Trenton’s Dirty Little Secret: Nobody Can Afford the Energy Master Plan

The Murphy Administration has launched a sweeping effort called the “Energy Master Plan” (EMP) to restructure New Jersey’s entire energy infrastructure and economy on an aggressive timetable to eliminate the state’s overall carbon emissions by 2050. The goal may be noble, but serious questions have been raised about the Administration’s rush to implement the plan.

Not only will the EMP require scaling up new technologies (some of which have yet to be proven), the cost impacts on businesses, families, and local governments will be significant. Moreover, the EMP’s massive subsidies and mandates will place the burden of those costs most heavily on the economically, disadvantaged, while showering the most benefits on the wealthy. Ironically, the EMP’s climate benefits will be negligible: even if New Jersey reduced its carbon emissions to zero tomorrow, it would have no measurable impact on world climate.

One thing the Murphy Administration has been silent on is the EMP’s cost. When originally drafted, the Energy Master Plan was to include a cost analysis along with the document we know today. This was eliminated with no explanation or justification.

With the administration failing to be transparent, Affordable Energy for New Jersey worked with energy policy expert Dr. Jonathan Lesser of Continental Economics to calculate what New Jersey residents should expect to pay for the Energy Master Plan, looking at each of the Energy Master Plan’s seven broad strategies and assessing costs. The reality that New Jerseyans will have to face is daunting:

AENJ calculated the total plan cost, as well a cost per resident. This cost per resident was derived by taking the total cost and dividing by the total NJ population – meaning the per resident does not take age, race, gender, or socio-economic status into account. The Energy Master Plan does not discriminate.

While performing this analysis, AENJ found that each EMP strategy involves significant costs for New Jersey residents.

Click here to download the full whitepaper which analyzes each of the EMP strategies in further detail.

New Jersey must adapt to Climate Change. But the cost of these adaptations must be part of a transparent public discussion, so we aren’t forced to rely on technologies or adhere to policies that are neither feasible, affordable, nor reliable. We call on state and local leaders, the press, and everyone to participate in this discussion.