In our latest EnviroPolitics interview, we investigate a troubling trend.
New Jersey’s electricity rates are about to soar—and some experts believe the system may be rigged.
Rate expert Lyle Rawlings unpacks the mechanisms behind rate-setting — explores who sets them, who benefits, and raises challenging questions about transparency and accountability.
If you’re a ratepayer, policymaker, or journalist, this is a must-watch exposé on the forces shaping your energy bill.
If you like this interview, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics.It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Don’t take our word for it. Try it free for a whole month
After the upcoming November elections, New Jerseyans will face a shocking 18 percent rate hike for their electric service.
Solar energy expert Lyle Rawlings has been reviewing the opaque files of PJM — the entity that oversees electricity rates — and has uncovered a number of questionable factors that the regional energy grid is using to justify its increase.
Tomorrow, in our interview with Lyle, you will learn facts about the murky entity that controls the movement of electricity in all or parts of 13 states .
His findings will leave you disturbed and eager to know more about how your rates are being set (or, should we say, manipulated).
Frank Brill EnviroPolitics editor@enviropolitics.com 609-577-9017
When a sudden downpour swept through West Orange this summer, Roy Oser stood at his front door and filmed what he called a “rushing river” of water pouring past his walkway.
Flooding is nothing new for the 300-home West Essex Highlands condominium community, which sits at the edge of the Watchung Mountains and backs onto Essex County’s last remaining forests.
But with Zygmunt Wilf, a billionaire developer and co-owner of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, proposing to clear part of the forest to make way fora 496-unit apartment complex, residents fear the flooding will only get worse.
“I’ve lived in New Jersey long enough to know you don’t see undeveloped woods just sitting there,” Oser said. “Any increase in flooding would be devastating.”
Oser, a retired lawyer, and his wife moved into their condo in 2018, in a unit that borders the woods.
At the time, he was told wetlands protections would prevent large-scale construction. But two years later, he learned the condo board had quietly signed a settlement with the Wilf family’s company and the township to allow development — without homeowners’ input.
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Chris Linsmayer, Key Capture Energy Public Affairs Manager, discusses the company’s large lithium battery energy storage system on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in Blasdell, N.Y., which can power 15,000 homes for two hours during outages or periods of high demand. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
By The Associated Press
Increasingly, large arrays of lithium-ion batteries are being connected to the electrical grids around the U.S. to store power that can be discharged during periods of high demand.
However, as more energy storage is added, residents in some places are pushing back due to fears that the systems will catch fire, as a massive facility in California did earlier this year.
Proponents argue that state-of-the-art battery energy storage systems are safe; however, more localities are enacting moratoriums.
“We’re not guinea pigs for anybody … we are not going to experiment, we’re not going to take risk,” said Michael McGinty, the mayor of Island Park, New York, which passed a moratorium in July after a storage system was proposed near the village line.
Michael McGinty, the mayor of Island Park, New York, which passed a moratorium in July after a storage system was proposed near the village line.
At least a few dozen localities around the United States have moved to temporarily block the development of big battery systems in recent years.
Long Island, where the power grid could get a boost in the next few years as offshore wind farms come online, has been a hotbed of activism, even drawing attention recently from the Trump administration. Opponents there got a boost in August when Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin visited New York to complain that the state was rushing approvals of sites to meet “delusional” green power goals — a claim state officials deny.
Battery growth spurt
Battery energy storage systems that suck up cheap power during periods of low demand, then discharge it at a profit during periods of high demand, are considered critical with the rise of intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar.
Known by the acronym BESS, the systems can make grids more reliable and have been credited with reducing blackouts. A large battery system might consist of rows of shipping containers in a fenced lot, with the containers holding hundreds of thousands of cells.
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The ruling comes amid ongoing questions about how to handle contamination from upstream sources.
By Jacob Wallace, Waste Dive
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Monday that attempted to force the U.S. EPA to regulate contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in sewage sludge. The suit, brought by farmers and public health groups last year, is one of several seeking to address growing concerns about contamination from the family of chemicals collectively called PFAS.
More than half of sewage sludge produced in the U.S. is applied on agricultural land as fertilizer,according to EPA data.The rest is composted with other organic material or sent to landfills and incinerators for disposal. The question of what to do with the material, which can be contaminated by upstream sources such as manufacturing plants and mills, has become more pressing as farmers fear that contaminated sludge can ruin their livestock or crops.
In Johnson County, Texas, farmers allege that their land was contaminated by the spreading of biosolids on a neighboring plot. The farmers, who brought the case against the EPA, allege that some of their animals had tested with PFAS levels hundreds of times the limits set by states like Michigan and Maine to protect public health. They argued that the EPA has a responsibility under the Clean Water Act to regulate harmful PFAS chemicals in sewage sludge, and that it has avoided doing so despite being aware of health risks.
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Re-Match, a Denmark-based recycling company, had planned to open what it said would be the first artificial turf recycling facility in the United States — in a Schuylkill County factory by the end of 2024.
Environmentalists were overjoyed. Lab tests have shown that artificial turf has contained PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, for decades. The so-called forever chemicals — which are found in an array of products, including firefighting gear and nonstick cookware — don’t break down in the environment and have been linked by the EPA to cancer, asthma, thyroid disease, and decreased immunity to fight infections.
But Re-Match’s recycling dream will never be realized in Pennsylvania, and as a result, tons of chemical-laden turf pose an ongoing environmental threat with no easy solution.
In June, the company filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, bringing to an end to a company whose arrival in Pennsylvania was once celebrated by top elected officials.
Re-Match had, in recent years, stored 11,000 tons of decaying turf rolls in three locations across the state, including a farm in Nicholson, Wyoming County, where nearly 6,000 tons of old turf sit on dirt fields. The turf, once meant to be recycled, now faces an uncertain future.
If you like this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics.It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Please don’t take our word for it. Try it free for a whole month
