FMANJ: Senate and Assembly Environment Joint Hearing Needs to Disclose Energy Master Plan Cost to Taxpayers

DeGesero: DEP Regulations for Boiler Electrification to Take Effect in December, Costing Taxpayers $2 Million Per Building

TOMS RIVER — Eric DeGesero, Executive Vice President of the Fuel Merchants Association of New Jersey, released the following statement today regarding the Senate and Assembly Environment Committees Joint Hearing in Toms River.

“The Senate and Assembly Environment Joint Committees will meet today to hear testimony from invited guests and the public on the issues of climate change adaptation and coastal resiliency, and what steps the State can take to address these issues. The hearing will include specific discussion of two bills addressing fossil fuels and renewable energy.  Unfortunately for Toms River and Ocean County taxpayers, tenants, landlords (commercial and residential), consumers, and businesses, the hearing will not discuss the part of the Energy Master Plan that is never discussed – building electrification, including retrofitting every building in the state to electric heat at some point in the future.

It may come as a surprise that one of the cornerstones of the EMP is mandated building electrification for heat and hot water (Strategy Four p. 157), including retrofits. It’s a surprise because unlike solar, wind, nuclear, and electric vehicles, where the Governor has worked with the Legislature to be given the authority to implement these policies and has spoken publicly repeatedly about all of them, he has neither spoken publicly nor engaged the Legislature to request authority to mandate building electrification.

A pending NJDEP regulation mandating electric boilers at facilities with 1 million BTU boilers and larger where the existing boiler must be replaced after January 1, 2025 did not provide a capital cost estimate, although the NJDEP did state it would cost 4-5 times more to heat the building with electricity than natural gas.  However, FMANJ provided the NJDEP with an expert cost estimate in March (attached) for the capital expense for these buildings at approximately $2 million for a building replacing a 1.5 MMBTU natural gas boiler with an electric boiler.

In Ocean County alone, this EMP regulation will impact 162 facilities, including the county administration building and justice complex. In total there are 17 county boilers and 66 local school board boilers impacted. Other impacted facilities include higher education, small business auto body shops, religious institutions, municipal facilities, senior housing, and Old Fashioned Kitchen a Kosher facility in Lakewood that is a ‘premier supplier of blintzes, potato pancakes, and pierogies, as well as the largest supplier of crepe shells in the U.S….supply(ing) most retailers in the U.S. as well as the hospitality and restaurant business coast to coast.’

The Toms River Police Department Building on White Oak Road, skating rink on Whitesville Road, and the MUA on Water Street are also impacted. The NJDEP regulation is scheduled to be adopted by December 6, 2022.

A question we would like to ask the Senate and Assembly Environment Committee members today:  At approximately $2 million per building for capital expenses alone, with 162 boilers in Ocean County, who will foot the bill for this massively expensive conversion to electric boilers?  Ocean County taxpayers, businesses and renters?

Recognizing the exorbitant costs of electrification, bipartisan legislation requiring the Legislature be engaged in the entire building electrification aspect of the EMP (homes, apartments, schools, businesses), as it has with solar, wind, nuclear, and EVs, is pending in the Senate and Assembly, S2671(Gopal) and A3935 (Moriarty).”