the Biden Administration kicked off Earth week by unveiling roughly 7 billion dollars in Grants to support more clean energy development designating the money for solar expansion in lowincome areas which includes more than 150 million to New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to prop up the work being done here renewable energy is seen as a key factor to mitigating the effects of climate change which can be charted by rising sea levels and warming temperatures across Ross the globe today the State Department of Environmental Protection released a draft extreme heat resilience action plan to help state agencies understand what they can and should do in an extreme heat event scientists say those are becoming more frequent throughout our region last year was the Earth's warmest on record since scientists began tracking it roughly 150 years ago one way the state is trying to do its part is by transitioning to 100% clean energy by 2035 a big feat when you consider the hurdles here to talk about that and the rest of the state's plans is Department of Environmental Protection commissioner Shawn LaTourette Shawn LaTourette, commissioner thanks so much for joining me um a lot to talk about with Earth Day and where the state sits right now and where leaders like yourself want to see it in the future and I'm especially thinking about this transition to 100 % uh renewable energy much of the state is still largely fueled by natural gas uh where do you see us in the next 10 years uh because there are pending proposals for new natural gas plants to come online what's your stance on that and where do you see us in the next decade so I see us in the next decade uh moving aggressively forward uh to embrace uh the Clean Energy Future that is already under development uh here in the state of New Jersey uh it's good to be to be with you uh today Brianna on Earth Day in Earth week in uh Earth month and if you are at the D just Earth life and what we've been working on uh over the course of the last six years under Governor Phil Murphy's leadership uh is a number of initiatives to both plan to architect the Clean Energy Future but also to put in place the incent programs and supportive regulatory reforms that will enable a continued transition because the truth is that we're all whether we realize it or not on the clean energy transition already the entire State our country and in fact the world what what does that mean commissioner what does that look like yeah what what that means is we see private uh entities right we see Private Industry we see uh utilities of varying sorts including those with deep Ro roots in the fossil fuel uh generation uh sector moving toward a clean energy future is it all going as quickly as it needs to in order to blunt the worst experiences of climate change no I won't sit here on Earth Day and tell you otherwise uh but what it requires is continued focus and commitment uh to contined focus upon and commitment to those goals that means continuing to uh issue solicitations for offshore wind and solar projects right continuing supporting uh the Basel load clean power that already fuels New Jersey in the form of our nuclear facilities and slowly transitioning off of natural gas and I say slowly in part because we have really old housing stock in the state of New Jersey we can't flip a switch and turn off all natural gas immediately it's going to take time right but we need to at the same uh Pace that we are moving toward a greater generation of electricity also move uh demonstration projects that show the public how reliable those clean energy sources are and how you can transition your home to cleaner energy sources no mandates that are magically going to uh get us to these points right but we need to show our ourselves and Us in government we must show the public uh that there is a pathway an affordable pathway uh to a clean energy future and there is yeah I mean when you talk about the transition and we've had that conversation before um you can't just take everything offline switch to the new whether it's natural gas or electric vehicles plugin electric vehicles but uh when you think about uh the pvsc sewage plant let's take for example in Newark that uh proposal is still pending needs approval from your department um folks have looked at that specifically as if we are transitioning um why not make that one of the areas uh where rather than bring a new natural gas power plant online I mean you've heard this argument over again where does that stand so that application is still uh under review by the Department of Environmental Protection and under consideration uh by the pic Valley sewage commission which by the way is not a state controlled ENT it is a regionally controlled utility by 48 municipalities and counties up in that uh section of our great State uh and there's only one entity that's going to determine whether or not uh that project remains under consideration that entity is the pvsc itself and if the the project does uh continue under consideration uh the D will ensure that consistent with our environmental justice law uh the the facility uh reduces net impacts to uh that overburdened Community there's no question the environmental justice law requires that uh but I think what's important in this conversation about a clean energy transition uh is that we focus on the whole and not any one individual Source yes must we transition at the same time that we're supporting uh the growth in our communities and you know in the case of backup power facilities that are fueling environmental improvements uh that we maintain uh operations that ensure reliability at the same time that we're working toward emissions reductions and so how do you do that you do that through reforms like our CPR climate pollutant reduction regulatory reforms where we in the last couple of years have placed a cap on carbon emissions from Electric generating units Statewide and that means that some of our remaining uh dirtier natural gas facilities are going to have to make a hard decision about upgrades or closure and that's what this transition means but we've got to look at it on a Statewide basis and then beyond that on a regional uh basis in partnership with States all around the region uh let me just switch gears quickly because you touched on a lot um just recently the EPA uh not only finalized uh drinking water rules when it comes to Forever chemicals but also um for the first time detailed two of the most most common of those past chemicals um that are listed as a Hazmat I'm wondering what this means for New Jersey and we have uh quite a few of those sites that have been identified um what it means for the cleanup and and how those rules affect New Jersey so the short answer uh is not not too much do they affect New Jersey why because once again President Biden and vice president Harris have taken a page out of Governor Murphy's Playbook New Jersey has led the nation in uh addressing posos contamination some of the science that uh was uh the basis of the recent announcements by the federal government started right here in New Jersey in the dp's division of science and research our chief toxicologist sits on the federal science Advisory board for the Environmental Protection Agency and was instrumental uh in moving these uh pieces of national progress on our environment forward uh but in New Jersey we already have standards Set uh drinking water standards for pooa pasas and pfna uh the federal standards are a bit lower so there are uh additional Drinking Water Systems in the state of New Jersey uh that uh perhaps did not uh trigger uh the state standard but would trigger uh the new lower Federal standard and we're already in touch touch with those Water Systems so that uh they can begin the work necessary to plan uh for greater treatment to protect our residents we're fortunate Ranna because we live in a state with the most aggressive and protective drinking water standards in the nation I trust what comes out of the tap every day because of the hardworking people uh at the D and with respect to the federal listing as a hazardous substance under under the super fund law we already have that here in New Jersey pios pooa pfna they are already hazardous substances under our New Jersey spill act which was the basis for the superf fund law back in the 1980s uh and so we're already well in our way to achieving control at environmentally uh hazardous sites uh all across the state that have posos concerns of course it's a long road right we have a lot of cleanup to do uh within our environment and we're gonna seek to hold or already quite honestly are seeking to hold uh the manufacturers of posos accountable right we've sued beginning in 2019 the major manufacturers of posos and we will make sure that they do not leave the residents and taxpayers of the state of New Jersey holding the bag we will make them clean up their mess commissioner Shawn LaTourette joining us on this Earth Day commissioner thanks so much thank you [Music]