newjerseynewsroom.com

BY TOM HESTER SR.

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

New Jersey environmental and labor groups Tuesday called on the Christie administration to withdraw a rule proposed by the state Department of Environmental Protection that they claim would hinder the environment.

The organizations are concerned the rule would give polluting industries the ability to negotiate their way around most state environmental standards if they can convince DEP officials that complying would be “unduly burdensome” to their business.

“This rule is the broadest attack on environmental protections in 30 years,” New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel said. “It is so vague that it is subject to abuse and ‘pay-to-play.’ It was wrong to propose this rule and the governor must withdraw it to protect New Jersey’s environment from special interests. Basically this is just waiver goodbye to environmental protection.”

Larry Ragonese, a DEP spokesman, said a public hearing on the proposed rule would be held at 3 p.m., Thursday at the department’s headquarters at 401 East State St. in Trenton. He said the environmental and labor leaders are welcome to attend. He said written comments may be submitted until May 6.

“We welcome the scrutiny,” Ragonese said.

Tittel said 98 existing rules can be waived under the proposal. He said environmental and labor groups are concerned the rule would allow polluters and developers to be exempt from critical environmental and public health and safety protections including the Pollution Prevention Act, hazardous discharge regulations, and air pollution controls.

Ragonese said the idea behind the proposal is to give businesses and residents who are entangled in an unusual environmental situation not covered by a specific rule to seek a waiver that would be settled by DEP Commissioner Bob Martin or an assistant commissioner.

“The real idea is using common sense,“ Ragonese said. “It gives a chance to cut through some of the bureaucracy to allow people, residents of the state, to get relief on unique issues that don’t fit, remove unreasonable impediments and provide some practical answers.”

The environmental and labor activists declared that many of the DEP’s rules that could be waived already have waiver provisions written into the regulations, based on the intent of the Legislature in adopting those protections.

“The proposed rule violates the environmental statutes from whose protections it would give waivers,” Jaclyn Rhoads, director for conservation policy for the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, said “Some statutes, like the Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act, already have their own waiver provisions. Others, like the Endangered and Non-Game Species Conservation Act, do not have waiver provisions at all. In both cases, the legislature has decided whether or not it wants to allow waivers and, if so, on what terms. In neither case can DEP impose its own generic waiver rule.”

Rhoads said the proposed rule would allow Martin to waive compliance with regulations if he finds the regulation is unduly burdensome, conflicts with other DEP, state, or federal rules, or the department believes some net environmental benefit can be achieved. The definition of unduly burdensome can include hardship, alternative compensation, and excessive cost. She said the organizations are also concerned that allowing net environmental benefit to be considered in the issuance of waivers will lead to developers cleaning up a polluted site in exchange for the ability to avoid other DEP regulations.

Ragonese said if the rule is approved, a website would be created that would list each waiver request and people who want to question it would be able to make their views known to the DEP.

“This rule would blow a major hole in state environmental protection,” Environmental New Jersey Director Dena Mottola Jaborska said. “With one sweep of the pen, the rule would label protections for our air, land and water a burden to business and open to political negotiations with polluting companies. It turns decades of thoughtful standard setting upside down, removing all guarantees that our environment will at least as clean and green as the standards we’ve adopted here in New Jersey.”

Jaborska said federally delegated programs, air emissions, fishing licenses, and criteria to protect human health are exempt from the waiver rule. She said the organizations are concerned that under Gov. Chris Christie’s Executive Order 2, which restricts state agencies from adopting rules stricter than federal standards, regulations will be waived down to less strict federal standards instead of New Jersey’s.

Jaborska said Army Corps of Engineer standards will be used in permitting wetlands instead of stricter New Jersey standards. On toxics in drinking water, the federal standard is cancer rates at one in 10,000 people and the New Jersey standard is one in 1 million people. She said the rule provisions allow for a waiver if there are conflicting rules, defined in the rule as a situation where two or more DEP, other state agency, or federal rules are in conflict, making compliance impractical or impossible.