Assembly Budget Committee will meet on Wednesday to hear testimony on Gov. Chris Christie’s plan to deal with the state’s budget shortfall.
Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver (D-East Orange) told the committee to meet so it can begin analyzing Christie’s plan and “give it the transparency that it so far has lacked and the public deserves.”
According to The New York Times/ClimateWire, there is a new version of the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade legislation. For those keeping track, that makes no less than five different versions in just 36 days. Let us recap:
September 29 – 684-page draft version
September 30 – 801-page updated draft version
September 30 – 821-page bill, as introduced
October 23 – 925-page chairman’s mark
November 3 – 959-page updated chairman’s mark
As we discussed earlier, there is a need for transparency in this debate and a full understanding of the economic consequences of such legislation. The 959-page version reported in the press today cannot be found on the committee’s website. The committee rules state:
(a) NOTICE: The chair of the committee or the subcommittee shall provide notice, the agenda of business to be discussed, and the text of agenda items to members of the committee or subcommittee at least 72 hours before a business meeting. If the 72 hours falls over a weekend, all materials will be provided by close of business on Friday.
To translate, it would be against committee rules for the 959-page version to be the basis of the today’s planned markup because it has not been publicly available for 72 hours. Numerous unexplained alterations make it difficult for those who are trying to follow the debate and stay informed.