all caps not my doing
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1317In his first weeks in office, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has laid the foundation for a dramatic rollback of public health and hazardous chemical protections in one of the nation’s most polluted states, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Today the Legislature will consider his nominee to run the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), a business consultant with no prior environmental experience who specialized in privatizing public water systems.
“Governor Christie believes that environmental protections are hindering our economic recovery, setting New Jersey on a race to the bottom to reduce pollution controls to a minimum,” stated New Jersey PEER Director Bill Wolfe, a former DEP analyst. “Without offering a shred of evidence that the current economic recession and fiscal crisis are in any way related to environmental protection, Governor Christie has nonetheless embarked on a radical environmental retrenchment on a scale unprecedented in this state.”
Through a series of executive orders and transition plans, the Christie administration has created a “Regulatory Czar” in the Lt. Governor’s Office with veto power over regulations, established a policy to scale back more stringent state rules to federal minimums, announced plans to gut scores of DEP technical guidance documents and issued an order to privatize as many functions as possible, including compliance monitoring. For example, a long-awaited plan to cut sulfur content in fuel oil, a move with large public health as well as air quality benefits has been blocked after intense oil industry lobbying. In addition –
•The state’s highly-touted greenhouse gas reduction program has put on hold, with funds dedicated to renewable energy diverted;
•Imposed a moratorium on 12 major pending regulations on topics ranging from limits on perchlorate in drinking water to controls on wetlands and coastal zone developments; and
•Existing regulations may be nullified following a cost-benefit review overseen by the Lt. Gov.
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New Jersey folks better bulk up on health insurance - more sickness and death coming your way.