AURORA, Colo. — As the weather warms, Lizeth Chacon is anticipating a new season of registering Latino voters — yet dreading experiences like one late last year, when she came upon a skate park full of older teenagers.

“I thought, ‘The perfect age! They’re turning 18,’ ” said Ms. Chacon, just 26 herself, born in Mexico and now the lead organizer at Rights for All People, a local immigrant organizing group. But among the roughly 50 people she approached in this increasingly diverse city east of Denver, “not a single person” was interested in her pitch, including those already old enough to vote: “They were like, ‘Why? Why would I bother to vote?’ ”

Across the country, immigrant-rights advocates report mounting disillusionment with both parties among Latinos, enough to threaten recent gains in voting participation that have reshaped politics to Democrats’ advantage nationally, and in states like Colorado with significant Latino populations. High hopes — kindled by President Obama’s elections and stoked in June by Senate passage of the most significant overhaul of immigration law in a generation, with a path to citizenship for about 11 million people here unlawfully — have been all but dashed.

Latinos mainly blame Republicans, who control the House and have buried the Senate bill, but they also have soured on Mr. Obama. The federal government has so aggressively enforced existing immigration laws that one national Hispanic leader recently nicknamed the president “deporter in chief” for allowing nearly two million people to be deported.

Lisa Duran, Ms. Chacon’s supervisor, said some Latinos felt “nowhere to turn.”
MATTHEW STAVER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A day after that widely reported gibe in Washington, at Denver’s Spanish-language radio station KBNO (“Que Bueno” to its audience), the host Fernando Sergio devoted his three-hour talk show to asking listeners whether they agreed with the criticism, or “has President Obama done the best he can against Republican opposition?”

“The majority were very angry at the president,” Mr. Sergio said in an interview at the station, where pictures of John and Robert Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Mr. Obama hang on the walls. “People feel like he’s made some promises that he hasn’t fulfilled, that he can do more” — like expand his 2012 order that deferred deportations of young people brought to the country as children, a group known as Dreamers.

“If I were a Democratic consultant,” Mr. Sergio added, “I would have been concerned.”

Democrats indeed are worried. While the growing Latino electorate is a force in presidential elections, and one expected to give Democrats an edge for years unless Republicans shed an anti-immigrant image, Latinos are relative bit players in this midterm election year. Their turnout typically drops in midterm years; nationally and in Colorado, about half of registered Latinos voted in 2008 and 2012, but less than a third did in the 2010 midterm elections and many Democrats lost. This fall, with many Latinos caught between hostility toward Republicans and disappointment with Mr. Obama, participation could dip further.

“There’s a sense from some people that there’s nowhere to turn, and I’m afraid they’re just going to be frozen in frustration,” said Lisa Duran, executive director of Rights for All People, and Ms. Chacon’s supervisor. “It’s absolutely imperative that we not let that happen.”

A depressed vote threatens Democrats in a number of races, notably in Colorado, where Latinos were 14 percent of the state’s 2012 electorate and about 70 percent voted for Democrats. Their Senate majority at risk, Democrats are hustling to help Senator Mark Udall now that a formidable Republican, Representative Cory Gardner, has challenged him. They also hope to snatch the House district, including Aurora, from Representative Mike Coffman, a Republican. His Democratic rival is Andrew Romanoff, a former State House speaker.

While Mr. Coffman lately has moderated his stance on immigration, Mr. Gardner has not. He has opposed the deportation stay for young people and objects to the Senate’s path to citizenship as amnesty, and Democrats plan to emphasize that to Latino voters.

“This is a turnout election for Democrats, and we’re shifting focus and resources because we know that,” said Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “We can’t outcompete the billionaires on the airwaves. It’s going to have to be a ground game.” Mr. Bennet won in 2010 by mobilizing more Latinos, women and young voters than many in either party predicted.

Discouraged Democrats take some comfort that the closest Senate races are mostly in states without many Latinos. As for the House, a couple of dozen races could turn on Latino votes — including in California, Florida, Nevada and Texas — but Republicans are expected to retain their majority.

Still, Mr. Obama wants to reconcile with Latinos, a group that gave him 71 percent of its votes in 2012. He recently met with several Hispanic lawmakers and days later with 17 leaders of immigration groups, but the meetings only underscored each side’s frustration with the other.

In the meeting with the immigration groups, Mr. Obama did most of the talking for nearly two hours, participants said. He argued that by being united, they had they won public support for immigration changes, passed the Senate bill and put House Republicans on the defensive. By now attacking him, the president said — and he chided Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza, for her “deporter in chief” taunt — the activists were relieving the pressure on Republicans, he said. Privately, Republicans agree.

The president told them that his secretary of homeland security, Jeh Johnson, would review the deportation system. But Mr. Obama lowered expectations by reiterating that administration lawyers say he cannot take action beyond his 2012 order benefiting the so-called Dreamers. The advocates expressed skepticism.

The exchange reflected Mr. Obama’s bind: If he suspends more deportations, he could mend relations with Latinos and perhaps motivate more of them to vote. But he could lose what chance remains for new immigration law, his second-term domestic priority, since House Republicans have signaled they would cite such executive action as proof that he cannot be trusted to enforce any law.

Back in Colorado, Leticia Zavala follows the Washington maneuvering from the vast eastern plains, in the ranching center of Fort Morgan where she was born, in what is now Mr. Gardner’s House district. The county is one-third Latino, and her experiences there capture the community’s conflicted feelings.

Ms. Zavala, 26, recently was packing to drive to Mexico with her two young children for their first visit with her husband since he was deported in December, more than two years after he was snared in an immigration raid at a dairy plant, and six years after he began seeking legal status. While she knows perhaps 10 people who have been deported, until her husband’s ordeal, “I didn’t really know how it affected families,” she said, wiping tears.

Yet she has become more politically active, not less. Ms. Zavala takes heart from Latinos’ legislative victories in Colorado. She formed a small immigrants assistance group, enrolled in community college, and helps a local lawyer with citizenship classes. Everywhere, she carries a backpack with voter registration forms, envelopes and stamps.

Ms. Zavala estimated that she has helped register about 100 people, though it has not been easy. “Many people are angry and upset because Obama promised so much and it’s been how many years?” she said. “But the Republicans aren’t doing anything. We have something; there’s a bill. And for us to sit here in March 2014 with nothing — people are just really upset.”

NY Times, Mar. 31, 2014

Greenland’­s immense ice sheet is melting as a result of climate change.

KADIR VAN LOHUIZEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

By JUSTIN GILLIS

YOKOHAMA, Japan — Climate change is already having sweeping effects on every continent and throughout the world’s oceans, scientists reported on Monday, and they warned that the problem was likely to grow substantially worse unless greenhouse emissions are brought under control.

The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations group that periodically summarizes climate science, concluded that ice caps are melting, sea ice in the Arctic is collapsing, water supplies are coming under stress, heat waves and heavy rains are intensifying, coral reefs are dying, and fish and many other creatures are migrating toward the poles or in some cases going extinct.

The oceans are rising at a pace that threatens coastal communities and are becoming more acidic as they absorb some of the carbon dioxide given off by cars and power plants, which is killing some creatures or stunting their growth, the report found.

Organic matter frozen in Arctic soils since before civilization began is now melting, allowing it to decay into greenhouse gases that will cause further warming, the scientists said. And the worst is yet to come, the scientists said in the second of three reports that are expected to carry considerable weight next year as nations try to agree on a new global climate treaty.

Rajendra K. Pachauri, center, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, speaks during a press conference in Tokyo on Monday.

SHIZUO KAMBAYASHI / ASSOCIATED PRESS

In particular, the report emphasized that the world’s food supply is at considerable risk — a threat that could have serious consequences for the poorest nations.

“Nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change,” Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the intergovernmental panel, said at a news conference here on Monday presenting the report.

The report was among the most sobering yet issued by the scientific panel. The group, along with Al Gore, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for its efforts to clarify the risks of climate change. The report is the final work of several hundred authors; details from the drafts of this and of the last report in the series, which will be released in Berlin in April, leaked in the last few months.

The report attempts to project how the effects will alter human society in coming decades. While the impact of global warming may actually be moderated by factors like economic or technological change, the report found, the disruptions are nonetheless likely to be profound. That will be especially so if emissions are allowed to continue at a runaway pace, the report said.

Tracks were flooded at Grand Central Station in Oct. 2012, after Hurricane Sandy hit New York.

HIROKO MASUIKE / THE NEW YORK TIMES

It cited the risk of death or injury on a wide scale, probable damage to public health, displacement of people and potential mass migrations.

“Throughout the 21st century, climate-change impacts are projected to slow down economic growth, make poverty reduction more difficult, further erode food security, and prolong existing and create new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hot spots of hunger,” the report declared.

The report also cited the possibility of violent conflict over land, water or other resources, to which climate change might contribute indirectly “by exacerbating well-established drivers of these conflicts such as poverty and economic shocks.” The scientists emphasized that climate change is not just a problem of the distant future, but is happening now.

Studies have found that parts of the Mediterranean region are drying out because of climate change, and some experts believe that droughts there have contributed to political destabilization in the Middle East and North Africa.

In much of the American West, mountain snowpack is declining, threatening water supplies for the region, the scientists said in the report. And the snow that does fall is melting earlier in the year, which means there is less melt water to ease the parched summers. In Alaska, the collapse of sea ice is allowing huge waves to strike the coast, causing erosion so rapid that it is already forcing entire communities to relocate.

“Now we are at the point where there is so much information, so much evidence, that we can no longer plead ignorance,” Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization, said at the news conference.

The report was quickly welcomed in Washington, where President Obama is trying to use his executive power under the Clean Air Act and other laws to impose significant new limits on the country’s greenhouse emissions. He faces determined opposition in Congress.

“There are those who say we can’t afford to act,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement. “But waiting is truly unaffordable. The costs of inaction are catastrophic.”

Amid all the risks the experts cited, they did find a bright spot. Since the intergovernmental panel issued its last big report in 2007, it has found growing evidence that governments and businesses around the world are making extensive plans to adapt to climate disruptions, even as some conservatives in the United States and a small number of scientists continue to deny that a problem exists.

“I think that dealing effectively with climate change is just going to be something that great nations do,” said Christopher B. Field, co-chairman of the working group that wrote the report and an earth scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif. Talk of adaptation to global warming was once avoided in some quarters, on the ground that it would distract from the need to cut emissions. But the past few years have seen a shift in thinking, including research from scientists and economists who argue that both strategies must be pursued at once.

A striking example of the change occurred recently in the state of New York, where the Public Service Commission ordered Consolidated Edison, the electric utility serving New York City and some suburbs, to spend about $1 billion upgrading its system to prevent future damage from flooding and other weather disruptions.

The plan is a reaction to the blackouts caused by Hurricane Sandy. Con Ed will raise flood walls, bury some vital equipment and conduct a study of whether emerging climate risks require even more changes. Other utilities in the state face similar requirements, and utility regulators across the United States are discussing whether to follow New York’s lead.

But with a global failure to limit greenhouse gases, the risk is rising that climatic changes in coming decades could overwhelm such efforts to adapt, the panel found. It cited a particular risk that in a hotter climate, farmers will not be able to keep up with the fast-rising demand for food.

“When supply falls below demand, somebody doesn’t have enough food,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University climate scientist who helped write the new report. “When some people don’t have food, you get starvation. Yes, I’m worried.”

The poorest people in the world, who have had virtually nothing to do with causing global warming, will be high on the list of victims as climatic disruptions intensify, the report said. It cited a World Bank estimate that poor countries need as much as $100 billion a year to try to offset the effects of climate change; they are now getting, at best, a few billion dollars a year in such aid from rich countries.

The $100 billion figure, though included in the 2,500-page main report, was removed from a 48-page executive summary to be read by the world’s top political leaders. It was among the most significant changes made as the summary underwent final review during an editing session of several days in Yokohama.

The edit came after several rich countries, including the United States, raised questions about the language, according to several people who were in the room at the time but did not wish to be identified because the negotiations were private. The language is contentious because poor countries are expected to renew their demand for aid this September in New York at a summit meeting of world leaders, who will attempt to make headway on a new treaty to limit greenhouse gases.

Many rich countries argue that $100 billion a year is an unrealistic demand; it would essentially require them to double their budgets for foreign aid, at a time of economic distress at home. That argument has fed a rising sense of outrage among the leaders of poor countries, who feel their people are paying the price for decades of profligate Western consumption.

Two decades of international efforts to limit emissions have yielded little result, and it is not clear whether the negotiations in New York this fall will be any different. While greenhouse gas emissions have begun to decline slightly in many wealthy countries, including the United States, those gains are being swamped by emissions from rising economic powers like China and India.

For the world’s poorer countries, food is not the only issue, but it may be the most acute. Several times in recent years, climatic disruptions in major growing regions have helped to throw supply and demand out of balance, contributing to price increases that have reversed decades of gains against global hunger, at least temporarily.

The warning about the food supply in the new report is much sharper in tone than any previously issued by the panel. That reflects a growing body of research about how sensitive many crops are to heat waves and water stress. The report said that climate change was already dragging down the output of wheat and corn at a global scale, compared to what it would otherwise be.

David B. Lobell, a Stanford University scientist who has published much of the recent research and helped write the new report, said in an interview that as yet, too little work was being done to understand the risk, much less counter it with improved crop varieties and farming techniques. “It is a surprisingly small amount of effort for the stakes,” he said.

Timothy Gore, an analyst for Oxfam, the antipoverty group that sent observers to the proceedings in Yokohama, praised the new report as painting a clear picture of the consequences of a warming planet. But he warned that without greater efforts to limit global warming and to adapt to the changes that have become inevitable, “the goal we have in Oxfam of ensuring that every person has enough food to eat could be lost forever.”

NJ Spotlight, Mar. 26, 2014

By Scott Gurian

Gov. Chris Christie heard more tales of woe from people still struggling to recover from Superstorm Sandy at his latest town hall meeting yesterday.

It was the sixth Q&A he’s held in Belmar, as well as the sixth town hall he’s held since the Bridgegate scandal erupted in January. But the governor encountered a friendlier crowd here than at some other recent events.

A few residents asked questions about education and good governance topics, but the majority of the focus was people’s individual Sandy-related situations. Questioners shared tales of fighting with their insurance companies, dealing with recurrent flooding problems and continuing to wait for state grant money. They also asked about plans to construct dunes and to dredge rivers still clogged by storm debris. And they shared their concerns and suggestions.

A resident of Brick Township recommended that the rules be changed so people like herself could start rebuilding while waiting for grant money and get reimbursed after the fact. Christie said he’s raised the issue multiple times with federal officials, but was told there’s a specific federal statute that prohibits that.

Another person wanted to make sure that the dunes would be handicapped-accessible so her disabled husband would still be able to go to the beach. The governor assured her that the state would comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Responding to criticism that his administration was sitting on aid money, Christie said that all the funding for housing programs has already been allocated and that the state has listened to people’s concerns and made changes, such as allowing them to use their own contractors.

There were also suggestions that in-state contractors should do all the repairs.

“We’re trying to rebuild 365,000 homes,” Christie responded. “There’s simply not enough contactors in New Jersey to do all that work in a timely way.”

He also had some recommendations of his own, including that the federal government should get out of providing flood insurance and let the private market take over.

“What we really need is more competition in the industry,” he said, calling on people to contact their members of Congress to complain.

As at past town halls, several members of the governor’s cabinet, including Sandy “Storm Czar” Marc Ferzan, were also in attendance, but none of them said anything except Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin, who was called on to answer a few detailed questions pertaining to dunes and waterways.

Christie acknowledged that there have been problems with the state’s handling of the recovery process.

“Let me be, once again, the guy to admit that this has not gone perfectly," he said. "Far from it. This is the first time we’ve ever done this.”

But he asked residents to be patient. He said he’ll do his part by continuing to listen to their concerns and pledged to try to continue holding at least one town hall meeting a week.

Though the overall tone of the event seemed more supportive than at some previous town halls, and none of the questions were very challenging, there was still some anger evident in the crowd. Before the event began, about a dozen demonstrators stood quietly across the street, holding signs saying things like, “We have not forgotten Bridgegate,” “Tourism ads won’t pay my rent” and “If I were a Sandy contractor, I’d have gotten paid by now.”

Several small-business owners affected by the storm also spoke to members of the media about their frustrations with delays in getting aid through the Stronger NJ Business Grants program. Christie had said at a previous town hall that there was little demand for the program, but that’s not the case, they said.

Marilyn Schlossbach and her brother own four restaurants in Asbury Park and Normandy Beach. They applied for grant money last May, but most of it has yet to come through, and they’ve received few updates on the status of their applications.

Schlossbach said she’d much rather be back running her business than attending a town hall where she was unlikely to get in a question, but felt she had no choice.

Her opinion of the governor?

“Originally, I was very much behind him. And I’m a Democrat,” she said. “But over the last six months, I’m seeing him talk like everything is great. It’s not great for any of us. It has been one of the hardest years that I’ve ever been in business. And I don’t think any politicians really understand what we’re all going through.”

Speaking with reporters, Neptune resident James Spinelli also expressed frustration trying to understand just what he was going through. He has signed documents, dated December 5 , stating that he’s been awarded $180,000 through two state grant programs to tear down his house, which was flooded beyond repair in the storm. Nearly four months later, he has yet to receive a penny.

“I’ve got everything right here. It’s all signed! Everything!” he said waving copies of his paperwork. “What are they waiting for? I’m not on the waiting list. I have the grant! I’ve been awarded it!”

Spinelli had just spoken to representatives from the NJ Department of Community Affairs, who’d set up a table to answer questions from town hall participants. He said they were scrambling on their computers to figure out what had gone wrong.

“I told these people I’m tired of taking numbers, I’m tired of filling out this application and that application. I’ve already done it all! I’ve done everything! What more proof do you want that I need this money to do my house?” he asked.

The timing of yesterday’s town hall coincided with the federal deadline for the state to turn in its spending plan to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the second $1.46 billion of Community Development Block Grant Sandy aid. Christie said he hopes the plan will be approved and that money can start flowing by the end of April. And he’s optimistic that the state will get word of a third batch of federal aid money in late May or early June.

It remains unclear, though, what the total will be after all is said and done. The governor repeated the prediction he’s voiced in recent weeks — he now expects the state to receive a total of just $10 billion to $15 billion in federal Sandy aid, a drop from the $20 billion to $25 billion he mentioned last spring.

NJ Spotlight, Mar. 27, 2014

By Colleen O’Dea

New Jersey has the nation’s highest rate of autism among children, with 1 in 45 having the spectrum of disorders, according to new data released yesterday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new study prompted two state representatives to call for greater action by both state and federal officials to determine both what triggers and how to treat a number of conditions in the the autism spectrum that are characterized by difficulties in social interaction, problems with verbal and nonverbal communication, and repetitive behaviors.

"It is a pandemic," said Rep. Chris Smith, R-4th, at a press conference with officials from the national organization Autism Speaks, following the release of the new CDC study.

Nationally, the CDC found 1 in 68 children with autism in 2010, based on a study of 8-year old students in 11 states, including New Jersey. That’s 30 percent higher than the estimate for 2008 and 120 percent higher than the 2000 estimate. CDC officials said they don’t know what is causing the increase in the prevalence of the condition, though some may be due to the ways in which children are identified, diagnosed and served.

New Jersey’s rate of 1 in 45 is the highest ever recorded by the CDC.

"It’s not just disturbing, it’s numbing," Smith said. "There is reason for alarm."

Several factors might explain why the autism rate in New Jersey is so much greater than in other states: The state’s relative affluence and high education levels mean parents have access to, can afford, and seek out a diagnosis and help for children exhibiting signs of autism.

"New Jersey has one of the best systems in the nation for identifying, diagnosing and documenting children with Autism Spectrum Disorders," said Mary O’Dowd, the state’s health commissioner. "New Jersey is one of only four states with an Autism Registry that requires reporting by neurologists, pediatricians, nurses and other autism providers so children can be referred for resources and services. Approximately, 12,400 are registered and that has heightened awareness among parents and providers of indicators for Autism Spectrum Disorders."

Walter Zahorodny, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, has been a principal investigator for the CDC’s studies from the beginning and told Rutgers Today there are no easy answers to the questions surrounding autism.

"This state does have some of the best resources anywhere for detecting and caring for autism, but if the higher documented prevalence were only due to better detection, sooner or later the numbers would plateau and other states would catch up. That hasn’t happened," he said. "In 2002, the prevalence in New Jersey translated to one child in 94. In 2006, it was one child in 57. The latest numbers show one child in 45. We need to start acknowledging that what once was a rare disorder now affects two percent of the state’s children, and unfortunately I think the numbers will continue to rise."

Zahorodny said there’s likely nothing in the state’s environment influencing the findings, but the state’s demographics probably have something to do with its unenviable ranking.

"Many people here are more affluent and better educated than elsewhere, and those people tend to marry each other and have children later in life. It is considered a risk factor for autism if both the mother and father are older when the child is born," he said. "It’s also very likely that our findings apply beyond New Jersey. The same demographic profile exists in counties throughout the New York metro area, and I would expect that if those areas were monitored as closely as we have studied New Jersey, their autism prevalence would be found to be similar."

While the number of school children specifically labeled as autistic is likely too small — children with autism may also be placed in a number of other categories, including specific learning disabilities or multiple disabilities — it has nevertheless grown more than 250 percent between 2002 and 2013.

According to the CDC data, autism affects boys far more often than girls — 3.4 boys for every girl — and whites more than any other race or ethnicity.

The new study did have one bright spot for parents, finding an increase in the percentage of autistic children with average or above average intelligence — about least half of all those with autism spectrum disorders have an IQ of at least 85.

Numbers don’t really tell the story of families struggling with children who have autism, though.

“Behind each of these numbers is a person living with autism,” said Autism Speaks President Liz Feld. “Autism is a pressing public health crisis that must be prioritized at the national level. We need a comprehensive strategy that includes the research community, policymakers, educators, and caregivers coming together to address our community’s needs across the lifespan.”

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, agreed. Speaking at the Autism Speaks press conference, he said the CDC report is "a clarion call for increasing efforts at the federal level" for autism funding.

“We must redouble our efforts and secure the funding needed to not only ensure critical autism programs aren’t shuttered but to find new diagnostic tools, early intervention techniques, therapies, and lifelong support and services to ensure individuals with autism can fulfill their God-given potential," said Menendez, author of the Combating Autism Act.

Smith agreed, saying, "We need to be much more generous" in investing in autism research.

O’Dowd said that the Governor’s Council for Medical Research and Treatment of Autism has provided nearly $25 million in research grants since 2008 and that the health department is at the forefront of supporting research, including a Center for Excellence at Montclair State University.

She urged parents to be vigilant in taking action when there is a suspicion of a developmental delay that could be due to an autism spectrum disorder. The department’s Early Intervention System, funded by $135 million, provides early identification and referral, service coordination, evaluation and assessment, and services for children from birth through age 3 with disabilities.

"The earlier a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder or developmental delay is identified and connected to services, the sooner services can be provided to ensure the child is able to reach their full potential," O’Dowd said.

NJ Spotlight, Mar. 24, 2014

Independent special interest groups, many of which operate with little or no public disclosure, have spent an estimated $63 million on gubernatorial and legislative elections in New Jersey since 1977, according to a new report by the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC).

“In federal, state, and even local races, independent spending has emerged as a dominant force in political campaigns,’’ said Joseph Donohue, Deputy Executive Director and the study’s author. “It’s a new ballgame, both nationally and in New Jersey.”

More than $55 million — 87 percent — has been spent just in the past five years, according to “White Paper No. 24 — Independents’ Day — Seeking Disclosure in a New Era of Unlimited Special Interest Spending."

The report also indicates that the 2013 gubernatorial and legislative elections attracted a record $39 million in so-called outside spending — campaign funds spent independently of parties or candidates by groups or individuals with special interest agendas.

NJ Spotlight

By Tom Johnson

Credit: philly.com

The Legislature is once again trying to get the state to rejoin a regional initiative to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global climate change.

The Senate Environment and Energy Committee is scheduled to take up a bill (S-151) on Thursday that would require New Jersey to participate in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

In May 2011, Gov. Chris Christie unilaterally pulled New Jersey out of the 10- state effort to reduce pollution from power plants contributing to global warming. In doing so, the Republican governor said the program was not effective and simply imposed a new tax on utility customers.

The program, commonly known as RGGI, is a collaborative effort by the states to deal with climate change. Its proponents hope it will eventually serve as a model for a nationwide strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, a vision that has yet to be realized.

To encourage less pollution from power plants, RGGI imposes a tax on emissions of greenhouse cases, such as carbon dioxide. The funds raised by the tax are used by member states to finance clean-energy projects to reduce energy consumption.

To date, legislative efforts to force New Jersey back into the program have proved fruitless, with Christie twice vetoing bills to that end. Senate President Stephen Sweeney is the sponsor of the bill.

The bill said the funding of clean-energy programs by RGGI benefits consumers by reducing their costs and by decreasing energy use for both homeowners and businesses. The funds also would help promote the state’s efforts to achieve greater energy efficiency and implement cleaner ways of producing electricity, according to the bill.

Democratic lawmakers and clean-energy advocates have long been unhappy with many of the Christie administration’s energy policies. Besides pulling out of RGGI, the administration has diverted nearly $1 billion in ratepayer subsidies that were supposed to fund clean-energy programs, but instead have been used to plug holes in the state budget in the past several years.

More recently, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities killed the first offshore wind project to be considered by the agency, saying it was not financially viable and failed to provide economic benefits to ratepayers. It also adopted regulations earlier this month that may force Tesla, the maker of high-priced electric vehicles, to cease selling the cars in New Jersey.

“It’s good to get it out there,’’ said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, referring to Sweeney’s bill. “RGGI is a symptom of a broader anti-climate change agenda by the Christie administration.’’

Center for Public Integrity, Mar. 21, 2014

by Susan Ferriss

Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan expressed shock at data released Thursday showing that thousands of preschool kids were suspended nationwide during the 2011-2012 school year. The suspensions fell heavily on black children, who represented 18 percent of preschool enrollment yet 48 percent of all suspensions.

“I was stunned — I was stunned — that we were suspending and expelling four-year-olds,” Duncan said at a Washington D.C. elementary school, where he and Holder discussed findings of the latest Civil Rights Data Collection by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The survey showed that nearly 5,000 preschool students were suspended in the 2011-12 academic year.

“This preschool suspension issue is mind-boggling,” Duncan said. “And we need to as a nation find a way to remedy that tomorrow.”

Duncan said training is needed at schools that suspend large numbers of kids at all grade levels to demonstrate a “better way” of handling problem behavior. “We know there is a correlation between out-of-school suspensions and ultimately locking people up,” Duncan said. “And folks don’t like it when we talk about it. But for far too many children and communities the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’ is real.”

Holder said the findings of the data collection are “unacceptable. And it’s important to bear in mind…that these are not abstract statistics,” but rather hard data collected from schools.

The racial disparities in preschool suspensions, Holder added, “reflect where we are as a society.”

“There are certain preconceptions that people have about kids of color,” he said. Kids can engage in “the kinds of things that kids normally do,” he said, and behavior can sometimes be “misconstrued if you deal with a child with a preconceived notion about that child.”

“We have to break through that. It means we have to train our teachers in ways that are sensitive to cultural differences,” Holder said. “There are a whole variety of ways (to respond to children) that we have so we don’t misunderstand behaviors.”

The collection of national data—accessible to the public online—came from every public elementary, middle and high school in the nation during the 2011-2012 school year; the scope of the data requested from schools was unprecedented. The database includes a trove of detailed information about access to college prep courses, access to counselors, classroom size, teacher pay and other subjects. The data is broken down, school by school, and by demographic groups.

The collection also drills down on a variety of school discipline practices—including the use of restraints—and reports the numbers of students who were referred to police officers.

Nationally, minority kids of all ages were subjected to suspensions and expulsions at a rate three times higher than their white peers. Black students, 16 percent of overall enrollment, were more than a quarter of students referred to law enforcement from schools that year and 31 percent of those arrested. Students with disabilities represented a quarter of kids arrested and referred to law enforcement although they were only 13 percent of the nation’s student population.

Young children enter school “from various types of backgrounds,” Holder said.

“But at the end of the day,” he said. “They’re four-year-olds. They’re five-year-olds. They’re six-year-olds. And when you see these disparate numbers… you have to wonder: What is it that we are doing? Why are we seeing these numbers? It’s not because these kids are fundamentally different. I think that’s the kind of things we have to understand. We are getting disparate treatment here.”

“That’s a painful thing for this nation to accept,” Holder said. “But unless we deal with these hard truths we are not going to ultimately come up with the kind of country we want to have.”

Holder is involved in Obama Administration initiatives announced this year to reform school discipline, as the Center for Public Integrity reported in January. Studies have linked out-of-school suspensions with increasing risks that students will drop out and get into trouble with law enforcement.

“Every data point (in the civil rights collection) represents a life impacted,” Holder said, “a future potentially diverted or derailed, and a young man or woman who was placed at increased likelihood of becoming involved in the criminal justice system.”

Across the country, districts with high rates of out-of-school punishment have seen a large number of kids being forced to drop out—as the Center reported on farmworker kids in California — or forced into dubious at-home learning plans, as the Center also reported from California.

The Education Department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, Catherine LLamon, said Thursday that the database collection has proved useful to detect districts where black children have been left out of college courses — because a principal didn’t think they were prepared to take such classes — and where children have been subjected to high levels of unaddressed sexual harassment. The collection is the “fullest, richest, most comprehensive” in history, Llamon said.

“This data was meant for you and me,” LLamon added, urging the public to use it to scrutinize individual schools and districts and detect inequities that deserve to be addressed.

NY Times, Mar. 22, 2014

By the Editorial Board

The across-the-board cuts to federal programs that took effect last spring receded from the headlines after Republicans were shamed into allowing the government to pay its bills. But the cuts, known as the sequester, continue to take a toll on crucial housing programs that are intended to shield the elderly, the disabled and impoverished families with children from homelessness.

These cuts arrived in the midst of an affordable housing crisis, at a time when only one in four families who would qualify for federal rental assistance actually get it.

The sequester seriously damaged the Section 8 housing program, which subsidizes rents for more than two million of the nation’s poorest families. Local housing authorities reacted to the across-the-board cuts by tightening the screws on this voucher program. They ceased to issue new vouchers that would ordinarily have gone to homeless or needy families and even recalled vouchers that had been issued but had not yet been committed to landlords.

An analysis released by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities showed that, as of December, there were 70,000 fewer low-income families using vouchers to rent private housing than there were a year earlier. The number of families using vouchers fell precipitously in states like Alaska (by 11.69 percent), Kansas (10.05 percent) and Montana (9.02 percent).

The drop in the number of vouchers in circulation works against the program; Congress generally funds the program based on the number of vouchers in service the previous year.

The December budget deal that ended sequestration will allow housing agencies to replace less than half of the 70,000 vouchers lost in 2013. Given the pressing need, it should come up with the money to restore the rest.

The sequester also hurt the long-neglected public developments that house about 1.1 million of the country’s most vulnerable families. These developments had been staggering along under ever-shrinking operating budgets — and a $26 billion backlog in repairs — even before the sequester.

When further cuts came along, three quarters of state and local housing agencies reacted by cutting the number of families served, letting waiting lists grow and leaving damaged apartments vacant rather than repairing them.

As if all that wasn’t enough, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office, federal housing officials have estimated that sequestration cuts to homeless assistance grants “led states and localities to remove 60,000 formerly homeless persons from housing and emergency shelter programs.”

All this comes at a time when record numbers of families have been caught in the squeeze between rising rents and falling wages — and are at greater risk of homelessness. In other words, this is the worst possible time for Congress to let affordable housing programs go begging.

Al Jazeera America, Mar. 21, 2014

Advocates seek removal of paint sludge around former Ford dump sites in NY and NJ, compensation for health problems.

by Kaelyn Forde

Chuck Stead is a tall man with an easy smile and a booming voice that rises from underneath his wide-brimmed leather hat. On a cold February morning, Stead stood outside the Ramapo Saltbox, a cabin perched on the slope of New York’s Torne Valley, where he runs an environmental research center with the help of Cornell University.

Ever since he was diagnosed with intestinal cancer and given just a few months to live last year, Stead has increased the pace of his work documenting what he calls the “toxic legacy” left in these woods by the Ford Motor Co.

“It’s not unusual to have cancer here. I don’t treat it as ‘Why me?’ It’s more like, ‘Well, yeah. It’s what happens,’” Stead, now in remission, said. “I trapped all through this creek here. I skinned all of these animals, so I was exposed to whatever they were exposed to, and we ate some of the animals. Years later, I got my intestinal cancer and my liver cancer. If you look up the cancers and then you look up the compounds that are in the automobile paint, you have a correlation right there.”

Ford produced more than 6 million cars at its plant in nearby Mahwah, N.J., from 1955 to 1980. Automobile paint containing lead, arsenic, benzene, chromium and other chemicals was sprayed on the cars rolling off Ford’s assembly line. But with large-scale production came large-scale pollution. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ford dumped millions of gallons of paint sludge in the woods surrounding Mahwah. More than 40 years later, some of the paint sludge is still there.

Among the largest dump sites were two abandoned iron mines and a landfill in Ringwood, N.J. The paint sludge is still visible in hardened lavalike pools on the forest floor, stuck between rocks and cascading down hills. Break off a chunk of the dried paint sludge and the smell of acetone is almost as potent as ever, Stead said. The paint was dumped into 55-gallon drums and then carted to places like Ringwood and Hillburn, N.Y. Some of the rusted-out drums are still visible in the woods.

“You would get $100 to make six drums disappear off of the back of the dock. Sometimes they would dump the paint directly into a trench and fill it in. That’s what I saw when I was a kid trapping up here,” Stead said.

Contamination from the paint sludge has made him and many other people here sick, he said, and no one has been harder hit than the Ramapough Indians, who have called this land home for centuries.

Ramapough clan mother Vivian Milligan embraces her sister-in-law, Janet Van Dunk, who passed away from cancer just a month after speaking with Al Jazeera America.

Al Jazeera Ramapough Chief Dwaine Perry said the approximately 3,500 tribal members who live in the area have higher rates of cancer, birth defects and other health problems from decades of contaminated water and soil. The tribe, which is recognized by the states of New York and New Jersey but not by the federal government, uses the old Dutch spelling of its name.

Like many adults here, Ramapough clan mother Vivian Milligan remembers playing in the paint sludge as a child. Some children even chewed the sweet lead-containing substance like gum because the community didn’t know it was dangerous, she said. “We used to jump around on it, and it was so enjoyable, jumping around on that pretty, colored hard stuff. And did we know it was going to affect us? No,” she said.

Milligan is one of many Ramapough who have pushed for a full cleanup of the Ford dump sites. But it has been an uphill battle.

She fears time is running out for the Ramapough as they fight for cleanup of the contamination and for acknowledgment of and compensation for their health problems.

Milligan has researched the tribe’s genealogy and life expectancy, and she said the tribe once had members live well into old age. Now, she said, the tribe is struggling to preserve its culture as its members appear to be dying younger.

“I try to write down everything — the traditions, the home remedies — before this little brain stops remembering,” she said. “But it’s very difficult when you can’t go to an elder.”

Three years after the Ford plant shut its doors in 1980, the EPA put the company’s dump sites in Ringwood, N.J., on its Superfund list of the most contaminated sites in the United States. After declaring that the Ringwood sites had been “appropriately cleaned” in 1994, the EPA found much more contamination. Ringwood was restored to the Superfund list in 2006. The latest EPA cleanup plan for Ringwood is estimated to cost $46.7 million, paid for by Ford.

In response to Al Jazeera America’s request for comment, Ford issued a statement saying the company “takes its environmental responsibility seriously and has shown through its actions a commitment to addressing the issues in Upper Ringwood … Ford is working cooperatively with the federal EPA and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in the development of a final remediation plan.”

Paint sludge along Torne Valley Road, which leads to the closed Ramapo landfill in New York, just a few miles from a former Ford auto plant in Mahwah, N.J. Thomas E. Franklin/North Jersey/Landov

The current EPA plan involves excavating more than 22,000 tons of contaminated soil from around the Peters Mine pit and putting permeable caps on it and the Cannon Mine pit. Under the plan, the two pits will not be completely excavated.

“The digging out is a dangerous engineering task, and workers would be at considerable risk doing it,” said Walter Mugdan, EPA Superfund director for the Ringwood site.

He said that the caps are completely safe and that there is little risk that contamination from the mines will migrate into the groundwater. But Milligan, Stead and others in the community still want the pits dug out and the contamination fully removed.

“I can well understand why their reaction would be, ‘Get it out of my community. It shouldn’t have been there in the first place, and I don’t want it here now. Make it go away.’ I understand that. If I were living there, I would want that as well, but my task as the Superfund director here is to select a remedy that is fully protective so that, going forward, people will not be exposed to the same chemicals these poor people were exposed to in the past,” Mugdan said.

Investigative reporting by The Bergen County Record has called into question the impact the paint sludge could have on the Wanaque Reservoir, a drinking water source for more than 2.5 million people. Local officials told the Record there is concern that the chemicals could make their way into the drinking water.

Mugdan said the reservoir is routinely tested for hazardous chemicals and that the EPA will separately be making a decision on whether anything beyond capping is needed to protect it.

But the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said in 2011 that the “incidence of specific cancers was not elevated” in Ringwood, compared with the rest of New Jersey.

Ramapough tribal leaders are pushing state and federal authorities for another health study that compares the cancer rate of Ramapough living in Ringwood with the cancer rate of Ramapough in uncontaminated Stag Hill, N.J.

If the study confirms what the Ramapough have long believed, then the battle for compensation will be a lot easier. In the meantime, they will continue to push for a cleanup. “It’s very hard to get [compensation] out of them. But what we can get out of them is full extraction and full removal,” said Stead.