Certain sellers would be subject to penalties for using packaging more than twice the volume of the items being shipped.

“With these efforts, we will join the growing number of states that are saying enough is enough when it comes to rising drug costs by taking a long look under the hood of the entire process – and then fixing what needs to be fixed,” the governor said during an event announcing the initiatives.

Similar proposals gained traction last summer and during the lame duck voting session after the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development revealed that New Jersey businesses would have to pay $252 million beginning in October 2021 to replenish the state’s unemployment trust fund.

Employers could be eligible for thousands of dollars in subsidies under a proposal approved by a state Assembly panel on Feb. 3.

“It was completely shocking to discover at the beginning of the pandemic — when New Jersey was hit so hard and our hospitals were in desperate need of masks and ventilators — that we had no way of knowing the quantity, location, or production of these supplies,” the bill’s main sponsor, U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, said in a prepared statement.

The first of their kind in the new session, the measures are meant to curtail New Jersey’s notoriously high property taxes and cost of living.

The legislation ranges from state subsidies allowing for businesses to hire disabled workers, to funds for a major NAACP conference in Atlantic City.

Legislators moved a handful of measures, but failed to push through others that aimed to ease the burden for New Jersey companies.

The proposed legislation, which cleared both houses of the Legislature this week, would create more rigid requirements for glass and plastic containers, paper and plastic bags, and plastic trash bags. It also bans the sale of polystyrene loose fill packaging, also known as packing peanuts.

State lawmakers approved another major expansion of New Jersey’s film, television and digital media incentive program on Monday, sending the legislation to Gov. Phil Murphy's desk, as the state eyes how to boost its sluggish economic recovery amid 22 months of the pandemic.

Legislators are holding off on a bill that would extend the governor's COVID-19 orders for another 45 days, after charging that he did not inform them of his plans to enact school mask mandates for the next three months.

Less than 24 hours after it landed on his desk, Gov. Phil Murphy approved legislation to reduce payments in lieu of taxes that the state's nine gambling halls make to Atlantic City, the local school district and the county.