EmpowerNJ v. Department of Environmental Protection

The Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court affirmed the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s (NJDEP’s) denial of a rulemaking petition requesting that NJDEP adopt regulations setting a greenhouse gas reduction target for 2030 and establishing measures to achieve the target and regulations restricting issuance of permits for fossil fuel infrastructure projects and stopping public forest logging programs. The court held that the Global Warming Response Act (GWRA) granted NJDEP the discretion to determine whether interim benchmarks were necessary to achieve the GWRA’s 2050 limit for greenhouse gas emissions (80% below 2006 levels). The court declined to second-guess NJDEP’s expert judgment that rules establishing interim benchmarks were not necessary. The court also found both that the petitioners did not demonstrate that the requested rules limiting fossil fuel projects and logging programs were necessary and that the record supported NJDEP’s claims that it was implementing measures to achieve the GWRA’s 2050 limit.

In January 2022, EmpowerNJ and other groups filed an appeal in the New Jersey Appellate Division challenging the denial of their rulemaking petition requesting that the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) adopt rules setting a 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target 50% below 2005 levels, implementing the means necessary to achieve the reductions, and imposing restrictions for new fossil fuel projects. NJDEP denied the petition in December 2021, citing the need for “a comprehensive and coordinated approach” to address greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. NJDEP said “no single State agency or any one regulatory reform or set of regulatory reforms … can bring about the structural, economic, and societal changes necessary to reduce the worsening effects of climate change.”