EnviroPolitics Blog

PSEG wins a big one as Murphy signs subsidy bill into law

By Frank Brill
EnviroPolitics Editor

Ending the will-he-sign or won’t-he-sign speculation, NJ Governor Phil Murphy today showed no hesitation in putting his signature on the controversial bill (S-2313) that gives PSEG Nuclear a public subsidy of up to $300 million a year.

The enactment came at a public ceremony held at a solar farm site in Monmouth Junction.

According to a news release from the Governor’s Office, the new law “establishes a Zero Emissions Certificate (ZEC) program to maintain New Jersey’s nuclear energy supply, which contributes close to 40 percent of the State’s electric capacity and is by far New Jersey’s largest source of carbon free energy. Plants seeking to participate in the program would be required, among other things, to demonstrate that they make a significant contribution to New Jersey air quality and that they are at risk of closure within three years.

“The new law gives the Board of Public Utilities broad latitude to engage outside experts to analyze nuclear power plant financial information and applications, and to adjust ZEC payments as necessary to meet a plant’s actual financial need. A plant seeking to participate in the program would be required to certify that it is not receiving funding from any other federal, regional, or state source that would negate the need for the ZEC. Employees at plants participating in the ZEC program would further be protected from layoffs for reasons other than underperformance or misconduct.”

While the governor, Senate and Assembly sponsors, South Jersey legislators, PSEG corporate officers, employees and labor officials all appeared to be thrilled by the outcome, many others were not, including business groups like the NJ Business and Industry Association, the Chemistry Council of New Jersey and a number of environmental organizations.

NJTV News Correspondent Brenda Flanagan has details in the video above. See related news coverage at bottom of this post.

At the event, Murphy also signed a far-less controversial energy bill, A3723, that takes several steps to improve and expand New Jersey’s renewable energy programs, including a Renewable Energy Standard that requires 21 percent of the energy sold in the state be from Class I renewable energy sources by 2020; 35 percent by 2025 and 50 percent by 2030.

The legislation also makes changes to the state’s energy programs by codifying New Jersey’s goal of 3,500 MW of offshore wind by 2030; requiring each utility to implement energy efficiency measures to reduce electricity usage by 2 percent and natural gas usage by 0.75 percent; setting up a community solar energy program to allow all state residents to benefit from solar energy, and codifying the state’s goal of achieving 600 MW of energy storage by 2021 and 2,000 MW by 2030.

Murphy also signed Executive Order 28 directing state agencies to develop an updated Energy Master Plan (EMP) that provides a path to 100 percent clean energy by 2050.

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Just what the PSEG ‘subsidy’ bill needs, more controversy

By Frank Brill
EnviroPolitics Editor

By May 31, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy will decide whether to sign, veto, or recommend changes to landmark-but highly controversial-legislation that would provide PSEG with public funding to keep its nuclear facilities operating and competitive against lower-cost natural gas energy.

The issue is complicated and will affect taxpayers, energy competitors, large-businesss energy users and public accountability (since as the Public Advocate who represents the average Joe and Jane in energy rates issues, has been sidelined by the bill sponsors and has no effective role to play in this matter). The Board of Public Utilities, which some would argue has been a bit too chummy with the energy industry historically, will oversee the funding.

The environmental component of the controversy is equally sticky. The Sierra Club and Environment New Jersey argue that, in propping up nuclear with public funds, the state will discouage the growth of clean-energy alterntives like wind and solar. Bill supporters counter-argue that the legislation will keep alive an energy producer that is kinder to the environment, as it does not emit the harmful gases that come along with fracking and its end product.

National environmental writer David Roberts now weighs in on the issue and, sidestepping the economic and oversight debate, concludes that the legislation is good and necessary for the environment. He writes:

New Jersey’s 2007 Global Warming Response Act set a goal of reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. That simply won’t be possible without almost completely decarbonizing the power sector.

But here’s the problem. The state’s nuclear plants are having trouble competing in energy markets (in part because they are not compensated for their climate-friendly attributes). Their owners — PSEG, which runs the 2.3-GW Salem and 1.2-GW Hope Creek plants, and Exelon Generation, which runs the 636-MW Oyster Creek plant — say that they will be forced to shut the plants down soon absent intervention.

So New Jersey faces a choice. If its nuclear plants remain open and running, then new renewable energy will replace natural gas. If its nuclear plants close, then new renewable energy will replace nuclear. The former would reduce carbon emissions. The latter would not. (In fact, since renewable energy is unlikely to completely replace the giant gap left by a closed nuclear plant — recent nuclear retirements have mostly prompted more natural gas — it increases them.)

The only way to reduce power-sector emissions in New Jersey is to have nuclear and renewable energy work together — to keep nuclear plants open as long as possible so that growth in renewables builds on top of them and replaces natural gas.
And that, miracle of miracles, is exactly the course New Jersey has chosen.

Uh oh, just what we need, more controversy, right?

Nonetheless, we found Roberts’ essay in Vox to be quite interesting and recommend that you give it a close reading. If you feel strongly one way or the other, we’d love to hear your arguments and hope that Gov. Murphy will, too.

You can contribute them by clicking the tiny ‘comments’ link at the bottom of this post or you can sound off on our Facebook page.

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Enviro, farm bills up for votes in NJ Assembly on May 24

The New Jersey General Assembly has scheduled 38 bills for votes when it meets tomorrow (May 24) at 1 p.m.

Among them are the following:

A809 (Andrzejczak / Houghtaling / Taliaferro) – Revises law concerning alternate members for farmers on State Agriculture Development Committee.

A3352 (DeAngelo / Benson / Wimberly) – Requires public water systems to provide certain notice of boil water notices and violations of drinking water quality standards.

A3353 (DeAngelo / Benson) – Requires certain public water systems to publish certain financial and employee information on Internet.

A3354 (DeAngelo / Benson / Wimberly) – Rivises certain licensure requirements to operate water supply and wastewater treatment systems.

A3652 (Zwicker / Coughlin / DePhillips) – Re-establishes former NJ Commission on Science and Technology as NJ Commission on Science, Innovation and Technology.

A3921 (Mazzeo) – Permits sale of certain alcoholic beverages and related products at seasonal farm markets.

A3937 (DeAngelo) – Allows local government water system employees to reside in all municipalities served by water system.

S1925 / A1530 (Bateman / Zwicker) – Designates Bog Turtle as State Reptile.

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NJ bill would ban Styrofoam school lunch containers

By Frank Brill
EnviroPolitics Editor

Legislation prohibiting the sale of food and beverages in Styrofoam food containers by public schools and public institutions of higher education was approved by the NJ Senate Environment and Energy Committee yesterday and now is in position for a floor vote.

“Banning Styrofoam containers in our public schools and colleges is a simple, common-sense step towards creating a more sustainable environment in New Jersey,” said sponsor Troy Singleton (D-Burlington). “Ridding our schools of non-biodegradable products that cannot be recycled or reused teaches our students–young and old–to be more environmentally aware.”

Co-sponsor Christopher ‘Kip’ Bateman (R-Somerset) said the bill’s goal was to curb the proliferation of a material which, when inproperly discarded, breaks down into microbeads and can be washed into sreams and ingested by fish, endangering the environment and the food chain.

The bill, S1486, would require every public school and public institution of higher education to ensure that no food or beverage packaged or contained in a Styrofoam, also known as expanded polystyrene, food container is sold, offered for sale, or otherwise provided in the school or institution.

An “expanded polystyrene food container” is defined in the bill as a container, plate, hot or cold beverage cup, tray, carton, or other product made of expanded polystyrene and used for selling or providing a food or beverage. The prohibition would not apply to any food or beverage that was filled and sealed in an expanded polystyrene food container before a school or public institution of higher education received it.

Supporters of the bill argue that expanded polystyrene containers create high levels of waste pollution, since they are not bio-degradable and there are limited facilities that can recycle the material.

Some 70 U.S. cities and towns, including Rahway and Newark, have banned the material.

The bill was released from committee by a vote of 5-0. It drew support from a number of organizations, including the Audubon Society, League of Conservation Voters, School Boards Association, Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions, New York/New Jersey Baykeeper, Clean Water Action, Sierra Club, and Environment New Jersey.

Bill opponents included the NJ Business and Industry Association, the Chemistry Council of New Jersey and the American Chemistry Council.

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Truck driver shortage is driving up prices for many goods. A sign that a strong U.S. economy is starting to overheat?

A student practices hooking an 18-wheeler up to a trailer during a commercial driver’s license class at Lake Cumberland CDL Training School in Mount Sterling, Ky., in June 2014. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg News)

Heather Long reports for The Washington Post:

Joyce Brenny, chief executive of Brenny Transportation in Minnesota, gave her truck drivers a 15 percent raise this year, but she still can’t find enough workers for a job that now pays $80,000 a year.

A year ago, when customers would call Brenny, she could almost always get their goods loaded on a truck and moving within a day or two. Now she’s warning customers it could take two weeks to find an available truck and driver.

Shipping costs have skyrocketed in the United States in 2018, one of the clearest signs yet of a strong economy that might be starting to overheat. Higher transportation costs are beginning to cause prices of anything that spends time on a truck to rise. Amazon, for example, just implemented a 20 percent hike for its Prime program that delivers goods to customers in two days, and General Mills, the maker of Cheerios and Betty Crocker, said prices of some of its cereals and snacks are going up because of an “unprecedented” rise in freight costs. Tyson Foods, a large meat seller, and John Deere, a farm and construction equipment, also recently announced they will increase prices, blaming higher shipping costs.

Read the full story

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Donald Trump wants the PSEG Nuclear subsidy bill vetoed

By Frank Brill
EnviroPolitics Editor

That’s right. The president is urging New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy to veto–or make substantial changes to–the bill sitting his Trenton desk that would deliver a very generous, taxpayer-funded subsidy to PSEG’s still profitable, nuclear- generation facilities.

At least, that’s what the president, pictured above and appropriately to the left, is urging. You might know him better as actor Alec Baldwin who has been satirizing the president, pictured above and surely on the right, in weekly Saturday Night Live skits.

In an op-ed in the Asbury Park Press, President Baldwin-Trump writes:

Gov. Phil Murphy has pledged an all-renewable energy future for New Jersey by 2050. He is to be commended.

But, that goal won’t be achieved by doling out $300 million annually to PSEG and Exelon to bail out the Salem/Hope Creek nukes in Salem County as proposed by a bill overwhelmingly approved by the Democratic-controlled New Jersey Legislature. Those millions would come from ordinary citizens paying their electric bill.

That’s money that could otherwise be used to implement a clean energy future that would pull the state’s energy needs away from climate-changing fossil fuels and nuclear energy, which generates thousands of pounds of lethal, highly radioactive waste — the exact same mix of poisons found in atomic bombs.

I’m adding my voice to the chorus of outrage that has risen against this preposterous ratepayer-funded bailout. We know what this is about. It’s a shell game to guarantee an unfair 18-percent annual return to investors on the backs of ratepayers. And it’s New Jersey money that the companies could use to prop up their out-of-state nukes.

Why is a New York City resident involving himself?

The Trump stand-in explains:

I’ve been involved in issues related to reducing reliance on nuclear power since the late 1980s. I have a long association with the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), a nonprofit research group that tracks cancer rates around nuclear plants. I have also immersed myself in studying the effects of exposure to continuous low-level radiation, the type of which is emitted from nuclear plants.

You can read his full argument here

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