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State bill follows ALEC model and Trump Infrastructure Plan

More Privatization and Pay-To-Play Politics

Decarbonization of the economy and conversion to a 100% renewable energy infrastructure will cost many billion dollars. We simply can not afford to tack on 15 – 20% more in corporate profits, graft, and crony capitalism that the bill would produce.

(Update: 2/14/19 – in an unusual and embarrassing move, the Committe held the bill, with no explanation or public testimony. Hopefully its dead. Minor victory. ~~~ End update.)

Tomorrow, the Senate Environment Committee will consider proposed legislation (S2958) which would “Establish the “Energy Infrastructure Public-Private Partnership Act.”

In plain language, this means more privatization of energy infrastructure (billions of dollars of investment and profits are involved to finance the transition to efficiency and renewable energy).

NJ Spotlight ran the set up story yesterday, which inadvertently exposed the vultures circling the carcass of our decrepit 19th century energy infrastructure, gleefully anticipating another round of pay to play, patronage, profits, and pillage (P3):

The legislation would allow private entities to be responsible for designing, building, financing, operating, and maintaining the energy projects. The bill provides a lot of flexibility on financing, letting private entities take advantage of tax abatements, long-term bonding, and other funding mechanisms.

“It has the potential to fund billions of dollars of projects that otherwise would not be done,’’ Goldenberg said. In some cases, the projects could include renewable energy — like solar or wind or geothermal — as well as more conventional power systems, like combined heat and power.

We recently suggested that Spotlight had turned a blind eye to the privatization issue, perhaps due to conflicts of interest with Spotlight contributors. But we were wrong – no more blind eye: they now fully embrace and promote it.

The bill is co-sponsored by Senators Sarlo (D) and Oroho (R-ALEC).

As we’ve noted, Senator Oroho is the NJ Chair representative on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

ALEC was exposed as a Koch brothers funded right wing ideological think tank and propaganda mill that drafts radical model legislation that is then stealthed into State legislatures to further a corporate agenda of privatization, deregulation, tax cuts, dismantling of government and austerity, among other radical right wing projects.

Not surprisingly, the NJ bill closely follows the ALEC model bill, Establishing a Public-Private Partnership (P3) Authority Act

This Act establishes a state Partnership Committee and an Office of Public-Private Partnerships to identify and establish public-private partnerships and approve qualified bidders, requests for proposals, and template contracts. The Act is designed to improve public operational efficiency and environmental performance, promote public safety, attract private investment in the state, and minimize governmental liabilities.

Ironically, the ALEC model is actually more sensitive than the NJ bill to public participation, open government, accountability, and transparency and seeks more objective technical performance standards for public-private partnership agreements and contracts.

The NJ bill expands a pattern by NJ Democrats of privatization of critical infrastructure, with an important difference. (ALEC has model legislation on all that as well – interested readers can start with wastewater).

Prior NJ Democratic legislative initiatives to promote privatization of toxic site cleanups, drinking water, wastewater treatment, and, most recently, stormwater management, have been stealth efforts that mask the real policy objectives and ideological assumptions.

With this effort to expand privatization of energy infrastructure, the ideological mask is off. No more stealth. Democrats now brazenly reveal their corporate ideological agenda.

The NJ bill explicitly is based on Neoliberal austerity assumptions (recall the Grover Norquist quote about making government small enough to “drown in the bathtub”). The bill finds that:

The need to upgrade the State’s energy infrastructure comes at a time of fiscal austerity and budgetary constraints. Governmental entities have witnessed dramatic reductions in available revenues as a consequence of the recent recession and major storm events, among other reasons, which have adversely affected the ability of State, county, and municipal governments to make needed investments in energy infrastructure.

Austerity and government budget cuts – as well as tax cuts and corporate subsidies that drain government budgets – are a matter of ideology and conscious policy. They are not, as the bill claims, a “consequence of the recent recession and major storm events,”

Based on this Orwellian finding, the bill openly promotes privatization:

b. The Legislature therefore determines that:

     (1)  It shall be the public policy of this State to foster energy-related public-private partnerships that will enable governmental entities to partner with private entities to develop needed state-of-the-art energy projects and obviate or minimize the need for capital investments in energy projects by governmental entities, taxpayers, and energy public utility ratepayers;

     (2)  In order to foster the energy projects contemplated by P.L.    , c.    (C.      ) (pending before the Legislature as this bill), it is necessary and appropriate for the Legislature to authorize the use of public-private partnerships to leverage private sector financial resources and expertise and permit governmental and private entities to share the responsibilities and benefits of these projects;

Shamefully, the bill promotes this ideological agenda hiding under the skirts of so called “weather events”  – no mention of climate change – like Superstorm Sandy and slogans about “vulnerability” and “resilience”:

2)  The increasing magnitude and frequency of weather events, such as Winter Storm Quinn, Hurricane Irene, and Superstorm Sandy, and the devastation they inflicted on the State, has revealed the vulnerability, inadequacies, and obsolescence of the State’s energy infrastructure, which has failed, sometimes for prolonged periods of time, to provide adequate, reliable, and resilient service to the State;

Weather events? Not climate change? ALEC is a climate denier too.

Yet the bill would do nothing to mandate reduction in fossil energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the underlying vulnerability and damaging energy infrastructure.

The NJ bill also shares core premises and programs of the failed Trump Infrastructure Plan – a plan denounced by national Democrats and many others, who railed against privatization, corruption, conflicts of interest, and “crony capitalism”. The Hill reported:

Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee have unveiled a new report that bills the administration’s proposal as a “bait and switch,” slamming the public-private partnerships the White House is slated to expand in the plan.

“We can all agree that our infrastructure needs a major investment and upgrade, but indications of the president’s plan simply won’t cut it,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), the ranking member of the committee, said in a statement. ….

But the proposed expansion of public-private partnerships quickly ran into opposition from critics, who say the incentive program won’t provide an adequate revenue source for a comprehensive overhaul of U.S. infrastructure.

“While there may be room to increase the usage of [public-private partnerships] in the United States, it is unrealistic to expect a large enough increase in projects to account for the level of investment that the economy needs or the administration is promising,” Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee said in their report.

Critics of the administration’s expected principles emphasize the federal government’s crucial role in funding infrastructure, while Trump himself has questioned whether the use of public-private partnerships for infrastructure would work.

Private firms would look to invest in projects that can recuperate costs through potential revenue sources like user fees or tolls, but critics are also concerned about both profitability and possible conflicting interests between the public and private sectors...

The administration is also running into allegations of corrupt conflict-of-interests in its drafting of a plan to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. Democracy Forward, a nonprofit group, released a report Tuesday accusing the Trump administration of creating a proposal borne out of “crony capitalism.”

“President Trump’s infrastructure strategy would leave American communities behind, as private special interests like his friends and business associates get rich,” the report says.

The NJ Democratic bill also closely follows a failed national Republican US Senate Bill – known as the Energy Savings Through Public-Private Partnerships Act of 2017

Yet we hear about none of that from cheerleading NJ Spotlight.

The NJ bill comes at a time when national progressives are driving the policy agenda, with calls for a Green New Deal, Medicare For All, and expansions of government and the public realm are receiving huge media coverage and public support.

A time when Neoliberalism and austerity have been intellectually discredited and shown as failures

The NJ bill comes at a time when discussion of Socialism and criticism of capitalism are no longer taboo in American politics.

So, why are NJ corporate Democrats going in the opposite direction?

Are there any progressive voices in the NJ Democratic Party that can stand up and call this out?

Decarbonization of the economy and conversion to a 100% renewable energy infrastructure will cost many billion dollars. We simply can not afford to tack on 15 – 20% more in corporate profits, graft, and crony capitalism that the bill would produce.

Will the “green” groups raise these concerns, or are they wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporate Democrats?

We’ll listen in tomorrow and let you know.