Booker, Barragán Lead 47 Congressional Colleagues in Urging EPA to Further Strengthen Prevention and Safety Standards to Prevent Chemical Disasters
Booker, Barragán Lead 47 Congressional Colleagues in Urging EPA to Further Strengthen Prevention and Safety Standards to Prevent Chemical Disasters WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and U.S. Representative Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-CA-44th) urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to strengthen its proposed Risk Management Program (RMP) Rule to ensure the strongest possible safeguards at high-risk chemical facilities and protections for workers, environmental justice communities, and first responders. 47 other Senators and members of the House of Representatives co-signed the letter. EPA’s RMP regulates close to 12,000 facilities that make, use, or store hazardous chemicals, and recent chemical [...]
NJ Needs To Keep Its ‘Corporate Millionaire’s Tax,’ Activists Urge
The wealthiest 2 percent of businesses should be paying more when New Jerseyans are struggling – not getting a tax cut, advocates say. On Friday, members of the For The Many New Jersey coalition sent a letter to Gov. Phil Murphy and other officials, urging them to renew the state's corporate business tax surcharge. NEW JERSEY — Preschool for 37,000 kids. Nearly 5,000 affordable housing units. An estimated 1,500 electric school buses. Doubling the state’s college tuition assistance. These are some of the things that New Jersey could pay for if it extends a “corporate millionaire’s tax” for some of [...]
Student health, money and artificial turf
I know neither Ms. Jennifer Shiao nor Mr. Peter Demling, but I am familiar with science and how to locate information. There are a number of problems with artificial turf that seem to me to outweigh the finicalities of the myriad rules and regulations one encounters in this community. Ms Shiao’s transgression, if it is such, is in the service of a higher calling, the health and well being of our students. Most of what follows was gleaned from studies by Penn State University and the New Jersey Work Environment Council (WEC) Fact Sheet. Artificial fields are less forgiving and [...]
NJ Advocates Celebrate IIJA Anniversary, Call on Murphy Administration to Create Strategic Federal Climate Plan for Healthier State
November 17, 2022 State Commitment Urgent to Make Historic Federal Investments Count for New Jerseyans On the first anniversary of the federal Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act (IIJA) being signed into law, New Jersey is still without a strategic plan to maximize historic federal climate investments despite a patchwork of projects across the state. A broad coalition of groups representing New Jersey’s environmental, business, planning, social justice, conservation, labor, and climate advocacy communities are urging the Murphy administration to do more – faster – to address the state’s unmet sustainability needs. “A patchwork of projects, no matter how important each [...]
Federal chemical board important to N.J. still plagued by staff vacancies, watchdog says
Updated: Nov. 15, 2022, 9:15 p.m. | Published: Nov. 14, 2022, 6:26 p.m. The agency that investigates chemical accidents and makes safety recommendations remains short-staffed, threatening it “from efficiently and effectively driving chemical safety change through independent investigations to protect people and the environment,” a federal watchdog reported recently. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board has just two of its five members in place, and lacks enough staff to properly investigate incidents and issue reports, according to the inspector general for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the chemical agency. “This isn’t something that’s new for the agency,” said Debra Coyle McFadden, executive director of [...]
Statement on NJ BPU Selection of Offshore Transmission Projects
October 31, 2022 We, the undersigned organizations, on behalf of our members and supporters across New Jersey, applaud the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities for taking historic action on transmission today to protect customers and advance the critical development of offshore wind to meet our climate targets. This unprecedented collaboration with the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection (PJM), resulted in a cost-saving and environmentally responsible approach that will minimize impacts while providing the necessary infrastructure to deliver thousands of megawatts of planned and future renewable offshore wind energy to our existing grid, powering millions of homes throughout the state, and bring [...]