The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
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Trenton NJ, New Jersey’s Energy Master Plan must prioritize reliability and affordability while recognizing the transition to cleaner energy cannot succeed under expedited deadlines that ignore grid capacity and the cost to ratepayers, NJBIA told the Board of Public Utilities.
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Wall NJ, Assemblyman Sean T. Kean has urged the state Board of Public Utilities to enhance transparency and involve the public in the decision-making process for offshore wind projects.
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Ridgewood NJ, New Jersey residents have been bracing for higher electric bills since the state Board of Public Utilities approved rate hikes back in February. Now, the first bills reflecting those increased power rates have arrived, and homeowners are finding the change, in a word, shocking.
Continue reading New Jersey Residents Face Shocking Electric Bills Amid Rate Hikes and Heatwave
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Atlantic City NJ, dispute a multitude of setbacks ,the Murphy administration is forging ahead with its bold vision to establish offshore wind farms along the Jersey coast.
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Trenton NJ, Assemblyman Christian Barranco (R-25) took to the floor of the state Assembly this week to condemn a bill affecting electric vehicle charging stations as unenforceable and unrealistic.
The legislation( A4715) would require the state Board of Public Utilities or any other State agency that issues an incentive payment for construction of EV charging station to require that the charging centers be operational 97 percent of the time.
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LONG BEACH ISLAND NJ, With less than 10 days left in the New Jersey legislative session Save Right Whales is calling on legislators to not bring special legislation to the floor that experts say will have devastating effects on the state’s coastlines and is opposed by the majority of residents living along the Jersey Shore.
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Trenton NJ, Senators Steven Oroho and Anthony Bucco welcomed the Board of Public Utilities’ cost study of Governor Murphy’s Energy Master Plan but chastised the Administration for the unexplained two year delay.
First the “Crazy Eddie Budget” now the “Crazy Eddie Energy Plan”
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Trenton NJ , Governor Phil Murphy and his appointees to the Board of Public Utilities are still chasing windmills but have yet to disclose the price tag on his far-reaching energy master plan announced nearly two years ago, and Senator Anthony M. Bucco chided the front office for its lack of transparency with New Jersey families. At an NJBIA meeting in February 2020, administration officials shared the BPU was conducting a cost study that would likely be released the following month. Over a year and a half later, no cost analysis has been shared with the public, yet the Administration continues to move forward on its implementation.
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Trenton NJ, Governor Phil Murphy announced an investment of more than $100 million in clean, equitable transportation projects that will improve air quality and reduce the effects of climate change while moving New Jersey towards 100 percent clean energy by 2050. Leveraging proceeds from New Jersey’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and the Volkswagen Mitigation Trust Funds, this funding will bring electrification programs, equitable mobility projects, and electric charging infrastructure to environmental justice communities across the state.
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Wyckoff NJ, Assemblyman Christopher DePhillips submitted testimony to the Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities and the Homeland Security Committees Wednesday as part of the legislative hearings examining the response of utility companies after massive power outages during Tropical Storm Isaias.
Continue reading Utilities Can No Longer Leave Customers in the Dark
April 4,2018
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Fair Lawn NJ, State Senator Bob Gordon (D-38) is going to the Board of Public Utilities (BPU).Bergen sources had speculated for some time on this eventuality and today a source confirmed it.Gordon represents Hawthorne, Fair Lawn, Glen Rock, Bergenfield, Hasbrouck Heights, Maywood, Lodi, Oradell, New Milford, Paramus, Oradell, Rochelle Park, Paramus, River Edge, and Saddle Brook.
As chairman of the N.J. Senate committee responsible for overseeing public transportation issues Gordon came under criticism ,for seeming out of touch with New Jersey Transits problems and failing to act until far to late.
The departure of the battleground district senator sets up the most likely potential for Assemblyman Joe Lagana (D-38) and Assemblyman Tim Eustace (D-38) to challenge for it. Republicans have long eyed the district and have come close to taking it several times.
![Orange-and-Rockland-Featured-compressor[1]](https://theridgewoodblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/BESTOrange-and-Rockland-Featured-compressor1.jpg "Rooney, DePhillips decry Orange and Rockland’s lackluster response to power outages, call for investigation")
March 10,2018
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Wyckoff NJ, Assemblymen Kevin J. Rooney and Christopher DePhillips called out Orange and Rockland Energy Company for its lack of preparation, communication and leadership as thousands of people remain without power following Wednesday’s nor’easter. The assemblymen are demanding answers.
“This is a matter of public safety and public health in our communities and the lackluster response from Orange and Rockland is unacceptable,” said Rooney (R-Bergen). “There are roads that are still impassable for police, firefighters and ambulances because of fallen trees and powerlines. The situation is dangerous. Orange and Rockland needs to explain why and how they have failed their customers with such great incompetence.”
“It is completely evident that Orange and Rockland hasn’t learned its lesson from past storms like Sandy,” said DePhillips (R-Bergen). “I am calling for an investigation by the Board of Public Utilities and the Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee into Orange and Rockland’s complete mismanagement and lack of preparation. Not only has the response been insufficient, but it has taken days to even start fixing our communities.”
Wyckoff Mayor Brian D. Scanlan told The Record that the utility company has failed to provide adequate crews to restore power to the town, leaving town hall, the police station, two schools, a sewage pump station and traffic lights dark. He said Orange and Rockland crews were “sitting in trucks watching down lines” while PSE&G crews, who serves the eastern part of the town, were working.
Rooney and DePhillips said “this is nothing new” as each experienced the same poor response to outages from Orange and Rockland as mayor of Wyckoff, calling for the utility company to “get its act together.”
N.J. rejects plan for wind power farm off Atlantic City
ATLANTIC CITY — New Jersey energy regulators have taken the air out of a $188 million plan to build a wind power farm off the coast of Atlantic City.
The state Board of Public Utilities rejected a proposal by Fishermen’s Energy to build a windmill farm three miles off the state’s southern coast, deciding it was too risky financially.
Its five turbines would have generated about 25 megawatts of electricity. But it depended on a mixture of subsidies and federal grants to make sure ratepayers didn’t have to pay soaring bills.
Environmentalists decried the move, saying the state has squandered an opportunity to provide clean energy.
Jeff Tittel of the New Jersey Sierra Club says the board did not consider the benefits of reduced air pollution. (Parry/Associated Press)
N.J. keeping tabs on daily utility outages
MARCH 16, 2014, 12:07 AM
BY JEAN RIMBACH AND DAVE SHEINGOLD
STAFF WRITERS
THE RECORD
Thousands of routine power outages in New Jersey — caused by everything from faulty equipment to brittle tree branches to wayward animals — are being tracked by state regulators for the first time as electric utilities provide an unprecedented look at their day-to-day operations.
The gathering of detailed reports reflects an effort by the state Board of Public Utilities to enhance its oversight of the state’s electric distribution companies.
The filings do not include data on such headline-grabbing events as Superstorm Sandy and other major disruptions, which are documented in other reports kept by the BPU. Rather, the newly released data give the public a first glimpse of smaller problems — where and why they start, how many customers are left in the dark and for how long — even when nothing extraordinary is happening. The nearly minute-by-minute catalogs provide some of the most detailed information yet of trouble on the electrical grid, even on problems that affect just one customer.
Stephanie Brand, director of the state Division of Rate Counsel, whose office advocates for consumers in utility matters, says this gives the BPU a way “to identify the poorest performing areas of the distribution system.”
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/n-j-keeping-tabs-on-daily-utility-outages-1.743344#sthash.ERG8lzzZ.dpuf
N.J. may ease Verizon’s broadband obligation
MARCH 14, 2014, 11:44 PM
BY HUGH MORLEY
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
A battle over broadband Internet access is pitting Verizon New Jersey and the state Board of Public Utilities against town officials, a union and public interest groups that say the company hasn’t fulfilled its promise to provide statewide service despite millions of dollars in rate increases aimed at funding the project.
A deal struck between the state and Verizon more than 20 years ago — dubbed Opportunity New Jersey — was heralded as a plan to make the state one of the most wired in the nation, financed in part by a dollar-a-month surcharge on customers’ phone bills that some say has brought in billions. The deal, announced in 1993, also allowed the company looser regulatory oversight than it would otherwise have.
But 21 years later — four years beyond the project’s 2010 deadline — portions of the state remain unserved, and the Board of Public Utilities is about to sign off on an agreement that would modify some requirements of the original deal, including allowing the company to provide only high-speed wireless Internet in some areas.
The question of the company’s compliance with the deal came under scrutiny after officials in two towns, Greenwich and Stow Creek, in Cumberland County, complained to the state BPU about poor phone service and their lack of access to broadband.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/n-j-may-ease-verizon-s-broadband-obligation-1.741771#sthash.yvqEBZS5.dpuf