New Jersey State Senate Republican Leader Anthony M. Bucco said the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has pulled the approvalof a “building decarbonization” plan from its agenda after legislators, the Division of Rate Counsel, and other stakeholders expressed serious concerns about the rushed effort to implement the draft proposal that could be a massive overreach of the agency’s authority.
Sen. Anthony M. Bucco said the BPU has pulled the approval of a ‘building decarbonization’ plan from its agenda after legislators, the Division of Rate Counsel, and other stakeholders expressed serious concerns. (SenateNJ.com)
“The BPU thought it could rush the approval of a major energy policy change that could ultimately cost New Jersey home and business owners hundreds of billions of dollars to implement,” said Bucco (R-25). “There also are serious concerns that the BPU doesn’t have the legal authority to set environmental policy for the state or to regulate carbon emissions which is their clear intention. Thankfully the agency backed down after we shed light on what they were trying to do. The BPU said the building decarbonization plan will be on a future agenda for approval, so we need to remain vigilant.”
The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) issued a preliminary road map for electrifying all homes and businesses in the state on June 7.
At the time, Bucco warned that “there wasn’t a single mention of the expected cost or of the mandates that are likely to be necessary to force the conversion of the 80% of New Jersey homes that currently rely on clean natural gas for heating, cooking, and hot water.”
The public comment period ended on June 27, and the BPU was set to adopt the proposal at its meeting today (item “8G” on the agenda). That was before Bucco and others started alerting the public to what “building decarbonization” really entails.
“New Jerseyans are learning that the ultimate goal of ‘building decarbonization’ and Governor Murphy’s extreme green energy plan is the elimination of affordable natural gas and the extremely costly replacement of gas stoves, furnaces, and hot water heaters,” Bucco added. “They’re realizing there’s no way to fully electrify the entire state without bans, mandates, expensive conversions, and higher energy bills. We’ll keep shedding light on the harsh truths of Governor Murphy’s expensive green energy plan that he keeps trying to bury.”
Governor Murphy has never said how much his extreme green energy plan will cost to fully implement, but an independent estimate pegs the cost to New Jerseyans at $1.4 trillion.
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