NJ State Senate Democrats join Trump’s war on the environment with new Scutari bill

People across New Jersey were outraged by the bill to gut the state comptroller, which was stopped. There is another bill that people need to be outraged about: S4373, Senate President Nick Scutari’s newest attack on transparency and environmental protections. This bill is a cross between Trump’s dismantling of the Environmental Protection Agency, Project 2025, the Koch brothers’ ALEC playbook, and Chris Christie’s Red Tape Review Commission.

Let’s call this what it is: the Corporate Polluters and Developers Take Over NJDEP Act.

Instead of fighting Trump’s war on the environment, Democrats in the Legislature have decided to join it. In the last election, voters gave Democrats a mandate to stand up to Trump — not copy him. Yet the Legislature is treating that mandate as permission to imitate the very policies they claimed to oppose.

Cutting “red tape” is not affordability—It’s about cutting protections

The environment doesn’t care about red tape or corporate profits. Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, wildfires, toxic spills, refinery explosions, contaminated water, and unchecked overdevelopment will all force action whether the Legislature wants to or not.

New Jersey is among the top states for FEMA payouts and property damage from flooding. We rank No. 2 in the nation for building in flood-prone areas. We have among the worst air quality in the country. Only one of our stream systems meets the Clean Water Act’s highest standards. We are also among the top states for temperature rise and No. 3 for sea-level rise.

Yet S4373 undermines the very standards that protect us. What’s worse, there are no health or safety exceptions.

Mikie Sherrill, as a candidate, called for cutting red tape and streamlining permits. However, cutting red tape with this bill is just a euphemism for cutting protections for clean water, clean air, flood control, and safeguards against toxic pollution. This legislation is being pushed now to block the governor-elect’s environmental agenda and to roll back existing protections.

S4373: A blueprint for polluters to rewrite New Jersey’s environmental rules

1. Commission on “Efficiency and Regulatory Review“

The bill creates a 13-member commission inside the Treasury and the Office of Administrative Law to systematically review existing and proposed rules. The commission will be stacked with corporate polluters, big business associations and developer interests — with no public members, no environmentalists and no public health advocates. This commission is the Red Tape Review Commission on steroids. It is designed so polluters and developers can literally write the rules that govern themselves.

Without public oversight, transparency or independent scientific input, New Jersey’s environmental standards will be written by the very industries they regulate.

2. Cost-benefit analysis designed for polluters

Agencies must prepare extensive cost-benefit analyses focused on burdens to business — meaning impacts to corporate profits, not impacts to public health, clean water or environmental damage.

The bill excludes the economic benefits of clean air, safe drinking water, flood prevention, reduced cancer risks or Superfund cleanup avoidance. When they say “costs,” they mean costs to corporate profits — not the costs to families dealing with floods, asthma or contaminated drinking water.

3. The Orwellian “best available science” requirement

The bill requires agencies to use the “best available science,” but the DEP’s independent Division of Science has already been eliminated, and the DEP Science Advisory Board is stacked with corporate consultants. Oversight is shifted to the Office of Administrative Law — an office with no scientists, but plenty of industry lobbyists pushing influence.

This isn’t science. It’s political science used for control. This is the fox guarding the henhouse. They eliminated independent science and replaced it with corporate science.

4. Increased polluter input and early influence

Agencies must file a statement of intent and hold a 90-day pre-proposal review — giving lobbyists and industry consultants a longer and deeper window to shape rules before the public ever sees them. This gives developers and special interests a front-row seat and pushes the public out of the room entirely.

5. Automatic rule extensions

Rules can be extended without substantive review if no adverse public comments are received. But because the public will barely know these reviews are happening, the lack of comments becomes a tool to force rules through. This creates a system where silence equals approval — because the public won’t know what’s happening.

6. DEP annual reporting burdens

S4373 permanently requires DEP to produce expanded annual reports on every permit application and approval. DEP already has 400 fewer employees than it did under Christie, yet this bill adds more bureaucracy while pretending to reduce red tape. This bill doesn’t cut red tape — it wraps DEP in a lot more of it. If you want to speed things up, hire enough staff to do the job.

7. A commission with the power to roll back protections

The commission’s findings will be used to justify repealing, weakening or preventing environmental and public health safeguards. This is a direct assault on New Jersey’s environmental protections — decades of progress at risk of being rolled back.

Why the public needs to be alarmed

Environmental protections that we have fought for decades are all at risk — from toxics in drinking water, stopping overdevelopment, clean air, clean water, flood control, preserving open space, renewable energy and climate change. This bill is designed to tie Governor-elect Sherrill’s hands.

What makes this worse is that with Trump dismantling the EPA, there is no oversight or backstop to prevent this bill from going forward. In the past, the EPA helped stop the Fast Track Law and the filling in of critical wetlands. They opposed permit extension laws and got exemptions to make them less harmful. They opposed mall development in the Meadowlands. Now it will be a race to the bottom — who can roll back more protections faster, the EPA or Red Tape Review — with our health and environment imperiled.

More red tape for DEP

New Jersey has seen this movie before. Christie’s Red Tape Review Commission targeted DEP rules for rollback. This bill is even more extreme.

Every time we’ve had a “red tape review,” it’s a fight to stop weaker protections, more flooding, more pollution, and more development in environmentally sensitive areas.

The stakes could not be higher

We are in the era of climate change. New Jersey is ground zero for sea-level rise, major storms, extreme flooding, and toxic site vulnerability.

If the Legislature wanted to move permits faster, it should increase the NJ DEP budget and give the agency the staff and resources to do its job. Yet instead of strengthening protections or hiring more staff, the Legislature is doing the opposite.

This bill is a massive attempt at environmental rollback on a scale we haven’t seen in decades. It puts our air, water, and communities at risk so special interests can profit.

Conclusion: A war on the environment—From the MAGAcrats

S4373 is not a reform bill. It is not about “efficiency.” It is not about affordability.

It is a deliberate, coordinated effort to hand control of environmental rulemaking to polluters, developers, and corporate lobbyists. With the EPA being cut and oversight of the states being eliminated, there is no federal backstop.

Democrats were elected to stand up to Trump’s anti-environment agenda. Instead, they are embracing it.

New Jersey deserves better — and the public must speak out before this bill is passed. Gov. Murphy needs to veto it, as he did with a similar bill five years ago. This is an attempt to block the Sherrill administration from moving us forward and instead cause environmental rollbacks. We must stop this bill. Our environment and future are at stake.