Ex-governors set aside politics in looming climate fight | Editorial
News Article • 1/23/2017 • by Times of Trenton Editorial Board at NJ.com
He drafted the nation's Superfund program, designed to identify and clean up our most hazardous waste sites, and he created the New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve, the first designation of its kind to protect environmentally sensitive tracts of land.
She shepherded through a constitutional amendment preserving open space and farm land. Later, bitter disagreements with the George W. Bush Administration prompted her to resign as administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency.
Now these two former governors of New Jersey, Democrat Jim Florio and Republican Christine Todd Whitman, have had enough with the current occupant of the Governor's Office, and with the looming threat of panic many feel with the inauguration of President Donald Trump.
They've teamed up with the League of Conservation Voters' Education Fund to launch a campaign they hope will prevent the chipping away of legal protections so hard won over the past few decades - laws affecting the air we breathe and the water we drink.
TWO FORMER GOVERNORS JOIN ‘GREENS’ TO DO BATTLE WITH TRENTON, D.C.
News Article • 1/18/2017 • by Tom Johnson at NJ Spotlight
With an unsympathetic administration in Trenton the past eight years and a seemingly more antagonistic one about to take office in Washington this week, it is time to pay more attention to the environment.
Just ask former Govs. Jim Florio and Christie Todd Whitman.
How $750,000 will push environmental issues into NJ governor’s race
News Article • 1/17/2017 • by Michael Symons at NJ 101.5
With this year’s governor’s race rounding into shape, add the League of Conservation Voters to the roster of groups launching efforts to get the candidates’ attention and steer the debate.
The LCV’s education fund announced Tuesday, at a Statehouse event that featured former Govs. Jim Florio and Christie Whitman, that it will spend $750,000 on a campaign aiming to put climate change, public transportation, drinking water, urban industrialization and land preservation on the agenda.
On climate change, the campaign seeks a commitment for New Jersey to get all of its energy from renewable sources by 2050.
“I think New Jersey would be one of the first states to set that as an objective,” said fund executive director Ed Potosnak. “I think Hawaii beat us to it. But certainly we have been a leader in the past, and there’s no reason to think we can’t be a leader again.”
OP-ED: CONSERVATION VOTERS LAUNCHES INITIATIVE TO GO GREEN IN ’17
News Article • 11/14/2016 • by Ed Potosnak at NJ Spotlight
As Tuesday’s election results show, the environment lost big. By electing a president who denies the indisputable evidence of climate change and has said the Environmental Protection Agency should not exist, we as a nation forfeited the opportunity to lead the urgent quest for clean water, clear air, and sustainable energy for the next four years.
While this is extremely disconcerting to anyone who believes that climate change is the single most critical issue of our time, ground we’ll cede in a Trump administration can be offset if we implement policies that protect our planet here at home in the Garden State.
With an anti-environment president in the White House, the stakes are higher than ever for the 2017 New Jersey governor’s race. The candidate who wins next November’s open-seat election has the opportunity to be a national leader on climate change, clean water and air, and land preservation. The New Jersey League of Conservation Voters Education Fund is committed to ensuring New Jersey once again leads on environmental protection.