Bucco objects to governor’s energy plan

Senate Minority Leader Anthony Bucco today accused Gov. Phil Murphy of making an end-run around the legislature to implement a green energy plan to phase out natural gas and fully electrify homes that he calls expensive and extreme.

“Instead of asking the Legislature to review and consider this major proposal in an open and transparent manner, he’s rushing it through the opaque regulatory process at the BPU to limit public input,” Bucco said. 

Bucco called this “yet another example of the Murphy administration’s penchant for quickly implementing major policy changes without giving people or their elected legislators a real chance to digest what they’re trying to do.”

“If you’re constantly doing things in the dark of night, it’s probably because you know what you’re doing is wrong,” the new Senate Republican leader said. 

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities is set to adopt the state’s new plan on Wednesday.

Don’t take the Governor at his word. Judge him by his action,” said Eric DeGesero, representing the Fuel Merchants Association of New Jersey and New Jersey Propane Gas Association. “With these regulations pending before the BPU on Wednesday, New Jersey families and businesses will be forced to give up their gas stoves and retrofit their heating systems to electric — despite Governor Murphy pledging the opposite.”