The Solution to Toxic Algae Ruining Summer Fun is Stormwater Utilities
News Article • 5/21/2020 • by Ed Potosnak at Roxbury Register
A stormwater utility would raise the funds to pay for green infrastructure projects to manage stormwater by intercepting pollutants before they enter our lakes. These funds cannot be diverted to a municipality’s general fund and are legally dedicated.
On this Earth Day, let’s work toward a 21st century clean energy future
News Article • 4/22/2020 • by Ed Potosnak at Asbury Park Press
The Energy Master Plan (EMP) unveiled on Jan. 27 of this year stands out as our leading environmental achievement. It outlines key strategies to reach the administration’s goal of 100% clean energy by 2050, an objective 75 percent of New Jerseyans support. The EMP provides a blueprint for New Jersey’s clean energy future, incorporating Governor Murphy’s bold offshore wind, energy storage and community solar goals.
Our air is making us sick. The answer is to make polluters pay
News Article • 4/9/2020 • by Ed Potosnak at NJ.com
The group of 12 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states plus the District of Columbia have come together to modernize transportation systems and make it easier for everyone to get around and at the same time, shrink pollution, and unhealthy carbon emissions.
Coronavirus: In NJ, don’t be frightened into using single-use plastic bags
News Article • 4/2/2020 • by Ed Potosnak at NorthJersey.com
Most of the litter found on New Jersey beaches is plastic, and scientists are increasingly finding microplastics in waterways. These small pieces of plastic now permeate our lives: they are in the water we drink, the fish we eat, and the air we breathe, posing health concerns for New Jersey residents and other wildlife.
KEY GROUPS URGE GOVERNOR TO EXPAND AUTOMATIC VOTER REGISTRATION TO MEDICAID
News Article • 3/5/2020
New Jersey LCV urges Governor Murphy to expand automatic voter registration (AVR). Families in environmental justice communities must have a say in what happens in their neighborhoods, and one way to do this is at the ballot box. Let’s make it as easy as possible for these residents to register and vote.
Nice job Trenton! Now, we need actual laws to protect our climate, ourselves, environmental group says
News Article • 1/30/2020 • by Ed Potosnak at NJ.com
New Jersey completed most environmentally productive session in the state's history, but with the threat of climate change there is still more that has to be done.
Shadowy fossil fuel front group should come clean about who they really represent
News Article • 12/3/2019 • by Ed Potosnak at NJ.com
With the Energy Master Plan, New Jersey will create thousands of high-quality jobs that can’t be outsourced, air quality and public health will improve, and we’ll be more resilient in the face of disasters fueled by climate change.
Dark money bill threatens future climate and environment advocacy, group says
News Article • 9/27/2019 • by Ed Potosnak at The Star-Ledger/NJ.com
...Over the past two years, the environmental movement’s strong advocacy in Trenton has led to important victories that will expand clean energy and wean our state off fossil fuels. Yet our future advocacy work is now threatened by a recently passed measure that gives cover to the shadowy corporate interests at the root of our climate crisis.
The law, passed by the legislature in June, was pitched as a way to address the problem of money in politics.
New legislation will help N.J. meet its aggressive clean energy goals
News Article • 7/25/2019 • by Ed Potosnak at NJ.com
...on May 23rd, 2019, something dramatic happened. The legislature doubled down on its commitment to a clean energy future, to healthy communities, to a decarbonized world. The Assembly passed – in strong bipartisan fashion – an update to the existing, economy-wide, Global Warming Response Act (GWRA) and sent it to the governor’s desk. This legislation proves timely as the federal government has ceded all leadership under the current administration, leaving it solely to states to demonstrate leadership – none more so than New Jersey.
Murphy OK’d ‘Rain Tax’ — Could it Fight Lake Hopatcong's Toxic Algae?
News Article • 7/8/2019 • by David Matthau at North Jersey 101.5
Several recent heavy rainstorms have made a bad situation worse at Lake Hopatcong, where a harmful algae bloom caused by stormwater runoff has prompted the state Department of Environmental Protection to ban swimming and most other water-related activity.
Henry Gajda, a public policy associate with the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, said what’s happening is not really surprising.
"The more rain that comes down in heavier doses, the more stormwater runoff there’s going to be," Gajda said.