Russ Zimmer

@RussZimmer

Green advocates in New Jersey are girding for an all-out war with President Donald Trump, who has pledged his own assault on the nation's thicket of environmental rules and regulations.

One of the skirmishes has already gone to Trump and backers of his environmental policy, the central tenet of which, in a word, is to have less — less bureaucracy, less regulation, less rules to stand in the way of industry.

That victory came last week, when a Senate committee cleared the way for Scott Pruitt, the administration's controversial pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, was advanced to the full Senate for a vote.

The expected confirmation of Pruitt — the vote could come any day — cheers business leaders averse to what they see as excessive federal regulation. As Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt has never been shy to pick a fight with the EPA, challenging its rule-making authority in a barrage of court cases.

But what rankles the New Jersey environmentalists isn’t just the Pruitt pick. As Trump barrels ahead with a host of initiatives — new restrictions on immigration; new limits on foreign aid; a Supreme Court nominee in the mold of the late Justice Antonin Scalia — some now worry that Trump actually means what he says.

“It's even more frightening to see it come to reality," said New Jersey Sierra Club director Jeff Tittel, on what he called Trump's anti-environment platform, "and in some ways it's even more extreme than what he was saying in the campaign.”

A remaking of the EPA would have major ramifications in New Jersey, where decades of unfettered development and industrial pollution have created a backlog of toxic cleanup sites, where the air is fouled by upwind coal plants and where the coast is vulnerable to sea level rise and coastal floods.

For one, New Jersey has more Superfund cleanup sites than any other state. The Superfund program, which has been decontaminating land and water poisoned by hazardous waste since 1980, lists 114 sites in New Jersey on the National Priorities List. California, which is 19 times larger than New Jersey, has 98.

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Against that backdrop, New Jersey's Cory Booker was one of 11 Democratic U.S. senators who no-showed a committee meeting last week in order to slow down the ascension of Pruitt, seen by the left as a Trojan Horse — ready to destroy the agency from the inside. But Pruitt has his backers.

"The (confirmation) hearing was really about the future of this agency — and how we can get it back to doing the job that it was meant to do from the very beginning," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, chairman of the Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works, said on the Senate floor.

“We are blessed in this country with enormous natural resources. Our goal should be to use these resources responsibly, in ways that protect our environment and help make our economy strong."

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Even without Pruitt on board, the environment bureaucracy was in the cross hairs last week, as the GOP-controlled Congress took up legislation that would loosen clean water and air protections connected with mining and oil and gas drilling, respectively.

Trump also announced executive orders reviving the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines, both the bane of environmentalists.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents business interests, has praised Trump's quick actions on regulations and infrastructure as the first steps to increase investments and jobs. In the nation's coal regions, the EPA's rules are regarded as a killer of jobs and a way of life,.

“For too long, private infrastructure investment has been held hostage by government interference driven by fringe interests," Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, said in a statement. She said Trump's executive orders "demonstrate that we finally have an administration that is serious about putting American energy to work for the entire economy."

But a smattering of environmental headlines have environmentalists reeling:

“We are clearly seeing a shock-and-awe, full-frontal attack on the EPA," Environment New Jersey Director Doug O'Malley said. "And it seems like the other shoes are starting to fall.”

What it means

Setting aside pollution from the past — the Superfund sites — cuts to the EPA would also make it more difficult for New Jersey to police clean air and clean water violations in the present, Tittel said.

Trimming $1 billion from an $8.1 billion budget would bring the EPA's spending level back to 1997. Federal grants from the EPA make up 25 percent to 30 percent of the state Department of Environmental Protection's annual budget.

How the president views America's role as steward of the environment is a bit of a mystery. A message left with the White House communications office was not returned.

On the White House's website, the only mention of the EPA is a promise for change as a footnote to the administration's energy agenda: "President Trump will refocus the EPA on its essential mission of protecting our air and water."

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The webpage for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which is the wellspring for the presidency's environmental initiatives, is blank and no new leadership has been announced.

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Employing a delaying tactic, Democratic senators including Booker skipped the Feb. 1 meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Barasso called the absence "political theater."

On the agenda was a vote to advance Pruitt's nomination to helm the EPA. Democrats, urged on by activists including Tittel and O'Malley, have objected to Pruitt's selection, citing his long history of antagonism toward the agency he would be leading.

Pruitt, who concedes that climate change is real even if he won't say what role humans play in accelerating it, has sued the EPA a total of 14 times as Oklahoma attorney general. The nomination passed the committee the next day when Republicans suspended the rules to vote without the Democratic members present.

Indeed, Democrats, who are traditionally aligned with environmental interest groups, will be unable to stop appointments and legislation without members of the majority party joining them.

That makes the voice of moderate Republicans, such as Shore-area Congressmen Chris Smith and Tom McArthur especially important on environmental issues.

"They're going to have to stand up to the president and their party leadership," Tittel said.

Longtime U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-New Jersey, pledged to continue pushing back against a degradation of environmental policy, but he said it would probably take a grand public gesture — akin to the Women's March on Washington or the airport demonstrations against the immigration order — to get the attention of the White House.

“He needs to know that breaking down environmental protections is not something that the public is going to allow," Pallone said.

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Russ Zimmer: 732-557-5748, razimmer@app.com