Recent editorials from New Jersey newspapers

Thursday, Dec. 4, 2003 | 8:44 a.m.

Asbury Park Press of Neptune on future of Oyster Creek nuclear power plant:

Stafford has added its name to the list of municipalities urging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to shut down the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey.

Berkeley and Ocean townships previously passed resolutions calling for the immediate shutdown of the plant. Stafford backed a resolution Tuesday calling on the NRC to deny Oyster Creek an extension of its operating license beyond 2009.

Oyster Creek has an April deadline to apply for a license extension. If Exelon Nuclear Corp., the plant's operator, decides against an extension, Oyster Creek would close in 2009. If Exelon seeks an extension, the NRC could grant an extension up to 2029.

While several municipalities have taken a stance, most county officials and Shore-area legislators have not. Nor have Gov. McGreevey or the state Department of Environmental Protection. The county and state should not sit back and wait for the NRC to make the decision for the 2 million people living within a 50-mile radius of Oyster Creek. They should begin gathering information, including an independent assessment of the safety of the plant, needed to make an intelligent judgment about whether Oyster Creek should cease operations.

There is ample evidence that the region might be better off if the plant was shut down. The threats posed by Oyster Creek are substantial: security lapses, a grossly inadequate evacuation plan, unscheduled plant shutdowns and a general lack of responsiveness to safety concerns. Add to that the heightened prospect of a terrorist attack in the post-9/11 era, the lack of a clear plan to dispose of radioactive waste and the advancing age of the plant - Oyster Creek is the oldest commercial nuclear power plant in the country - and it would be reckless not to begin an independent review to determine whether the benefits outweigh the risks.

It's time for county and state officials to start doing their homework. People living in the shadow of Oyster Creek must make it clear to them that they don't want the NRC doing all their homework for them.

The Times of Trenton on providing auto insurance to New Jersey residents:

Ask New Jerseyans what they hate about their home state. Auto insurance requirements will surely be a common answer.

All New Jersey drivers must have insurance, yet they pay the second highest rates in the nation amid a marketplace that has become more and more complicated.

One recent poll found only 49 percent of New Jersey drivers were happy with their insurance cost and 44 percent had difficulty finding a policy within the past year.

More than 20 insurers have left the state in the past 10 years. In the past six years, the number of insurers writing policies in the state declined by 35 percent. When leaving, companies cited high costs and complex regulations that cut profits and forced them to insure risky drivers.

But now, there seems to be reason for hope: A new insurance carrier, Mercury General, has agreed to do business in New Jersey; insurers State Farm and United Services Automobile Association reduced their rates and State Farm took yet another step, halting its practice of dropping 4,000 vehicles a month.

This all happened after Gov. James E. McGreevey signed an auto insurance reform law in June.

New Jersey seems to adopt an auto insurance reform measure every year or so. Auto insurance is always a hot topic during an election. Everybody has an idea about how to improve the situation. Legislation is tossed about the State House, yet nothing really seems to make a difference. The situation only worsens.

McGreevey's law was aimed at cutting bureaucracy for insurers and making it easier for drivers to find coverage. Those are standard free-market principles, but not everyone was convinced they would work. Many insurance industry advocates predicted the bill would force rate increases and spur more lawsuits. ...

Cause for caution exists. The reforms haven't taken full effect and the real test will be analyzing the state's auto insurance market after a few years, but the governor seems to have a plan that is working. Give him credit for sparking optimism in an area where so little hope has been found in recent years.

The Star-Ledger of Newark on need for ethics reform in New Jersey:

Are New Jersey Democrats waking up on ethics issues? Some in the Legislature are beginning to stir. Sen. Dick Codey has introduced reforms that would ban legislators from hiring relatives or holding a second elected office.

These are modest steps, and both are already contained in legislation sponsored by Republicans. Still, they would inch us in the right direction. And Gov. James E. McGreevey's office indicated this week that he supports this kind of reform.

Enough of the good news. On the larger issue of campaign finance reform, the governor is sticking to his guns. His strategy is to obstruct and delay. His motive is to preserve the advantage of incumbency that gave Democrats a 2-to-1 spending advantage in this year's election. His tactic is to pretend he wants more than the Legislature is willing to give and to promise a veto of anything less. ...

Under current law, private firms that do business with the state government are free to donate huge sums to Democratic campaigns and to the political action committees that underwrite them.

McGreevey promised to change that corrupting practice when he endorsed a Common Cause plan that would sharply restrict those donations, ending the practice known as "pay to play." But when the Senate passed the reform overwhelmingly, the governor promised to veto it. It later died in the Assembly.

The governor has a cover story for this flip-flop. Earlier this year, he proposed an omnibus ethics bill that includes pay-to-play reforms and said he would veto anything less. The problem is that his bill has several poison pills. One would limit donations even to legislators who have nothing to do with awarding contracts, a provision that has been struck down by courts elsewhere.

Another would bar legislators from voting on any bill that affects their family finances. That goes too far. All legislators would be barred from voting on state pensions, for example. No lawyers or doctors could vote on malpractice reform; no teachers or their spouses could vote on school funding.

McGreevey knows his omnibus bill will not fly. In private, Democratic leaders admit it. The real purpose of this bill is to kill reform while allowing the governor to blame the Legislature.

A clever political trick? Maybe. But ethics could wind up being this governor's Achilles' heel. And if Republicans have any brains, that's where they will aim their sharpened arrows.