As the new home of NJPIRG's environmental work, Environment New Jersey can be contacted regarding this testimony.
NJPIRG urges Members of the Legislature to:
1) Implement a preferred drug list or open formulary for State prescription drug coverage programs, including Medicaid, PAAD and Senior Gold programs in the New Jersey Budget FY 2005.
The State is facing challenging economic times. Rather than considering budget cuts that disproportionately impact seniors, people with disabilities and working families, we urge you to create a preferred drug list or a formulary to reduce the rapidly increasing expenditures in State prescription drug coverage programs.
It is the fiscally responsible way to manage tax dollars wisely. We are well aware of the pressures that rising drug costs have placed, and are placing, on state budgets. State PAAD, Senior Gold and Medicaid programs have been experiencing huge growth in prescription drug costs, partly due to newer, higher cost medications that have come out in recent years.
A preferred drug list or a formulary can effectively save the state tens of millions annually by leveraging the state’s significant buying power. These savings should be applied to preserve and improve state health care programs by increasing eligibility limits and strengthening existing benefits.
NJPIRG applauds Senator Sweeney, and Assemblymen Van Drew who have both introduced legislation to encourage the state to adopt prescription drug bulk purchasing.
2) Fully support the NJDEP budget, which makes New Jersey a national leader in environmental protection.
This year the governor and the NJDEP adopted landmark new protections and announced various new initiatives that will continue the agency’s strong track record of advancing environmental protection where it is lacking. Despite the increasing commitments made by the NJDEP, the agency’s spending levels have remained largely consistent with the previous two years, even as taxpayers receive more environmental protections for their dollar.
- This year’s budget provides for 4 million in funding to support of state park system, which is a key quality of life resource for the people of New Jersey.
- This year’s budget provides 6 million to help municipalities implement the state’s new stormwater rules. Considered the nation’s strongest stormwater program, these rules tackle the serious water-quality threat posed by polluted runoff that washes into our reservoirs, rivers, streams and other waterways during rainstorms and snowmelts.
- This year’s budget expands the state’s water quality monitoring system. New Jersey has thousands of stream and river miles, and hundreds of lakes and reservoirs. With less than 300 water quality monitoring stations, our state’s water quality monitoring network is woefully inadequate and must be strengthened, especially to include all the state’s largest reservoirs and rivers that provide drinking water to state residents.
- This year’s budget supports staff needed to fulfill pressing new environmental and public health protective priorities such as updated regulations to protect ground water and surface waterways, regulations to reduce pollution from diesel engines, regulations to reduce emissions from automobiles, and regulations to preserve habitat for endangered and threatened wildlife in New Jersey. New Jersey needs these regulations. Take diesel pollution for example, every year in New Jersey fine particulate matter (soot) emitted by diesel engines accounts for thousands of premature deaths from cancer, heart and lung disease.
3) Support budget items that make polluters pay for damaging the environment and harming public health.
These fee increases on polluting industries provide an incentive to reduce their pollution levels and at the same time protect New Jersey’s citizens from a higher income and sales taxes burden.
NJPIRG urges you to support these and other polluter pays fees:
- Hazardous Waste Disposal, $11 million
This fee will ensure that New Jersey’s hazardous waster disposal fees are in line with surrounding states. Currently, New Jersey fees for hazardous waste disposal are lower than surrounding states, making New Jersey a preferred ‘dumping ground’ for hazardous waste. New Jersey does not need more hazardous waste, we already have the most Superfund sites per square mile in the nation. Every person in New Jersey lives within four miles of a Superfund site.
- McMansion Fee, $24 million
Sprawl is the number one cause of water pollution in New Jersey.
As the land is paved over, run-off pollution has less land to absorb into. As run-off pollution flows over the land and roads, it picks up oil, road salt, fertilizer, and other chemicals and nutrients found in developed areas, on its way into the nearest river, lake, stream or drinking water reservoir. Already, at least 20 towns’ drinking water supplies in NJ have a high level of unhealthy chemicals that result from the necessary process of heavily treating polluted source water.
- Air Toxics Fee, $12
The average New Jersey resident breathes air that exceeds the USEPA’s health based standard by 1600 times. Residents in some counties such as Camden, Hudson,
Union have even higher levels of air toxics. 7 of NJ’s 21 counties have air toxic levels that place them in the nation’s 25 worst.
- Spill Fund Fee Increase, $20 million
With the national Superfund depleted, and President Bush and Congress resistant to re-enacting the Superfund tax, states and taxpayers will have to bear more of the financial burden of cleaning up sites left polluted by industry. This NJ polluter tax
ensures polluters in NJ bear their fair share of the cost of cleaning up toxic pollution in our state.
- Water Allocation Fee Increase
The state’s water resources are not unlimited and we must do all we can to encourage water conservation through enhanced fees for large water users seeking state permits.
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To Protecting NJ’s Environment
Bradley M. Campbell, Commissioner
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
Demonstrating his solid commitment to providing New Jersey’s families with a cleaner, healthier environment, Gov. James E. McGreevey’s budget proposal for FY05 advances initiatives to fight sprawl, safeguard our water resources, protect communities from toxic pollutants and make polluters pay for damaging the environment and harming public health.
In recent months, the Governor has taken unprecedented action to protect our communities from toxic pollutants that harm our health, spoil our natural resources and diminish our quality of life.
These key initiatives include proposed regulations that would substantially strengthen protection against arsenic in our drinking-water, and reduce mercury contamination in our air and fish by requiring power plants and other industrial combustion facilities to reduce dangerous mercury emissions by 95 percent within the next three to five years.
Further, Governor McGreevey has set a goal to significantly reduce soot and smog pollution that causes hundreds of premature deaths every year.
To enable us to accomplish these goals and much more, Governor McGreevey has proposed new revenue sources and program funding. His budget proposal calls for a tax on tires that would generate $12.3 million, a portion of which would fund DEP grants to cleanup tire piles around the state. A new Hazardous Waste Disposal tax proposed by the Governor would raise $11 million, of which approximately half would be paid by out-of-state entities. In addition, the Governor’s budget proposal would generate $6 million through a new Air Toxics tax on facilities using certain chemicals that produce toxic emissions.
Also consistent with his no-more-sprawl initiative, the Governor seeks to preserve New Jersey’s clean and green open spaces by providing $4 million in funding to address capital and maintenance backlogs in the state park system.
To preserve New Jersey’s quality of life, the Governor has proposed raising much-needed revenue from development projects that have significant impacts on our environment. Through a new tax on purchases of large, luxury homes costing more than $1 million, New Jersey can generate $24 million in revenue. Paid by the homebuyers, the tax is one percent of the cost of a home above $1 million.
Fulfilling his pledge to hold polluters accountable, the Governor’s has proposed raising $20 million through an increase in the Hazardous Discharge Site Cleanup Fund (Spill Fund). This revenue would offset a current shortfall in the program. Additional money directed toward the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Site Remediation Program, whose case managers also are responsible for issues that affect natural resource damage (NRD) claims, will help bolster DEP’s NRD initiatives.
Governor McGreevey is also reinforcing his efforts to ensure clean and plentiful water for New Jersey’s citizens and to provide property tax relief by earmarking $6 million in additional funds to help municipalities implement the state’s new stormwater rules. Considered the nation’s strongest stormwater program, these rules tackle the serious water-quality threat posed by polluted runoff that washes into our reservoirs, rivers, streams and other waterways during rainstorms and snowmelts.
Nearly 60 percent of New Jersey’s current water pollution is attributed to contaminated stormwater runoff. While the federal government shrinks from its duty to protect our air, land, water and natural resources, Governor McGreevey is moving forward with comprehensive environmental policies and programs that benefit citizens in every corner of New Jersey. With these bold, new initiatives, the Governor is building a better New Jersey, and bringing our state well-deserved recognition as a national leader in environmental protection.
What’s more, the Governor has opted to raise necessary revenue through increased fees on certain industries as an incentive to reduce their pollution levels and bigger penalties for polluters, rather than burden New Jersey’s citizens with higher income and sales taxes.
The Governor’s budget deserves strong support. It ensures the level of funding for environmental protection we need to build on the progress we have already worked so hard to achieve and to preserve and enhance New Jersey’s quality of life.
