TRENTON — New Jersey Health and Senior Services Commissioner Poonam Alaigh declined to testify before the Senate health committee today. Chairwoman Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) said she would call a hearing based on the commissioner's schedule to discuss why a handful of laws have not been implemented. Weinberg invited the commissioner a week ago to discuss why the state had...
Dr. Poonam Alaigh, commissioner of the New Jersey department of health & senior services, speaks at an event in this November 2010 photo.TRENTON — New Jersey Health and Senior Services Commissioner Poonam Alaigh declined to testify before the Senate health committee today. Chairwoman Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) said she would call a hearing based on the commissioner's schedule to discuss why a handful of laws have not been implemented.
Weinberg invited the commissioner a week ago to discuss why the state had failed to implement several laws on time. Among them, Weinberg cited the menu-labeling law that passed the day before Gov. Chris Christie took office 13 months ago requiring large chain restaurants to post calorie information, and the 3-year-old "Safe Patient Handling Practices Act," signed by Gov. Jon Corzine, that requires licensed health care facilities to train employees and buy equipment to avoid causing patient and worker injury.
"There is a long lag time between us passing a law, the governor signing it, and the regulation-writing that is necessary before a law can be implemented,'' Weinberg said. "I am not going to sit by quietly and pass laws that never get implemented.''
Alaigh was in Washington, D.C. today at a "long-standing" meeting with the U.S. National Institutes of Health, according to a letter she sent Weinberg last Thursday declining the invitation.
Weinberg asked Alaigh to send a deputy commissioner to the hearing in her place, "but due to the lateness of the request, it was not possible to accommodate'' the committee, Alaigh's spokeswoman Donna Leusner said.
In the letter to Weinberg, Alaigh wrote she had decided not to implement the law "prematurely'' because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration soon is going to release guidelines on how a similar federal law ought to be implemented. As for the safe handling act, the department released proposed rules January to enforce the law and is accepting public comments on them until March 4, according to the letter.
Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex) said it was "frustrating'' no one from the health department attended the hearing. "What's important is we address these issues,'' he said.
Sen. Robert Singer (R-Ocean) questioned Vitale criticizing the Republican Christie administration for failing to implement laws when it's clear former Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat was guilty of the same thing when Vitale chaired the health committee during Corzine's term. "Amazing — maybe it was because it was Gov. Corzine,'' Singer said sarcastically.
Weinberg said she planned to contact Alaigh and ask her to name the date and time when she would be available to address the committee.
"We are not living in a monarchy yet, and there are three branches of government,'' Weinberg said. "The legislature branch is just passing laws, and no one in the executive branch has the right to ignore them.''
Previous coverage:
• N.J. health commissioner delays implementing calorie-count law, waits for FDA to propose rules
• Proposed bill requires N.J. restaurant chains to include calorie count on menus