: http://www.wolfenotes.com/ (This was posted June 13th, so if you don't get to it for a few days and Bill has a new posting, just scroll back to that date...)
Update: he does, here: http://www.wolfenotes.com/ This is a speculative piece, picking up on the possible connections between Governor Murphy's financial career and some of the key players in the current LNG permitting drama. Bill has been very tough on NJ Senate President Sweeney in the past; let me vastly condense the unhappiness to say that Sweeney is the NJ equivalent of Mike Miller (the longest serving Senate President in the nation, in Maryland) , with the added hat he wears of being a VP of the Ironworkers Union...The LNG site in question is in his legislative district.
Why is this important for us? Let's be cautious about endorsing governors and other members of the establishment deeply entwined with the higher levels of our economic system and the fossil fuel industry, especially Democrats, but of course, conservative Republicans posing as moderates like Hogan..
No wonder the Sunrise movement and the left wing of the Green New Deal want a "no fossil fuel $" pledge signed.
And of course, all this is relevant for the struggle against the coming fracked gas "hub" in West Virginia and beyond, that sprawling octopus of a "tribute" to the old order.
Without a national mechanism to sit in judgement on all the natural gas-fracked gas projects being pushed today, the hopes of slowing climate disruption don’t stand much of a chance, despite the attempts of films like Paris to Pittsburgh to buck up our spirits.
Best,
Bill of Rights
Frostburg, MD
PS You'll see, in the coverage, the Delaware River Basin Commission mentioned. That is an interstate, federally initiated body which governs the allocation and sometimes protection of the contested waters of the Delaware River. NJ, NY, PA and Delaware are members. During my green career in the 1990's it had a good reputation on our side of the many disputes; since then, under Christie's two terms and PA's shift to the right, it is torn with the fallout from the fracking wars. This LNG permit is another example of that, a sad weathervane ruling I'm afraid. Here's the Wikipedia background; please note that as of July 1, , 2018, Governor Philip Murphy of NJ was the Commission Chair.