Governor Murphy: Release NJPACT Flooding Regulations

In January of 2020, Governor Murphy signed Executive Order 100: he pledged to protect New Jersey residents, municipalities, businesses and the environment from the impacts of climate change. This executive order directed the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to adopt NJPACT (New Jersey Protecting Against Climate Threats) emergency rules by Jan. 27 of this year. NJPACT would prevent new developments in flood prone areas and make our state's stormwater mitigation rules more effective, but these rule changes have been continuingly delayed.

We have all seen the devastating impacts that superstorms have on our communities. With climate change we face stronger and more frequent storms in our future, and our current regulations are out of date and not sufficiently protective. We cannot wait for another storm to flood our neighbors and families before we act.

We need to encourage the administration to put the interests of New Jersey residents first by following through on rules that make it harder to build in areas that are increasingly prone to flooding.

Urge the Governor to release the emergency NJPACT rules without further delay and to propose the rest of the NJPACT flooding rules by the end of this summer.