New Jersey is likely on the cusp of receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from companies settling pollution lawsuits. The largest of those is a proposed $225 million settlement with ExxonMobil for pollution near two refineries in the northern part of the state. Sunoco, BP and Shell have also settled with the state for pollution near gas stations. Together, those settlements could bring in another $165 million.
The state's voters decided by a 2-1 margin Tuesday that the bulk of that money -- and all future pollution payouts -- will be spent on environmental projects, not on general state operations.
Environmentalists successfully pushed a constitutional amendment that will now require the legal payouts to go toward projects like building parks, removing dams or adding bike trails. If voters had rejected the amendment, all but $50 million would have gone into the state’s main checking account to pay for things like health insurance, prisons or schools.
Ed Potosnak, executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, one of the groups behind the ballot measure, says it will effectively create a “lockbox” for environmental uses.
“The administration [of outgoing Gov. Chris Christie] has been raiding those funds and diverting them away from polluted communities, away from environmental restoration projects that enhance the neighborhoods, that help restore the habitats, that [allow for] recreational usage of waterways available to residents,” he says. “Instead, that money has gone to general funds to make up for budget shortfalls and bad fiscal decisions."
But the Christie administration wasn’t the only culprit, says Potosnak. Other New Jersey governors have used similar tactics, and the Democratic-controlled state legislature allowed Christie to veto restrictions on the use of environmental settlements. (New Jersey voters on Tuesday elected Phil Murphy, a Democrat, to succeed Christie.)
Even though Potosnak blames lawmakers for many of the diversions, he notes that they were the ones who put the constitutional amendment on the ballot.
“Interestingly, 70 percent of the legislature voted to put the question to the public so that they could stop themselves and the administration from doing this. They’re asking for help,” he says. “In the face of Democrats and Republicans coming together and stealing money from communities that were polluted, this [amendment] makes a lot of sense.”
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