The Great American Outdoors Act will Help Protect New Jersey’s Open Spaces for Generations to Come

Representative Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11) today led passage of the Great American Outdoors Act (H.R. 1957), bipartisan legislation to permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and address the nearly $12 billion maintenance backlog in our national parks and other land management agencies.

An incredibly powerful and diverse array of over 170 organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of New Jersey residents including unions, environmental justice, social justice, community, faith-based groups, urban mayors, and an united environmental community called on the NJ State Assembly to pass the strongest possible version of the cumulative impacts bill (S232/A2212) out of committee today and the full Assembly on July 30th. 

New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection appears to be joining the ever-lengthening list of governmental agencies set on destroying what they are supposed to protect, with increasingly concerning implications for Sussex County.

Opponents of the PennEast pipeline appealed this week to Gov. Chris Christie and his administration to block construction of the pipeline, a proposed 115-mile conduit for natural gas to run through Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The NJ Pinelands Commission on Friday approved construction of a 22-mile natural gas pipeline through the Pine Barrens, home to numerous rare species and filter for some of the purest drinking water in the country. The approval represented a switch in policy attributed to Gov. Chris Christie’s appointees. And now environmentalists, conservationists and others are concerned the same thing will happen to the NJ Highlands, as Christie has stacked the Highlands Commission with pro-development members.

Led by the NJ chapter of the Sierra Club, environmental activist groups rallied in Newark on Monday to urge U.S. Senators Cory Booker and Robert Menendez to oppose President-elect Trump’s choices to head key departments that control environmental policy. They included 350NJ, Greenpeace, CREDO, Interfaith Power and Light, Beyond Extreme Energy and The Green Party of Essex County.

In 2017, New Jersey voters will decide if the governor and state lawmakers can balance the budget by raiding environmental settlements.

Unpopular governor and Trump-sycophant-in-chief Chris Christie may no longer be in charge of the president-elect’s transition team, but his influence lingers on in the choice of Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson for secretary of state, charges the Sierra Club.