DEP waiver rule opponents stage rally

TRENTON – A coalition of environmentalists, labor unions and educators staged a protest today against a new state rule that will permit applicants to request waivers of regulations they deem burdensome.

Today is the first day of the Department of Environmental Protection waiver rule, spurred by an executive order issued by Gov. Chris Christie.

Opponents, including such groups as the N.J. Work Environment Council, the American Federation of Teachers Local 1766, Food & Water Watch, United Steelworkers District 4, N.J. Sierra Club, and Pinelands Preservation Alliance demonstrated in front of the DEP headquarters here today.

Their representatives alleged that the waiver rule is an end-run around environmental rules that protect the state’s air and water quality. They charged that it is nothing more than a conservative political attack, part of a pay-to-play mentality that will benefit business interests.

“This demonstration is to show publically what this waiver really is about,’’ said Denise Patel, project coordinator of the N.J. Work Environment Council. “It is the auctioning off of our environmental regulations that protect our air, that protect our water.”

Patel and several other speakers said that an understaffed DEP will feel political pressure from the Christie administration to approve waivers, and that there will be insufficient public review or recourse when a waiver is sought.

She said the waiver rule represents an “incredible consolidation of power in the Executive branch.”

They charged that since applicants won’t have to pay a fee when seeking a waiver, all applicants will seek them since they have nothing to lose by trying.

Luke Gordon, of the United Steelworkers, painted a picture of how he believes this waiver rule may affect people on the front lines, working men and women exposed to the chemicals that DEP is supposed to protect them from.

“Whatever gets dropped in the water, whatever goes into the air, we get exposed to it first in the workplace,’’ he said. “We need laws to protect us.”

DEP response

DEP spokesman Larry Ragonese rebutted the demonstrators’ claims.

He said that DEP has sufficient staff and has been preparing its procedures for months to handle waiver applications; that the process will be completely transparent with everything posted online on DEP’s web site; and that waiver approvals won’t be as far-reaching or as many as opponents claim.

“We can’t even consider something that would violate state or federal law,” he said.  “What’s out there will be very limited.” 

“What they said is ludicrous,” Ragonese said of the protesters. “This is an attempt to institute some common sense rules in government that give people in New Jersey a bit of flexibility from strict compliance with a very limited set of rules.”

This waiver rule represents an attempt to make government more responsive to people, in particular the “average Jersey guy” who has a problem with a subdivision or a small businessman who has an issue with one property, he said.

He said the protesters were issuing misleading statements about transparency and limitations because of their overall opposition to the rule.