Surprising turn in Pinelands pipeline battle

The Senate Judiciary Committee's decision last week to hold up Gov. Christie's two nominations to the Pinelands Commission surprised many watching the process, and had environmental groups declaring a victory.

"We are going to hold the vote," State Sen. Nicholas P. Scutari, the chairman, declared with a bang of his gavel seconds after Robert S. Barr and Dennis Roohr finished answering questions Thursday.

"I was surprised," said Jaclyn Rhoads, assistant executive director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, adding that Scutari had said at the start of the hearing he would call for a vote.

Rhoads and other environmental leaders chalked up the turn of events to their lobbying. They told lawmakers they believed the nominees were chosen to reverse a previous commission vote denying permission for a gas pipeline through protected Pinelands.

"My take was that a number of senators were very concerned that these nominations were an attempt by the governor to get the pipeline through," she said, referring to an effort by South Jersey Gas to win a waiver from the Pinelands Commission to build 10 miles of the 22-mile-long gas pipeline through protected forest.

"We won today," said Jeff Tittel, executive director of the Sierra Club of New Jersey. "It was a victory for the Pinelands and democracy."

Chris O'Malley, director of Environment New Jersey, said he believed Christie had been trying to stack the Pinelands Commission and "the deal fell flat on its face."

But at least one avid supporter of the project suggested the anti-pipeline groups' joy might be short-lived.

State Sen. Jeff Van Drew (D., Cape May) said Friday that he had not heard from senators on the Judiciary Committee why the nominations were being held up, but that he anticipated the committee would take a vote on the two nominees within six weeks.

And Patrick Murray, a pollster and political analyst at Monmouth University, noted that environmental concerns had ebbed in New Jersey in recent years. Environmental causes loom far larger in close Democratic primaries than they do among Republicans, he said.

As for the Republican Christie, "there's no political pressure for him to pay," said Murray, whose state polls show New Jersey voters have been far more concerned in recent years about jobs and property taxes than the environment.

Scutari and other committee members did not return calls requesting an explanation of the panel's action.

During the questioning, however, Scutari made clear he knew the political backdrop when he referred to assertions that the two nominations were a "de facto maneuver to change the previous vote" on the pipeline.

In January the commission voted, 7-7 with one recusal, to reject the project, which would have violated the commission's comprehensive management plan barring new utilities in protected areas unless they primarily served local residents.

The pipeline would serve the B.L. England electrical generation plant in Cape May County.

In May, Christie nominated Roohr, a farmer and Republican mayor of New Hanover Township, and Barr, secretary of the Cape May County Democratic Committee, to replace two commissioners who voted against the pipeline project.

Christie's spokesman, Kevin Roberts, who has dismissed as "baseless nonsense" assertions that the governor wanted to stack the commission, did not return a request for comment on the legislative committee's decision to put off a vote on the appointees.

But at Thursday's hearing, several senators seemed baffled by the governor's selection process.

"Do you have a position on the pipeline?" State Sen. Kip Bateman (R., Somerset) asked Roohr at the start of the hearing.

"No sir, I do not," Roohr replied, adding that he knew nothing about the pipeline proposal except that it had been rejected "and it's a company called South Jersey."

When Bateman expressed surprise at Roohr's unfamiliarity with the pipeline, Roohr said he felt he should not study any issues before the commission so as not to prejudice his views on a hypothetical situation if appointed.

"I don't think it's hypothetical," responded Bateman, who called the pipeline "the biggest issue to hit the Pinelands [preserve] since it was created" in 1978.

"For you to come here and not have an opinion I find very disturbing," he said, to applause from some in attendance.

Under questioning by State Sens. Nia Gill (D., Essex) and Loretta Weinberg (D., Bergen), Roohr said he did not know why he had been chosen to serve on the commission. He said he had received a phone call early in the year from a Christie aide informing him he would be nominated.

"Were you picked for vast environmental experience? For your political leanings?" asked Weinberg. "What was the reason your name was chosen? Might you have said, 'Why me?' "

"The call was very brief," Roohr told her. "They said, 'If you were nominated, would you accept?' " He said if he had been asked why he wished to serve, he would have replied, "I have been a steward of the land all my life."

Roohr said that in several subsequent phone calls from Christie aides he was never asked about his knowledge of environmental or energy issues, or to take a position on the pipeline.

The questioning of Barr was shorter. He said he believed Christie had nominated him at the request of Van Drew, for whom he had worked as a volunteer and to whom he had expressed interest years earlier in working on an important state board.

"Did they ask your qualifications?" Gill asked.

"No, ma'am," Barr said.

"Did they discuss your prior knowledge of the Pinelands?" Gill asked.

"No," he said, and hr answered "no" repeatedly as she asked whether Christie's aides had queried him on policy questions, energy questions, or "what you would bring" to the Pinelands Commission.

Like Roohr, he said there was never any discussion of the pipeline.

Despite the skeptical tone of the senators, and the accusations of "stacking" by environmental organizations, Murray said he believed Christie had little to fear by way of a political backlash.

And, in a reference to Christie's perceived presidential ambitions, added, "I'm pretty sure the Republican caucus-goers in Iowa are not concerned about the environment, and that colors everything."