Good morning and welcome to the Monday edition of the New York & New Jersey Energy newsletter. We'll take a look at the week ahead and look back on what you may have missed last week.

WILD QUESTIONS — Two recent articles highlight broad questions about land and nature preservation in New York's Adirondack wilderness and New Jersey's Pinelands forests:

IN THE ADIRONDACKS: John Ernst’s Adirondack legacy by Adirondack Explorer’s Gwendolyn Craig: “Many in the Adirondack Park champion John Ernst and his family’s conservation legacy, but his performance as chairman of the Adirondack Park Agency board this past year has left some deflated. Environmental groups haven’t seen the push for public hearings or ecological protections they had hoped for from the 82-year-old, whom Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed in October 2021. Some local government leaders disfavored the choice because Ernst, whose primary residence is in New York City, is the first out-of-park board chairman of the half-century-old state agency. The APA, with a staff of 54 and 11-member board of directors, is charged with protecting the approximately 6-million-acre park; it develops long-range plans and reviews development proposals on both private and public lands. Its board had been leaderless for nearly three years until Hochul appointed Ernst. In an interview, Ernst said he hopes he’s not ‘out of sync with people who live here all the time,’ and promised action at the APA. He discussed a background that suggests he has been more than a visitor in the Adirondack Park.”

IN THE PINELANDS: “Fire plan would cut 2.4 million New Jersey Pinelands trees,” by The AP’s Wayne Parry: “Up to 2.4 million trees would be cut down as part of a project to prevent major wildfires in a federally protected New Jersey forest heralded as a unique environmental treasure. New Jersey environmental officials say the plan to kill trees in a section of Bass River State Forest is designed to better protect against catastrophic wildfires, adding it will mostly affect small, scrawny trees — not the towering giants for which the Pinelands National Refuge is known and loved. But the plan, adopted Oct. 14 by the New Jersey Pinelands Commission and set to begin in April, has split environmentalists. Some say it is a reasonable and necessary response to the dangers of wildfires, while others say it is an unconscionable waste of trees that would no longer be able to store carbon as climate change imperils the globe.”

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What we're watching this week:

TUESDAY
— New York LIPA Commission hearings — 10 a.m. in-person at Hofstra University Student Center, 200 Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York 11549, and 6 p.m. virtually at https://nylipa.gov/hearings-meetings

— Ownership of Saratoga County historic site may be figured out.

— OP-ED: Wilson Kimball is president and CEO of the Yonkers Housing Authority: “This is why climate resiliency can work for everyone's politics.”

— MTA to use artificial intelligenceto keep buses from breaking.

— Residents struggling to pay for heaturged to apply for assistance.

— Toms River man dies after vehicle flips into marsh.

— The Christmastree entrepreneurs.

TURNPIKE POLITICS — POLITICO’s Ry Rivard: Members of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority board were silent Tuesday about the ballooning costs of a controversial bridge replacement and highway expansion, but got an earful from activists and members of the public who oppose it. For about an hour, the public comment session was filled with criticism directed at the authority’s six-member board and Gov. Phil Murphy about plans to expand an eight-mile stretch of the turnpike near the mouth of the Holland Tunnel. The renewed criticism was driven by new cost estimates that show a price tag of nearly $10.7 billion, more than double the previous $4.7 billion estimate.

WHAT’S IN A (FOSSIL) GAS: New York’s draft climate plan will likely drop references to “fossil gas” in favor of “fossil natural gas” to describe the mix of fossil-based gasses, primarily methane, carried in the state’s extensive pipeline network to heat homes, run manufacturing and fuel power plants. The term “fossil gas” was included in the state’s draft climate plan released at the end of last year and has been intermittently debated by the council since then, with some members raising concerns about whether the term was defined and would be understandable to the public. — Marie J. French

NEW JERSEY FILLS WATERFRONT VACANCY —  POLITICO’s Ry Rivard: The bi-state Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, which has been hampered since spring by the absence of a New Jersey representative, can get back to business — at least for now. The New Jersey Senate last week confirmed Jennifer Davenport as New Jersey's representative on the two-member commission, which was created 70 years ago to police the shipping industry and longshore workers.