Alan Steinberg

The White House is expected to announce that Judith Enck, New York's Deputy Secretary of the Environment, will be the new Regional Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.  Alan Steinberg, who held the post during the Bush administration, left in January.

New Jerseyan Philip Murphy did not make a very good impression on his first day as the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, according to a Congressional Quarterly report.   Murphy, who was a top executive at Goldman Sachs and the Democratic National Committee Finance Chairman, apparently arrived in Berlin last month on a Gulfstream V jet just as the German press "was describing how top embassy posts in the Obama administration were going almost exclusively to wealthy campaign donors."

The "ostentatious top-of-the-line executive jet that left German Chancellor Angela Merkel grinding her teeth over President Obama's gift of ambassadorships to wealthy donors," the report said. 

From CQ:

Former EPA Regional Administrator Alan Steinberg will be a guest lecturer at Monmouth University over the next two semesters.  

Steinberg, who left his environmental post in January, will be the university’s “Monmouth University's Public Servant in Residence.”

"We are thrilled Mr. Steinberg will be on campus this year. His knowledge and vast experience of environmental policy will be of great benefit to the campus community during the year,” said political science chair Rekha Datta.  

Steinberg is an unpaid columnist for PolitickerNJ.com.  

In the three close New Jersey gubernatorial elections over the past three decades - 1981, 1993, and 1997, the Jewish vote has been a key factor. In the 2009 election, ironically due to the outcome of the Israeli election, the Jewish vote could be a decisive factor - in favor of Chris Christie, as far fetched as this may sound.

It appears likely that Likud leader Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu will serve as the next Prime Minister of Israel. A clash between him and President Obama over numerous issues, including Iran, Syria, borders, and the status of the Palestinians, is inevitable, regardless of recent protestations to the contrary on the part of key associates of both men. This would doubtless lead to a backlash against Obama in America's Orthodox Jewish community, ultimately negatively impacting Jon Corzine's vote totals from this segment of the Jewish electorate.

I emphasize the Orthodox Jews, because Israel is much more a factor in the voting decisions of Orthodox voters than among other elements of the Jewish community. This is not to disparage the strong support that Israel has among all sectors of American Jewry. By and large, however, studies have shown that the key determinants of the decisions of the non-Orthodox voters in all elections, federal and state, have been the various tenets of the liberal agenda, including social welfare spending, social justice for minorities, and, ironically enough, abortion - ironic, given the fact that Jewish law is far more pro-life than pro-choice : mandating abortion if necessary to save the life of the mother while viewing it as a serious breach of Jewish law in virtually every other case.

While the national media currently focus on the economic stimulus program of President Barack Obama, a major internal battle is shaping up between his environmental team, led by Carol Browner, who will seek a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program and a carbon tax, and his economic team, led by Larry Summers, who will almost certainly oppose such measures as having a significant deleterious effect on economic recovery. There is no doubt that the economic team will prevail.

President Obama, however, does not need either a cap-and-trade program or a carbon tax to attain his laudable air quality and greenhouse gas reduction goals. Over 40 per cent of all greenhouse gases generated in the United States emanate from coal fired power plants. A national program to begin the process of replacing coal plants with nuclear power plants would eliminate this greenhouse gas generation and likewise overwhelmingly reduce America's smog (ozone) and soot (particulate matter) pollution.

During the campaign, both President Obama and Vice President Biden spoke of an end to coal-fired power plants in America, but they were vague as to what would be the alternative power source. While both spoke of renewables such as solar and wind, neither was foolish enough to claim that solar and wind power could significantly meet the base load energy deficit left behind from the elimination of coal.

One would think that President Obama would thus readily embrace nuclear power as an alternative substitute for coal. The President, however, has never definitively supported the expansion of nuclear power in America. He has expressed his reluctance to do so due to his concern about the nuclear waste issue.

For the last sixteen years, the Region 2 Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been a New Jerseyan.  While New Jersey Democrats are preparing to nominate a candidate for that post, sources say that New York Democrats are insisting that this appointment go to them - especially since a New Jerseyan, Lisa Jackson, will head the EPA in Barack Obama's administration.  It's possible that New Jersey's two Democratic U.S. Senators will choose not to go to battle with Charles Schumer, the Senator from New York, over a regional EPA appointment.

One name being mentioned out of New York as a successor to Republican Alan Steinberg, the current EPA Regional Administrator, is Richard Kassel, a senior attorney with the National Resources Defense Council.

Bill Matsikoudis, the Jersey City Corporation Counsel, is the leading candidate to become the Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to sources familiar with the appointment process.  The nomination of Lisa Jackson to head the EPA led some Democrats to believe that the veteran regulator, who became Chief of Staff to Gov. Jon Corzine in December 1, might have her own candidate in mind to replace Alan Steinberg, a Republican who was appointed by George W. Bush.  Jackson spent many years at the EPA before joining the Corzine administration as Commissioner of Environmental Protection in 2006.

Emerging as a formidable candidate for Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is Bill Matsikoudis, the Jersey City Corporation Counsel and a former Assistant Counsel to Gov. James E. McGreevey.  Insiders report that Matsikoudis has at least two very influential backers: Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, the Hudson County Democratic Chairman; and Newark Mayor Cory Booker.  Healy and Booker were early supporters of Barack Obama’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.  The two mayors have the ability to influence New Jersey’s two Democratic U.S. Senators, whose recommendation can, in turn, influence the Obama administration.

Among the people likely to lose their jobs if Barack Obama is elected President next month: Republican Joel Trella, who was hired by U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie as a Security Manager after losing his bid for re-election as Bergen County Sheriff in 2004; Alan Steinberg, a former Kean/Whitman administration official who served as Chief of Staff to Essex County Executive James Treffinger, will be replaced as the Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; and U.S. Marshal James Plousis, a former Cape May County Sheriff.