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TRENTON
– Attorney General Anne Milgram announced
today that New Jersey has joined with California
and other jurisdictions in issuing a notice
of intent to sue the federal Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) over EPA’s
failure to act on petitions requesting it
regulate greenhouse gas emissions from ocean-going
vessels, aircraft and non-road vehicles
and engines.
According to Milgram, New Jersey, California
and the other jurisdictions have petitioned
the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions
from large marine vessels, aircraft and
non-road vehicles and engines in keeping
with the federal Clean Air Act. In each
case, the petitions asked EPA to find that
greenhouse gas emissions from the particular
source endanger public health and welfare,
and that EPA propose and adopt regulations
limiting such emissions. Each petition also
requested a response within 180 days of
its filing.
To
date, said Milgram, the only response EPA
has provided came in the form of a July
11, 2008 Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
for regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
The Advanced Notice for Rulemaking, however,
did not make the endangerment determination
sought in the states’ three petitions,
nor did it trigger the rulemaking process
for regulating greenhouse gases from marine
vessels, aircraft or non-road vehicles and
engines. Rather, it merely describes the
three petitions submitted by the states
and invites comment on them.
“New
Jersey has been doing its part to address
global warming, and it’s time for
EPA to do the same,” said Milgram.
“To date, EPA has been unresponsive
to the states’ three petitions. Meanwhile,
ocean-going vessels, aircraft and non-road
vehicles continue to gain in significance
as a source of harmful greenhouse gas emissions
and, ultimately, as contributors to harmful
climate change.”
“As
a national leader in the battle against
global warming, New Jersey has set ambitious
goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions”
said DEP Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson. ”To
accomplish them, we must limit emissions
from all sources.”
“Once
again,” Commissioner Jackson said,
“we call upon the federal government
to set national standards that will aid,
rather than undermine state efforts."
Attorney General Milgram, who testified
before the EPA on this issue in 2007, noted
that state-specific information contained
in the states’ July 31, 2008 notice-of-intent-to-sue
letter speaks of the potentially disastrous
impact of climate-change-related rising
seas in New Jersey.
The letter notes that New Jersey “has
130 miles of highly-populated coastline
as well as thousands of acres of coastal
salt marshes and tidal flats, coastal wetlands
and tidal freshwater wetlands” that
would be inundated and ultimately harmed
by rising seas.
The letter also notes that, according to
a July 2008 report by the Center for Integrative
Environmental Research at the University
of Maryland, the most significant economic
and ecological impacts in the state associated
with climate change will occur along New
Jersey’s coastline.
Entitled Economic Impacts of Climate Change
on New Jersey, the report explains that
New Jersey’s economy is especially
vulnerable because of coastal development
and the high rate of coastal erosion and
subsequent water elevation related to climate
change. The notice-of-intent-to-sue letter
to EPA cites information in the report that
erosion and rising seas could impact New
Jersey’s coastal shipping and transportation
infrastructure, and could eventually result
in billions of dollars in lost tourism revenue
as well.
In addition to California and New Jersey,
other jurisdictions joining the notice-of-intent-to-sue
letter include Connecticut, Oregon, the
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental
Protection and New York City.
Deputy Attorneys General Kevin Auerbacher
and Jung Kim of the Division of Law are
handling the matter on behalf of the state.
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