The Energy and Policy Institute is the policy arm of Affordable Energy for New Jersey, a broad, grassroots coalition that advocates for actionable, fact-driven energy policy that emphasizes keeping costs low for our residents and businesses and evaluates energy policies and proposals based by asking the following three questions:
  • Is it feasible?
  • Is it reliable?
  • What does it cost?
In the interest of full disclosure, there is another energy and policy institute who is out there who making claims, but they are nothing more than a shadow front group.  You can see the concerns raised about them raised by the Alabama Secretary of State. As a means of filling the gap, we have created a group of our own to help meet the public need.
We have published several white papers regarding 


energy policy in New Jersey, including:
 


Affordable Energy For New Jersey released an updated report that now estimates that the EMP will cost New Jersey residents $1.4 Trillion – about $140,000 per resident between now and 2050.


That’s an average of over $5,000 every year for every single resident. This estimate assumes that inflation, which is running at over 7% per year, will fall to just over 2% per year from now through 2050. (By comparison, this year’s state budget is $45 billion.)


Furthermore, AENJ’s new estimate does not include other costs that will New Jersey consumers and businesses will pay, such as reimbursing the state’s natural gas distribution companies for the “stranded” costs associated with their pipeline systems because the state will require those companies to provide reliable service to all customers, but the EMP’s electrification mandate will force them out of business.
 


As part of New Jersey’s desire to transform the state into an “emissions-free” economy, as envisioned by the state’s Energy Master Plan (EMP), in January 2020, Governor Murphy signed S2252.


This legislation requires a total of 330,000 electric vehicles (EVs) to be on New Jersey roads by 2025 and two million by 2035. (By comparison, there were around six million cars and light trucks registered in the state in 2021.)


Affordable Energy for New jersey created a report to examine the shortcomings and true impacts of New Jersey's Electric Vehicle mandates.
 


With the Board of Public Utilities failing to be transparent, Affordable Energy for New Jersey worked with renowned energy policy expert Dr. Jonathan Lesser of Continental Economics to go back through the EMP and calculate what New Jersey residents should expect to pay


Affordable Energy For New Jersey calculated the total plan cost of the Energy Master Plan as well a cost per resident.


This cost per resident was derived by taking the total cost and dividing by the total NJ population - meaning the per resident does not take age, race, gender or socio-economic status into account.


The Energy Master Plan does not discriminate.
 


Energy is the lifeblood of modern society. Improvements in living standards and health have been made possible by abundant supplies of affordable energy, especially electricity, whose importance to the modern economy continues to increase. That importance will only grow with efforts to electrify the economy.


Although various economic studies have claimed the NJ Energy Master Plan will grow the state’s economy, raise incomes, and create thousands of new jobs, those studies are unrealistic because they all fail to account for where the money for the EMP’s mandates will come from: consumers and businesses.


Learn more about how the New Jersey EMP will worsen energy poverty.