newjerseynewsroom.com

BY UPENDRA J. CHIVUKULA

COMMENTARY

The Christie administration and the New Jersey Legislature need to review carefully the impact of Gov. Christie's planned cuts to the state's clean energy program and retail margin fund. This, after receiving testimony at the Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities panel from witnesses that included representatives of utilities, industry associations and Lee Solomon, president of New Jersey's Board of Public Utilities (BPU).

The BPU administers New Jersey's Clean Energy Program. It also runs the Retail Margin Fund to which utilities contribute an estimated $15 million a month and which funds energy efficiency programs.

While some witnesses testified that slashing the clean energy program and the retail margin fund by hundreds of millions of dollars is justified in light of the tough economic conditions, we need to review carefully the short and long-term impact of such cuts. Thousands of jobs are at stake and the Governor's proposed cuts would also impede the progress we have made in fighting climate change and advancing an alternative energy economy.

Christie has frozen $158 million from the Clean Energy Fund and $128 million from the Retail Margin Fund. New Jersey's clean energy program promotes energy efficiency and helps advance New Jersey towards a responsibe energy future by providing incentives and support to business and consumers to reduce carbon emissions and become more energy efficient. It also incentivizes the use and development of renewable sources of energy like solar and wind, thus helping implement the state's Energy Master Plan and achieve the carbon reduction targets set by the Global Warming Response Act and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

New Jersey's Energy Master Plan, the state's first energy map since 1991, sets a target for 30 percent of the state's energy use coming from renewable energy by 2020. New Jersey's Global Warming Response Act mandates the statewide reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, approximately a 20 percent reduction, followed by a further reduction of emissions to 80 percent below 2006 levels by 2050.

The Regional Greenhouse Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the first-of-its-kind ten-state cap-and-trade program, makes it mandatory for states to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Under RGGI, states sell nearly all emission allowances through auctions and invest proceeds in consumer benefits: energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other clean energy technologies.

The governor's plan could takes us backward when we should be charging ahead and seizing the economic growth and new job creation that will come with the emerging green energy industry. The clean energy program helps us implement our goals to fight climate change and develop solar, biomass and geothermal technology. Slashing these programs would have an adverse affect on the economy and impede the progress we have made towards a responsible energy future.

Upendra J. Chivukula (D-Somerset\Middlesex) is the N.J. Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee chairman. Chivukula is prime sponsor of RGGI and one of the architects of New Jersey's Energy Master Plan.