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“Significant changes are brewing for New Jersey’s environmental site remediation program.“   

That’s the headline in advance of a joint hearing of the Senate Environment Committee and the Assembly Environment and Solid Waste Committee on April 15 to take testimony on proposed changes to NJ’s site remediation program and brownfields regulations.  Topics for discussion include:

• The use of licensed site professionals to review some remediations;
• Remedy selection/encouragement of permanent remedies;
• Engineering and institutional controls;
• Standards for the remediation/replacement of underground tanks;
• Site remediation enforcement issues;
• Issues concerning remediation funding, and,
• Change in use of contaminated sites.

Almost simultaneously, in an Adminstrative Order issued by NJDEP Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson, the DEP Permit Efficiency Review Task Force has been established.  The Task Force is charged with providing recommendations for restructuring and re-engineering NJDEP permitting and other programs.   The Task Force has a number of prominent private and public sector representatives, including its chairperson former NJDEP Commissioner Chris Daggett.  

Here’s a copy of Administrative Order 2008-06, which established the task force.

Does this mean that we will see significant changes in the environmental and brownfields regulatory process?  We shall see.  The mere fact, however, that both legislative committees are meeting together, and that the Commissioner has formed a Task Force consisting including private interest stakeholders, may be an indication that serious changes are in the works.

The meeting will be held at 10 a.m. in Committee Room 4 on the St Floor of the State House Annex.

http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/BillsForAgendaView.asp  

(For those that are interested, that’s the building to the right when you are facing the State House in Trenton.)
 
Stay tuned here for more developments…..

I started here as an 22 year old, fresh-faced college grad about to embark on law school, who thought it was time to drop my tennis racquet (my previous summer jobs involved teaching tennis and being a country club tennis pro) and enter the “real world” to work at a law firm to prepare for the rigors of a life in law. At least a million document reviews later (sadly not an exaggeration) I may not have had much of a summer lesson in the finer points of the law, but I did know that CB was a group of great people who treated even the lowest person on the totem pole (undoubtedly me) with respect and dignity.

We’ve changed offices, seen some old friends go and new friends come, had a party or two (and maybe the occasional drink), won many cases (and admittedly lost some cases), won a lot of softball games, had babies, got married, got divorced, and above all learned a lot. But, fifteen plus years later it is remarkable to note, especially in the intervening years of widespread nationwide law firm mergers, defections, closings and the like, that the core of the people at the Firm in 1992 are largely unchanged today. CB is still a place that trades on its people. Whether it is in the way it treats employees and their families, its fellow members of the bar, be it friend or foe, and of course its clients.

In this space, I will post my thoughts on things that touch CB or the profession in general, and provide links to interesting (mostly humorous!) stories about our profession. Hopefully, it will be an enjoyable read, not too serious, and something worth coming back for.