If The New Green Deal Wasn't Enough, Take A Gander What NJ Is Adding To It!!!!

[Hoffi Gwlithlys]

As New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel Director Stefanie Brand said, “Modeling being carried out by a state utility board consultant on how to achieve the state’s clean energy goals must include a rate impact analysis for residential, commercial and industrial electricity customers.”

Right now, it doesn’t.

That’s a risky proposition for New Jersey’s families and businesses because the state’s Energy Master Plan (EMP) currently follows the wish lists of extreme energy activists instead of asking what the cost is.

“The rate impacts of the various scenarios that are being modeled are of utmost importance,” Brand recently said in comments filed with the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU), which is taking comments on the draft plan. One component of that is the Integrated Energy Plan (IEP), a modeling exercise carried out by the consultant, the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI).

What’s even riskier is the fact that the IEP wasn’t finished before the public comment period for the BPU closed last month. As a result, no one in New Jersey will be able to comment about the cost of the plan, a fact Consumer Energy Alliance and six other groups representing most aspects of our state’s economy, highlighted in a recent letter to the BPU’s president.

New Jersey’s residents should also be aware of who the consultant is, what their motivations are and their funding by ideologically-driven billionaires who collectively oppose natural gas - many of whom have business interests in the adoption of clean energy technology.

The RMI knows full well what the cost of a clean energy policy looks like because they shelled out $1,900 apiece for 70 heated chairs for their employees.

Why? Not for luxury, but because part of their formula for getting to 100 percent clean energy means reducing demand. RMI decided not to include central heating in their alpine Colorado headquarters, so they have to instead heat each employee through the kind of chair usually found in luxury cars.

While we applaud the ingenuity – and the hardiness and commitment of employees who can tolerate inside temperatures as low as 64 degrees and as high as 82 degrees – we cannot endorse that kind of extreme thinking for families and businesses who need affordable energy.

So when the RMI is preparing economic modeling that doesn’t include a cost analysis for customers, be they residential or commercial, we have to wonder what they don’t want us to know.

There are two things we do know already, though, without any help from billionaire-funded think-tanks.

One, the lack of adequate natural gas supply in New Jersey has already contributed to us having the 11th highest electricity bills in America

And two, New Jersey should be wary of energy policy advice emanating from an institution that thinks $1,900 heated chairs are a creative solution to staying warm in the winter.

New Jersey residents who care about their energy costs should ask their legislators, the governor and the Board of Public Utilities to reopen the comment period until after the IEP is made public.

It’s the only way we’ll be able to ensure that the advice of the state’s consultants – which will doubtlessly place an ideological agenda over affordability – is open to scrutiny by the people who will eventually have to pay the state’s energy bills.

For me, hiring an outside firm is crazy enough, but to have taxpayer money foot the bill for heated chairs..... it's beyond nuts.   Plenty on NJ firms could have done the job locally.  It is of no real surprise since one Socialist State reaches out to another Socialist State to grab at all the money they can from our pockets, on now a National Mantra and the same mantra on a State level.  CA, the spearhead of what it is to be crazy is fast injecting itself and with assistance from  other states as CO, the hypodermic needle is getting larger and the virus is spreading fast.

NJ, to survive another day, must reverse course and rid itself of this sickness... or the Garden State will wither away.  Will keep an eye on it..... as should all NJ