TRENTON – Drew Tompkins, Coordinator of the the Jersey Renews coalition, whose 65+ members include labor unions, environmental and faith organizations, and community groups that work together to promote the state’s transition to the green economy, released the following statement on the passage and signing of the FY23 historically large $50.6 billion state budget that continued the ongoing budget raids of the Clean Energy Fund of more than $82 million:

“Jersey Renews is extremely disappointed with the recently passed FY2023 budget that continued the diversion of more than $82 million from the Clean Energy Fund. While using an opaque budget process that allowed for no public input, legislators and the Governor chose to continue unnecessary raids that will limit our state’s ability to transition to a green economy and support low and moderate income communities throughout the state, even though there was a historic budget surplus.

The Clean Energy Fund is entirely supported by the Societal Benefits Charge on the utility bills of every New Jerseyan. This money is supposed to go to programs that support our communities, especially our low and moderate income residents through programs like the Comfort Partners energy efficiency program and the Whole Home Retrofit program, and expedite the transition to a clean energy economy. These are both goals supported by the Murphy Administration, but instead of working to end the raids of the Clean Energy Fund, this budget once again is diverting roughly one out of every eight dollars paid directly by ratepayers.

The money being raided historically has been used to fund NJ Transit’s operating budget without any restrictions. This year there is new language that would require that money to be used “utility costs, bus electrification, and clean energy projects” within the operations budget of the agency, which is a minor step in the right direction, but the reality is that NJ Transit should have stable, dedicated funding, or, at a minimum, be fully funded through the General Fund. Diverting $82 million away from important clean energy initiatives is unthinkable when we still have a $6 billion surplus in the budget. It’s hard to understand why the Murphy Administration and lawmakers chose to continue using a budget gimmick diverting funds away from what is supposed to be a dedicated fund when it would have only cost 1.3% of the surplus to fully fund NJ Transit with general appropriations.

We would be remiss to not acknowledge that some legislators were opposed to this continued diversion, including Senator Andrew Zwicker and Senator Vin Gopal and eight of their legislative colleagues who submitted a budget resolution to end the raids that was signed on by 10 Senators and Assemblymembers. We appreciate their efforts and look forward to continuing to fight diversions in future budgets.”

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