In 2023, the head of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters saw the man he’d championed as the nation’s “greenest governor” getting eclipsed by progressive governors in other states.
So Ed Potosnak stripped Gov. Phil Murphy of the superlative, publicly airing frustrations with Murphy that had been growing among the state’s environmentalists. A month later, Murphy gave a major speech to unleash a new series of climate change goals that gave New Jersey the most aggressive clean energy target of any large state at the time.
Now Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill has picked Potosnak to lead the Department of Environmental Protection, a move that would put an environmental advocate in charge of regulating a major industrial state.
Potosnak was a former high school chemistry teacher and an education fellow in a congressional office before becoming the executive director of the state chapter of the League of Conservation Voters in 2012. He’s a councilmember in Franklin Township. He is also a licensed contractor, something both he and Sherrill touted when his nomination was announced last week.
