NJ DEP: Friend or Foe of New Jersey's Environment?

An intentional controlled burn in the NJ Pine Barrens

Generally it's my creative habit to try to veer from topic to topic on this blog, but sometimes, not unlike actor Jeff Bridges' character "The Dude" in the 1998 Cohen brother's film The Big Lebowski, I must "abide" - on the same topic of my previous blog, the state of New Jersey's environment.

"Apocalypse in the Garden State", Kyle Dickman's article about the possibility of a catastrophic forest fire breaking out in the 1.1 million acres of  the New Jersey Pine Barrens was troubling.

As joint field research conducted by the Warren Grove Range and Drexel University's Laboratory for Pinelands Research notes, the periodic burning of stretches of the Pine Barrens (and other forests) is actually necessary for the growth and balance of different types of plant species.

But after reading Dickman's alarming article in the May 5th issue of Rolling Stone, which highlights the potential disaster of a combination of high winds, lack of rain, human error and over a million acres of dense pine tree forest carpeted by dried pine needles, I felt compelled to circle back and share a quick update on another environmental topic affecting Jersey that I first blogged about back on December 3, 2014.

The potential danger caused by a huge increase in freight traffic of rail cars carrying shipments of highly combustible Canadian Tar Sands oil, and Bakken crude oil through highly-populated areas of New Jersey is an unnecessary man-made risk.

A risk exacerbated by the double regulatory whammy of Republican Congressional opposition to both the funding of investment to update critical infrastructure repairs on U.S. railways, and the rapid enforcement of more stringent federal regulations on rail cars that carry combustible and dangerous liquids.

The Garden State doesn't rival Texas, California, North Dakota or Louisiana in terms of oil production, refineries and shipping

But few American politicians have been friendlier to the oil industry in the past couple years than our own Governor Chris Christie.

As I've often noted, what Christie lacks in tact, humility and self-control (Bridgegate?), he more than makes up for with his shrewdness as a political operator and zest for proving his conservative credentials to the national Republican establishment.

Just today, NPR reported that the New Jersey Sierra Club is reporting that inspections by the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) are down a remarkable 80% since Christie took office, as are the collection of fines levied for environmental violations as well.

By the way, that's the same DEP that quietly approved a request by Buckeye Partners (the owners of a massive port terminal facility in Perth Amboy where oil is loaded onto oil tankers for export) to ship an additional 1.8 million gallons of Tar Sands oil on trains that pass through some 11 different towns in densely populated Bergen County, NJ back in 2014.

As Sandra Meola of the environmental watchdog group NY/NJ Baykeepers told NJ TV in an interview back in 2014 (click the link above):

"New Jersey's DEP claimed a public comment period was not necessary because it was a minor modification, but it's not really a minor modification."

Le-Megantic oil train explosion July 6, 2013

Flash forward to 2016, it now looks like Christie's poor record as a steward of the Garden State's environment has actually cost the state federal funding that could have helped reduced the risk of a man-made catastrophic rail disaster like the one that struck the Quebec, Canada town of Le-Megantic back on July 6, 2013,  when an unattended 74-car train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed killing at least 42 people and literally destroyed half the town.

As the New Jersey Sierra Club reported in it's March newsletter:

NJ Loses Out on Funds for Oil Train Safety: New Jersey has not received any of the $10 million given out by the Federal Railroad Administration to improve safety on rail lines that carry oil. Governor Christie was one of 34 applicants for the grant. A recent boom in North Dakota Bakken oil has led to more of this dangerous substance on our rail lines and more accidents and explosions. This money would have gone towards upgrading rail crossings on particular lines that have experienced a large increase in the transportation of crude oil."

After the callous and frequently overly-theatrical way in which Christie habitually lambasted the Obama administration's policies during his time on the Republican presidential campaign trail, his joining 37 other states with Republican governors to vehemently oppose Obama's EPA mandate to curb fossil fuel emissions, and his bizarre decision to push to drastically scale back the $8.9 billion fine levied against Exxon-Mobil settlement for their pollution of New Jersey waters to $225 million during the height of his presidential run, it makes me wonder.

Was the decision by the federal government to deny the state of New Jersey a portion of the $10 million in funds allotted for oil train safety an intentional slapdown of Christie for his months of partisan loudmouthery, scaling back of the NJ DEP's oversight authority and vocal opposition of sensible EPA oversight of emission standards?

As far as the environmental interests of the Garden State are concerned, the people of New Jersey have lost out under a governor who consistently places his relationship with the petrochemical industry and Republican party establishment above the best interests of the people who elected him to serve.

Did GOP's Machiavellian Manuever Cost Senator Mary Landrieu Her Seat?

Meet #54 - Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA)

Today is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

Let's not forget that 73 years ago today on December 7, 1941, over 2,403 Americans, including 68 civilians, lost their lives during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Naval base in Hawaii.

On December 8th, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Japan signaling America's entrance into World War II in which over 405,399 Americans would loose their lives. 

The November 2014 US Senatorial elections are officially over with the news that incumbent Democratic Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu lost a lengthy runoff election to Republican candidate Bill Cassidy (pictured left).

It's pretty sobering news for American progressives given the overwhelming control Republicans already wield in the House of Representatives.

Case in point: as The Hill.com reported, in an interview on Fox News Sunday, Cassidy quickly announced one of his top priorities is to roll back the Affordable Care Act, even as he insisted:

“If there’s one party for the working people right now, it’s the Republican Party,” Cassidy said on “Fox News Sunday,” pointing to GOP efforts to expand drilling of natural resources and Democrats’ attempts to limit emissions."

Yup. No doubt what hard working Americans really need right now is Republicans taking away affordable health care for their families. That should really help.

So with the addition of this staunch friend of the working people, 54 is now the magic number for Republicans in the Senate, who now control every Senate seat in the south; Democrats now hold 44 seats and independent candidates control two.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with Washington Post reporter Jordyn Phelps' analysis of the runoff election results that Landrieu's support of the Affordable Care Act and alliance with President Obama led to her defeat.

Her support of the ACA and the president were a factor in her defeat, but progressives, Democrats and independents were overwhelmingly opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline project which Landrieu sponsored.

Top Republican climate change denier (R-OK) Sen. Jim Inhofe

It's costly because the potential for a major environmental disaster was significant.

As a mechanism to deliver more Canadian tar sands oil for export across the globe, the pipeline would only magnify the current global climate crisis that Republican Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe (pictured left), who will serve as the incoming chair of the Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works, claims does not exist.

Besides, the number of actual full-time jobs Republicans claim it would create is wildly exaggerated.

The bulk of the "42,000 jobs" that supporters of the pipeline were so fond of trumpeting would be seasonal temporary construction jobs that would disappear once the 875-mile pipeline was completed. As Politifact.com's analysis of the jobs claims show, in the end the Keystone XL pipeline would actually create about 35 permanent full time American jobs.

As a result, progressive groups, environmentalists and many Democrats completely abandoned Landrieu during the runoff election season because her support of the doomed pipeline project positioned the three-term Senator as a climate change denier looking to give the oil industry a big fat handout in order to get herself re-elected.

Meanwhile the GOP poured in over $1.3 million in support of her opponent Bill Cassidy and saturated Louisianans with anti-Landrieu TV and radio attack ads.

Besides, as I wrote about in my blog the other week, I agree with environmental activist groups who assert that it's actually far more cost-effective and efficient to transport the heavy, viscous Canadian tar sands oil via rail cars to coastal refineries and terminals along the east coast and southern gulf coast than it is via a pipeline.

So was Landrieu ultimately duped into tying her political future to an ambitious pipeline project that Republicans actually knew would never be approved?

Did Republicans shrewdly use the Keystone XL pipeline as a kind of Trojan Horse wedge issue while quietly using their control of state legislatures and Governor's mansions (like Chris Christie's) across the nation to tweak state and local laws to make it easier to secretly transport larger amounts of Bakken crude and Canadian tar sands oil over railways?

It's pretty Machiavellian but politically clever. If true, the Keystone XL project was always a win-win for Republicans.

In terms of political strategy, Senator Landrieu felt she had to support the pipeline project to appease the Louisiana oil industry to keep her Senate seat.

Environmentalist groups and Democrats devoted huge amounts of money, time and resources into extensive multi-pronged media campaigns to defeat it, when all along, top oil industry and rail executives knew that transporting tar sands oil over rail was really the way to go as reported by Justin Mikulka in an eye-opening article on the DeSmogBlog back in August.

I'm reminded of what Corleone family consigliere Tom Hagan (brilliantly underplayed by actor Robert Duvall) said of Hyman Roth's Machiavellian attempt to secretly frame loyal Corleone capo Frank "Frankie Five Angels" Pentangeli for the botched assassination of Michael Corleone in the brilliant 1974 film, The Godfather II.

As for Senator Mary Landrieu's political defeat, the Republicans "played this one beautifully."