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New Jersey’s First Lady Tammy Murphy, who’s working for U.S. Senate, mentioned Tuesday she opposes building of a gas-fired backup power plant in a minority neighborhood already closely burdened with air pollution.
But she didn’t say whether or not she has mentioned her view with the one one that might cease the mission in its tracks — her husband, Gov. Phil Murphy.
And questioned by reporters afterward, she wouldn’t say whether or not she deliberate to attempt to foyer him to kill the proposal.
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“I am not speaking for the governor,” she mentioned. “I’m talking to other people about this. I’m not here to stand up and speak for the administration. That’s not my role here today. With all due respect, that’s the end of the conversation.”
Tammy Murphy mentioned she opposes building of the backup power system on the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission in Newark’s Ironbound part.
The neighborhood is the place her husband signed New Jersey’s environmental justice legislation in 2020 with nice fanfare. The measure goals to make sure communities already overburdened by air pollution will not be pressured to simply accept further sources of contaminants.
“Families living in Newark are already disproportionately exposed to pollution and will experience further serious health risks as the result of this new gas-fired power plant,” she mentioned. “For all residents of Newark, this power plant is a step in the wrong direction, and for mothers and babies in particular, it is extremely and unacceptably dangerous.”
She mentioned New Jersey has made in depth resiliency upgrades to the power grid, which is able to assist make different choices extra possible.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, left, and first woman Tammy Murphy attend the National Governors Association summer time assembly, July 15, 2022, in Portland, Maine. Murphy, who’s working for U.S. Senate, mentioned Tuesday she opposes building of a gas-fired backup power plant in a minority neighborhood already closely burdened with air pollution. But she didn’t say whether or not she has mentioned her view with the one one that might cease the mission in its tracks — her husband, Gov. Phil Murphy. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File) (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
The proposal has been pending for a number of years and stays beneath assessment by state environmental regulators.
In January 2022, Gov. Murphy directed the fee to cancel a vote on the mission to permit a extra thorough analysis of whether or not the mission would violate environmental justice legislation. But simply three months later, the fee pressed ahead with the mission.
Tammy Murphy is looking for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat at the moment held by Democrat Robert Menendez.
Menendez is dealing with federal corruption fees and has not mentioned whether or not he’ll search re-election.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Andy Kim, who can be looking for his occasion’s nomination for the Senate seat, additionally opposes the mission.
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“There is simply no need for yet another gas power plant in the city of Newark when renewable energy solutions are possible, especially at a time when so many residents in that community are already living with some of the worst air pollution in the country,” he mentioned in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Kim additionally mentioned such air pollution “disproportionately impacts communities of color who are already too often put at risk by existing environmental hazards, and we should be working to transition to renewable energy solutions by utilizing federal funds like the Inflation Reduction Act.”
The sewerage fee has proposed a $180 million backup power mission that might kick in throughout extreme storms, power outages or situations of a cyber assault. It’s designed to keep away from a repeat of what occurred after Superstorm Sandy in 2012. When power went out from the storm, almost a billion gallons of uncooked sewage spilled into space waterways whereas the plant was knocked offline.
A coalition of environmental and neighborhood teams needs the governor to reject the plan and order the fee to revamp it in order that it doesn’t add to the air pollution burden on the neighborhood.
The Passaic Valley Sewerage Authority plant in Newark N.J. A proposed backup power plant for the ability is drawing strenuous opposition from residents who say their neighborhood is already overburdened with polluting amenities, together with two different power vegetation. On Feb. 20, 2024, New Jersey first woman and U.S. Senate candidate Tammy Murphy opposed the mission, however the candidate for a U.S. Senate seat wouldn’t say if she has tried to affect her husband — Gov. Phil Murphy — to kill the mission. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)
Kim Gaddy, an environmental activist and a member of the governor’s Council on the Green Economy — whose honorary chair is Tammy Murphy — famous that the state’s public transit company pulled the plug final month on an identical mission in Kearny, close to Newark.
“Black and brown lungs have had enough,” she mentioned. “If the Murphy Administration and NJ Transit can pull the plug on a dirty gas plant just a couple miles away, as they just did, why can’t it happen here in Newark? Governor Murphy and PVSC, are you listening?”
The backup power plant initially was proposed to run solely on pure fuel, which residents say would worsen already poor air high quality within the neighborhood. The fee has mentioned it has modified the plan to include using “alternative green renewable fuels” along side burning pure fuel, and if and when expertise advances to that time, utilizing such fuels to interchange pure fuel fully.
A spokesperson for the fee declined touch upon Tammy Murphy’s opposition. The governor’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Without a backup power supply, the fee says, the lack of power mixed with heavy rain might lead to uncooked sewage backing up into houses and probably flooding streets in Newark and surrounding cities together with Jersey City and Bayonne.
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It beforehand mentioned it has nearly all of the approvals it wants for the mission, needing solely a assessment of technical specs by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
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