The latest exchange in the conflict began last month when a draft report on housing policies by a panel convened by the state’s Department of Community Affairs (DCA) was leaked to the press. The report concluded that current regulatory hurdles "prevent the state from meeting its current and projected housing demand," and urged the state to "level the playing field" for developers by loosening environmental regulations to facilitate affordable housing construction in rural and suburban areas.

The report put the DCA and its Commissioner Joseph Doria at odds with the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson said she was "concerned" that environmental regulatory policy was being discussed without input from the DEP, and went as far as to call a DCA recommendation that would allow development on some flood plains "morally wrong."

But any inkling of a policy rift within the administration was offset by Jackson’s creation in late March of a separate DEP task force whose own mandate is to examine the efficiency of the permit-granting process. The Permit Task Force will have until July to make recommendations for streamlining and modernizing application review and compliance monitoring, and is tasked with finding "regulatory flexibility" for affordable housing and projects that incorporate "green" design elements.

DCA officials welcomed the news.

"We fully support Commissioner Jackson's action in this area," DCA spokesman Chris Donnelly told the South Bergenite. "We understand that the need to provide affordable housing and protect our environment are not mutually exclusive."

Donnelly added that balancing environmental protection with the state’s affordable housing needs is an issue DCA will continue to work on with the DEP.

Environmental activists worry the task force represents the latest in a long line of attempts by the powerful builders’ lobby to undermine the state’s environmental protections.

"Recently, there have been a lot of attacks on DEP from the [New Jersey] Builders Association and some of their allies in the legislature. Any time there is a downturn in the housing market, the builders and the polluters use that as an excuse to try to weaken DEP regulations," said Jeffrey Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club.

Tittel said he understood that Jackson created the task force in response to the political pressure, but worries that it will encourage further attacks.

"She needed to stand up for the environment and her department, and then talk about potential changes. These special interests will only see this as an opening," said Tittel.

Others think that the DEP Task Force should be assessed on its own merits, independently of the DCA recommendations.

"I think the DCA report will be devastating to the environment, devastating to the area," said East Rutherford Mayor James Cassella. "So I don’t think regulations need to be relaxed, but I think the process needs to be relaxed."

Cassella said that the long delays and multiple levels of bureaucracy involved in the permitting process hurt the state financially.

"Not only do you have local issues, you have the Meadowlands Commission to deal with, you have the state to deal with, and with something like Xanadu, you have the Sports Authority to deal with. And then you have to go up to the County for soil erosion," said Cassella. "There are so many levels of government you need to deal with, I think it just adds to the price of doing business in New Jersey."

A history of compromise

The public spat over the DCA and DEP initiatives marks the biggest flare-up in between environmental and builder interests since the McGreevey administration. In 2004, the conflict reached a new level with the signing of the so-called "fast-track" bill, which expedited DEP permit approvals for the roughly one-third of the state deemed suitable for development. The bill gave the state 45 days to decide on permit applications, and automatically approved permits the state failed to act on within that timeframe.

In a deal struck between McGreevey and state Democrats, the bill was never debated on the floor of the legislature, and gained approval a mere three days after it was introduced.

In the eyes of Tittel, its passage marked a "selling out of 30 years of environmental protection in New Jersey."

Eventually, opposition to the bill proved so intense that Acting Governor Codey issued an executive order shelving it. The moratorium remains in effect under the Corzine administration, and can only be rescinded on the governor’s order—which Corzine has said he will not give—or by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

But the policy war between builders and regulators goes back at least to the Florio administration. In 1991, amid complaints about the DEP bureaucracy from the business community, Florio signed into law the Environmental Management Accountability Plan (EMAP), which required DEP to keep detailed records on the progress of every permit under consideration, and to give detailed accounting of all fees collected by the department. Commissioner Doria, who was then the state’s Assembly President, sponsored the bill.

Later, in the fall of 1992 with the economy suffering from a slow housing market, the legislature passed the Permit Extension Act, extending in perpetuity all outstanding planning board approvals and DEP permits—which normally expire if construction does not begin within five years of issuance. The measure was advertised as a one-time stimulus for the faltering building industry, and when a second round of extensions was passed a few years later it drew the ire of environmental groups.

Complaints about DEP’s efficiency resurfaced under the Whitman administration, which in July of 1995 issued a comprehensive set of recommendations for limiting regulatory bureaucracy called the "Strategy for Regulatory Relief" or "STARR" Report. Much of the report focused on proposed rule changes and program cutbacks at DEP. Against the protests of environmental watchdog groups, many of these recommendations were eventually adopted, including the abolition of the Public Advocate’s office, the creation of a business ombudsman and a broad scaling back of intensive regulatory enforcement by the department in favor of voluntary compliance by developers.

The EnCap Connection

The Permit Task Force’s charge to streamline the permit application process appears to include the Department’s Sanitary Landfill Closure and Sanitary Landfill Disruption permits, which relate to projects like the one undertaken by EnCap Golf Holdings to cap and redevelop a series of landfills in the Meadowlands.

According to a report issued by the state’s inspector general in February, EnCap misled state and local officials about its qualifications, and took advantage of regulatory loopholes and a cozy relationship with the McGreevey administration to win lucrative contracts.

Environmental activists see the actions of the DCA and DEP as ignoring the EnCap lesson.

"We now have the Inspector General's Report on EnCap, and we understand that political influence operates in DEP," said Bill Wolfe, director of New Jersey’s Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

"We know that [administration officials] were forced to approve projects that they knew would be fiascoes. So we know that political deals are struck. The only way to stop that is to have DEP have some integrity, and have the bright light on sunshine on these processes," added Wolfe.

The administrative order that created the task force explicitly excludes from that body’s purview the DEP’s Site Remediation Program, which is currently undergoing a separate review.