 | Vol. 4 No. 1 Summer 1996 |
| A Newsletter About New Jersey's Water Quality Programs |
Green and Gold Task Force
In September 1995, a task force was formed to serve as a sounding board for DEP ideas and to help ensure broad public support for department proposals. Known as the Green and Gold, the task force comprises 15 representatives from the business and environmental communities, who will be involving key interests and stakeholders in the environmental
management process.
"We have to integrate programs and proactively prevent pollution with a principle-based approach," says task force co-chairman Michael Catania, a former DEP deputy commissioner. "DEP can bounce ideas off the task force for solutions that business and environmental communities can both live with, instead of both oppose," he said.
"DEP in the past has been a lab for a lot of new programs through trial and error. With limited funding, we have to prioritize and look at risk assessment so we can focus resources where they will have the most impact. DEP Commissioner Shinn has made the commitment to stay the course and give the department the stability it needs. The task force will aid in public outreach so that there will be more reasons to defend the DEP than attack it," Catania said.
To help guide the group's work, a set of guiding principles was developed in concert with the DEP's mission statement. The principles are:
- Protecting public health and ecological systems are primary goals, and all segments of society must take responsibility for the impact of their actions.
- Regulation should be designed to achieve environmental goals in a manner that promotes a sustainable resource base and minimizes costs to individuals, business, and government.
- Environmental regulations should provide maximum flexibility in the means of achieving our environmental goals and require accountability for the results.
- Market incentives should be used to achieve environmental goals whenever appropriate.
- Environmental regulation should be based on the best science and economics, and be subject to public scrutiny.
- Environmental standards should be reasonable, clear, and predictable.
- Environmental policy-making, including rules development, should be collaborative, not adversarial, and involve broad public participation.
- Federal, state, and local governments should work as partners to achieve common environmental goals, with state and non-federal partners taking the lead as appropriate.
- Environmental goals should provide equal protection for all segments of society.
- Natural resources should be treated as a public trust.
The Green and Gold has three subcommittees: Pollution Control, Land Use, and Cleanup. If you would like further information on the Green and Gold, or would like to provide input into the task force, please contact liaison Rhea Brekke, special assistant for Policy and Planning at (609) 292-4871.
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Last revision Monday, June 17, 1996