MARTUCCI TO REGION 2: Former New York state Sen. Mike Martucci is now leading the Environmental Protection Agency region for New York and New Jersey. Martucci’s name appeared on an EPA website as the Region 2 administrator, a post that gives him oversight of two major industrial states as well as Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and eight Indian nations. Martucci, a one-term member of the Senate who represented part of the Hudson Valley, did not respond to requests for comment this week. The posting was first reported Thursday by POLITICO’s E&E News. A source familiar with the EPA confirmed the posting to POLITICO. During his last year in Albany in 2022, Martucci received one of the best scores of any Republican lawmaker in rankings by the New York League of Conservation Voters. He describes himself as a farmer and founder of a school bus business, which he drove for. He was once the head of the New York School Bus Contractors Association. In an official biography, edited by his staff just before he left the Senate, he said Albany has been too focused on the needs of New York City. He declined to run again in 2022, citing a prolonged redistricting process. In early 2023, just after leaving office, he bought the Mid-Hudson News. Traditionally, the Region 2 posting has rotated among states. But Martucci is the third New Yorker in a row to hold the post. During the Biden administration, the office was led by Lisa Garcia, who had been an associate administrator and adviser to Obama-era national EPA Administrators Lisa Jackson and Gina McCarthy. Before Garcia, Pete Lopez, another former New Yorker state lawmaker, was regional administrator during President Donald Trump’s first term. — Ry Rivard CLEAN ENERGY BRIGHT SPOT: The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities celebrated a clean energy bright spot — solar energy. At an event in Secaucus on Thursday, BPU President Christine Guhl-Sadovy visited a public skating rink to mark the 5 gigawatts of solar that have now been installed across the state — more than half of it since Gov. Phil Murphy took office in 2018. The state’s solar capacity is spread across 209,000 installations — about 80 percent of them are net-metered on homes and businesses, 16 percent are grid-scale solar projects and the rest is community solar, which is aimed at making sure lower-income customers can receive clean energy. And solar projects keep coming. “That means consistent demands now and into the future, driving job creation and job stability for over 7,000 local solar installers in the state,” Guhl-Sadovy said. “These workers are our neighbors, siblings, and friends — and they are jobs that cannot be outsourced.”— Ry Rivard CLOUDS BLOW IN FOR WIND: In a sign of how hard large-scale clean energy projects may be for states, President Donald Trump took aim at Atlantic Shores, the offshore wind project closest to breaking ground in New Jersey. “It needed MASSIVE GOVERNMENT SUBSIDY that was impossible to justify,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Hopefully the project is dead and gone, as almost all unsightly and environmentally unsound Windmill project should be. Congratulations to the great people of New Jersey. You have FINALLY won your war on stupidity!!!” Atlantic Shores needs more money from the BPU but has not indicated it’s given up. The BPU is currently evaluating bids that include Atlantic Shores’ request for more money. — Ry Rivard EXTREME HEAT PROTECTION PLANNING: The Public Service Commission is moving to address rising concerns about more frequent heat waves by formalizing consumer protections during high temperatures. The PSC’s new proceeding targets the state’s electric and large water utilities which “lack a uniform definition for extreme heat,” the order approved Thursday says. “Protecting consumers is a top priority for the Commission,” said Commission Chair Rory Christian in a statement. “The primary purpose of this proceeding will be to assess the adequacy of the existing protections for major electric and major water utility customers during extreme heat events in view of policy objectives and to standardize them to reflect best practices.” The action by the utility regulator follows through with elements of the state’s Extreme Heat Action Plan, which was finalized last year. Department of Public Service staff are directed to file a proposal within 90 days. “Any new standards must take into consideration potential rate impacts so that affordability is not undermined, and rates remain just and reasonable,” the order states. — Marie J. French ZELDIN PAID BY QATARI-LED FIRM TIED TO MENENDEZ CASE — POLITICO’s Zack Colman: Lee Zeldin, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, received consulting payments from a Qatari investor involved in the felony corruption case against former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Zeldin’s financial disclosure records showed. WIND WOES GROW — POLITICO’s Ry Rivard, Kelsey Tamborrino and Marie J. French: The Biden administration and coastal Democrats pinned their energy hopes on offshore wind. President Donald Trump is trying to take the air out of them. Within hours of taking office, he ordered a wide-ranging review of offshore wind projects in federal waters and halted any new permits. The extent of the damage to the industry is still being sorted out. Despite the expectation that offshore wind will eventually provide clean power and well-paying construction jobs, work on wind farms has repeatedly stalled because of macroeconomic conditions and poor planning. Trump’s order injects further uncertainty into the mix. NJ TRANSIT CEO TRIES TO AVOID STRIKE: The new head of New Jersey Transit, Kris Kolluri, wants to resume negotiations with the train engineers union that could strike and upend the commute for tens of thousands of people across the region. A strike by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen could begin in late March after a 60-day cooling off period required by federal law. But Kolluri wants to avoid a strike and last-minute negotiations. “You don’t need to wait 60 days, let’s do it tomorrow, let’s do it today, I’ll work all night,” Kolluri told reporters on Wednesday following the formal release of the latest report on the labor dispute by a three-member board of mediators known as a presidential emergency board. The board’s report was largely a win for NJ Transit because the panel found the transit agency’s last offer to raise wages by 4 percent beginning in 2027 was the “most reasonable” compared to the union’s 14 percent demand. The union’s offer was, in the board’s view, “not only unwarranted and unreasonable, but also unaffordable.” The board also rejected the union’s argument that its members should be paid the same as engineers at other commuter railroads in the region. But not every part of the report was favorable to the transit agency. For instance, the report found NJ Transit had “offered little specific explanation” for why its offer was not higher. A previous presidential board had recommended NJ Transit offer the union, known as BLET, a better deal. – Ry Rivard NJLCV’S 2026 GOALS: The New Jersey League of Conservation voters and other major environmental groups are releasing their “Fix in ‘26” platform, which advocates hopes candidates for governor will look at this year. “We know the environment is critical to New Jersey’s residents and voters,” the league’s executive director, Ed Potosnak, said in a statement. “We need our next governor to recognize these challenges as opportunities to lower costs for working families and create a sustainable and economically prosperous state that works for every New Jersey family, regardless of race or ZIP code.” The group has a strong rapport with the Murphy administration. When the league came out and said Gov. Phil Murphy was no longer the nation’s greenest governor, Murphy gave a major environmental speech in early 2023 to pledge to do more. That included saying he’d turn his 100 percent clean energy goal into a law, which may be one of his final pushes before leaving office. The league’s 2026 platform includes a handful of main policies: the 100 percent clean energy goal; investments in hardening communities for climate change; improving air and water quality; preserving open space and expanding access to parks; and expanding mass transit options. — Ry Rivard CLIMATE BILLION STARTING PITCH: What’s Gov. Kathy Hochul’s plan to leverage $1 billion in state funding for climate? She doesn’t really have one — yet. The governor’s executive budget proposal fails to line out her much-heralded $1 billion in funding, simply including a generic description of a range of potential programs: “reducing greenhouse gas emissions and pollution; decarbonizing and retrofitting buildings; creating and utilizing renewable energy; advancing clean transportation initiatives; building, repairing, and maintaining thermal energy networks; for the design, construction, repair, or improvement of green infrastructure; and for purposes consistent with the general findings of the scoping plan … subject to a plan approved by the director of the budget.” “The state fails to have a comprehensive energy transition and resilience plan and once again there’s a proposal to spend money without the details of where it's going to go,” said Citizens Budget Commission president Andrew Rein. “We’d be much more successful if we identified the needs of the state and plugged spending programs into those needs.” Blake Washington, Hochul’s budget director, said the plan is still under development. “We want to make sure we do transformative investments, things that matter, things that help to move the needle,” he said. “What she’s not interested in is pork projects. She wants things that actually matter and are consequential and where we can actually provoke — maybe demonstrate that some projects work really well,” Washington added. “I think it's a discussion we’ll be having with the Legislature to help form out where the dollars will be pledged but she wants consequential projects, the governor doesn’t want nickel and dime projects.” The money from the “Sustainable Future Program” isn’t expected to get out the door all at once. The financial plan estimates the $1 billion appropriation will be disbursed evenly over five years at $200 million each year. It’s not unusual for environmental spending to take a while to go out the door — look no further than the $4.2 billion environmental bond act passed by voters in 2022 or the $500 million for the offshore wind supply chain in the budget passed in 2022. But environmental advocates were still disappointed at the potentially slow pace of spending. Earthjustice said it “falls far short of the funding communities desperately need.” “It’s an appropriation of a billion,” Washington said. When asked about the pace of spending from the bond act, Washington said there’s a “rhythm” to spending by state government. “It’s contingent on any number of factors,” like contractor availability and costs, vendor sophistication and ability to sign contracts, and more, he added. — Marie J. French
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