As the new home of NJPIRG's environmental work, Environment New Jersey can be contacted regarding this news release.
TRENTON—On Governor
Codey's first day in office, the state's major environmental groups laid out
a plan prioritizing the worst parts of fast track that needed to be repealed.
They also urged the Legislature to correct the back room deal cutting surrounding
this law by engaging in an open public process to promote redevelopment without
undermining public health and the environment.
"The more state and
local leaders have examined the fast track bill, the clearer it becomes that
it would be a public policy disaster," said Douglas O'Malley, NJPIRG's
Clean Water Advocate. "We cannot take half steps to fix this mistake -
we need to repeal the worst elements of this bill to protect public health and
the environment."
The executive order issued
by outgoing Governor McGreevey acknowledged environmentalists arguments about
the negative effects of Fast Track, but only served to pause implementation
of the law for several months. The groups urged legislative leaders to reverse
the major provisions of the law that are detrimental to New Jersey's health,
drinking water and quality of life by engaging the public and holding discussions
in a public forum.
"We agree with our
new Governor that 'Fast Track' requires 'major changes, is 'deeply flawed',
and is of 'such magnitude, done so quickly and under the cloak of such secrecy,'
it 'has to be revisited'," said David Pringle of the NJ Environmental Federation.
"Given all of the scandals of the past five years, the light of day must
shine on and revisit this, and the public must have early and meaningful input.
Fast track was born behind closed doors and must not be born again the same
way - good, open government requires the legislative process to go slow and
go public."
The environmentalists concerns
are supported by recent correspondence from the Environmental Protection Agency
that outlined how the state statute would overstep its bounds by impeding on
federal environmental mandates. "This bill is so bad, that even the Bush
Administration, has said it violates federal laws. We should be exempting all
federally delegated and funded programs from this law and especially repeal
the permit by rule section that allows for pay to pave - developers hiring consultants
to hand out state permits," said Jeff Tittel, Sierra Club, New Jersey Director.
The groups focused on three
main areas where the bill needs to be drastically altered to protect public
health, the environment and due democratic process. The groups highlighted the
automatic 45-day approval period and the associated lack of meaningful public
comment, polluters ability to write and approve their own permits, and the massive
amount of land that would be fast-tracked for development as the most critical
to change.
Currently, the fast track
bill would affect land in over a third of the state, from urban centers to rural
areas to older suburbs, including Planning Areas 1 and 2 as well as all town
centers and urban enterprise zones. The groups advocated to redefine "smart
growth areas" to only include Planning Area 1 minus critical environmental
sites like wetlands, drinking water watersheds and critical habitat lands. "While
we are working to fix this bill, the administration should also be looking at
fixing the State Plan Map to remove environmentally sensitive areas from Fast
Track," said Eric Stiles, Director of Conservation, NJ Audubon Society.
"Fast track permitting
has the potential to affect over 1.5 million acres in the state of New Jersey.
The Pinelands under the Protection Act consists of approximately 1.1 million
acres. Fast track could do more harm to our water resources, our natural environment,
our wildlife, and the health and well-being of our general population than any
Highlands and Pinelands protections could offset. Governor McGreevey has now
recognized this, and now we need Governor Codey to act upon it," said Jaclyn
Rhoads of Pinelands Preservation Alliance.
The groups are calling for
a full elimination of automatic permits, including permits-by-rule and general
permits, as well as the one-size-fits-all 45-day deadlines. The groups believe
permit review should represent a true democratic process of engaging the greater
public, the specific neighborhood and the town to be affected by a development
decision and providing adequate time and resources to comment on the proposal.
Additional recommendations
for repealing the harmful provisions of the Fast Track law have been forwarded
to Governor Codey's office and can be found on the attached memo.
