During an appearance at NYU, NY Governor Cuomo condemned the recently-announced federal plan to open offshore U.S. waters to drilling for oil and gas. Cuomo, while calling the federal plan “really, really dumb,” stated that the Trump Administration’s move towards offshore drilling showed “a total disregard for the science, the reality and the history,” and promised that New York would “lead a countermovement to what [the Trump] Administration is doing on the environment.” Cuomo further said that coal is “the polluting energy of the past” and that New York will be coal-free by 2020. To that end, Cuomo identified strategies for reaching goals set forth in the New York State Offshore Wind Maste
Despite doubts regarding the Administration’s intentions, Pruitt announces plan to force polluters t
Although President Trump has proposed to cut the EPA’s budget significantly, Pruitt said the EPA “will have the money it needs [to address NJ Superfund sites] by ensuring that the companies responsible for the contamination clean it up.” New Jersey has more high-priority Superfund sites than any other state, with sites located in Bridgewater, Bergen County and Newark. Environmental groups are dubious about how Pruitt’s plan will play out; Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, voiced concerns that the end result will be EPA removing the sites off the list without having them cleaned up at all. Dow Chemical is one company that is allegedly responsible for contamination at some o