Trump administration picks new EPA chief for New Jersey and New York

A New York lawmaker was tapped Thursday by the Trump administration to lead the important U.S. Environmental Protection Agency office that oversees New Jersey's leading-the-nation 114 Superfund sites. 

The selection of New York Assemblyman Pete Lopez, a Republican, as EPA Region 2 administrator goes against tradition that a New Jersey resident would be chosen for the job following the seven-year tenure of New Yorker Judith Enck, an Obama appointee. The appointment usually swings between each state when there is a vacancy.

Along with New York and New Jersey, Region 2 also oversees Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, both rocked hard by hurricanes. 

EPA Region 2 staff was informed of Lopez's selection in a staff-wide email Thursday morning. He starts Oct. 10.

Lopez was first elected to the Assembly in 2006 and represents an area west of Albany. He was born in Miami. His father is a native of Puerto Rico and his mother is from New York. He holds a bachelor’s degree in public affairs with a minor in environmental studies, and a Master’s Degree in Public Administration.

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Lopez interned with the group Environmental Advocates when Enck led that organization, the Times Union of Albany reported Thursday. 

Between 2012 and 2016, Lopez received ratings from Environmental Advocates between 40 percent and 70 percent based on his voting record on the environment, said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. 

“Given the Trump Administration’s war on the environment, they could have selected someone much worse than Assemblyman Lopez as EPA Region 2 Administrator," Tittel said. "We still have major concerns because he has a record of being pro-fracking and voted against major climate and electric vehicles bills"

There are a number of critical issues facing New Jersey that Lopez will have a significant role in determining. 

These include:

• Will Garfield's Superfund site get the $37 million it needs to be cleaned up? The site is currently on an EPA waiting list for funding?
• Will EPA continue to fund programs that monitor and minimize sewage overflows from old storm water systems in several New Jersey municipalities?
• Will the agency continue to support a plan to place a barrier over a large part of the Ford Superfund site in Ringwood in lieu of a full excavation?
• Will EPA uphold its $1.38-billion dredge-and-cap plan for the polluted Passaic River despite still lobbying by dozens of polluters to make it a smaller, less-costly cleanup?
• Will EPA make the lower Hackensack River a Superfund site? 

“With the abundance of contaminated sites residing in New Jersey, including the most complex in the nation at the lower Passaic River, it leaves little time to waste for the new Region 2 Administrator to get up to speed on our many environmental priorities," said Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson.

A candidate for regional administrator is usually pushed by a governor or members of a state's congressional delegation.

But neither Gov. Chris Christie nor New Jersey's five Republican representatives have had much pull in Trump's administration.

The New Jerseyans closest to the president are Kellyanne Conway, his counselor, and Bill Stepien, White House political director and former Christie aide who was banished from Christie's inner circle after his name came up in the Bridgegate emails. 

The EPA news release announcing Lopez taking the job had 10 quotes from people reacting to the news. Only one was from New Jersey: Bob Martin, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection. 

"I have had the chance to talk with Assemblyman Lopez and found that he has a strong commitment to protecting the environment, and especially, to working closely with the states and territories within his region," Martin said.