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Program Is Capped At Just 75 MW/Year, Compared to 650 MW Proposed To BPU

Less Than 30 MW Is Allocated To Low & Moderate Income Homes

“Activists” “Demand” 400 MW, Which Is LESS THAN The Private Sector Proposed

[Update below]

NJ Spotlight ran another misleading story today on the Murphy Administration’s “Community Solar” program, with a sham headline, no less, see:

• Solar Power to the People: Coalition Hopes to Bring Clean Energy to Poor Families

“Power to the people”? Are you kidding me?

There are no requirements that the “community” solar system be publicly owned and subject to “community” standards and democratic controls.

The story repeats the false narrative about the so called high costs and subsidies to renewable energy, while completely ignoring the context in which to evaluate those alleged costs, including:

• the human & economic costs of climate catastrophe, which include collapse of civilization
• the metric of traditional mainstream economics, known as the Social Costs of Carbon
• billions of dollars of subsidies to the fossil industry
• corporate profits

How can it be that NOT ONE of these major points – all of which are robustly documented in the literature, as a simple Google search reveals – is part of the media coverage and policy debate?

This is totally irresponsible journalism.

So  called “Ratepayer Advocate” Brandt is professionally negligent in her one dimensional analysis and repeated criticism of so called “renewable subsidies”.

The climate and renewable energy activists are incompetent in failing to make the case and challenge the media narrative and the technical methodologies upon which this false narrative is based.

I hardly know where to begin in correcting the omissions and misinformation in that story and the lame efforts of the so called “activists”.

First, let’s present key facts about the community program, which were not included in the NJ Spotlight story, based on Murphy BPU’s own press release::

1. The community solar pilot program is legally capped at just 75 MW/year.

2. BPU estimates that over 3 years of 75 MW/year, could provide the power consumption equivalent of  (not actual service to) 45,000 homes.

3. Private sector solar developers submitted proposals to BPU for 650 MW of capacity.

In comparison, the so called “activists” “roadmap” in NJ Spotlight story are demanding a program of just 400 MW by 2030, which is far LESS than proposed by the private sector in year 2019!!!. How is that “roadmap” ambitious? It too is a joke.

4. BPU claims that 40% of the 75 MW capacity – just 30 MW – is “earmarked” for low and modest income homes (note that the “earmark” is not a legal “dedication” or guarantee).

But, upon close examination of the BPU program priority criteria – in light of almost 10 times more capacity proposed than the 75 MW cap – that 40% “earmark” is not even close to what capacity is actually likely to be allocated to low and moderate homes. Follow me.

Specifically, the BPU received 252 applications for 650 MW of power,  almost 10 TIMES the 75 MW cap.

So, the actual allocation of the 75 MW will be based on how projects earn “points” and are ranked based on the BPU priority criteria. The 75 MW capped capacity will be consumed by a very short list of the total projects, compared to those that applied to BPU.

According to BPU, 232 of the 252 applications “are for projects where at least 51 percent of capacity would benefit low- and moderate-income (LMI) residents.”

Did you get that? Just 51% of capacity to LMI qualifies the project. That means 49% of a so called LMI project power can go elsewhere, like a corporate office park or shopping center. Technically, that 51% minimum could cut the 30 MW “earmark” to just a little over 15 MW.

Technically, assuming that a typical community solar project provides just 51% to LMI, the 75MW capped capacity means that far less than 30 MW is actually guaranteed to LMI. It could be as little as just 15 MW.

But, it gets worse.

Next, we must consider how the BPU priority point system will operate and impact the allocation to LMI.

First, let me present how BPU  describes it and then I will interpret how this will allocate funding to LMI:

BPU will “score the applications based on evaluation criteria which include:”

• Low- and moderate-income and environmental justice inclusion (30 points max.);

• Siting – with priority given to landfills, brownfields, areas of historic fill, rooftops, parking lots, and parking decks (20 points max., with a potential five-point bonus for landscaping, land enhancement, pollination support, storm water management, soil conservation, and/or decommissioning plans);

• Product offering (15 points max., with priority given to those that guarantee savings of greater than 10 percent);

• Community and environmental justice engagement (10 points max.);

• Subscribers (10 points max., with priority given to projects with a majority of residential subscribers);

• Other benefits (10 points max., with priority given to projects providing local jobs, job training or demonstration of co-benefits such as paired with storage or a microgrid project); and

• Geographic limit within EDC service territory (5 points max., with priority given to projects with subscribers in the same municipality or an adjacent municipality to the project’s location).

  Projects must receive at least 30 points to be considered for participation in the Pilot Program. Projects that receive more than 30 points will be awarded capacity in the Pilot Program in order, starting with the highest-scoring project and proceeding to the lowest-scoring project.

Note that, based on the priority criteria, technically, zero capacity is actually guaranteed to LMI.

It is easy to imagine ways to game the point system. A project that gets at least 31 points that has no LMI (e.g. a landfill site, with stormwater controls and greater than 10% savings – with no LMI or EJ components).

LMI gets just 30 points of 90 total points – but note that a project could get more than 30 points based on earning some of the 60 points of other criteria.

Note also that environmental justice – and alleged priority of Governor Murphy – gets just 10 points, of 90 total.

Ironically, the actual “guarantee” to LMI is the result, not of the BPU priority point system, but of the fact that large majority of the applications allocate at least 51% to LMI.

There is no guarantee whatsoever for environmental justice considerations.

The so called activists need to understand facts and make more effective arguments.

And the media needs to stop the false narrative and report the facts.

[Update: For content, compare Gov. Murphy’s paltry program to Bernie Sanders‘ Green New Deal for Public Housing, which, among other things seeks to:

[(1) – (4)]

(5) to transition the entire public housing stock  of the United States, as swiftly and seamlessly as possible, into highly energy-efficient homes that produce on-site, or procure, enough carbon-free re-newable energy to meet total energy consumption annually.

Obviously, this retrofit policy and all the provisions of the Sanders’ bill could be applied to existing privately owned housing.

I post this as a benchmark for the exaggerated low and moderate income, social justice, renewable energy, and climate claims of Gov. Murphy. ~~~ end update]

NJ’s Largest Greenhouse Gas & Hazardous Air Polluter Located In Overburdened Newark

Gov. Murphy DEP Regulatory Policies Contradict Gov.’s Executive Orders & Rhetoric

Example of What’s Wrong With RGGI

Public Hearing on DEP Permit in Newark on Tuesday Night

You will not find a more egregious example of hypocrisy than this – and a better example of why the RGGI program is flawed.

At the same time the Gov. Murphy touts his commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting environmental justice, the Murphy administration’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently proposed a new permit extension of the Newark garbage incinerator, one of NJ’s largest greenhouse gas polluters and a major source of hazardous air pollutants in the already pollution over-burdened and majority black city of Newark, NJ.

(see if you can figure that out by accessing Murphy DEPs New Community Air Quality Mapping Tool)

The DEP draft permit makes a mockery of Gov. Murphy’s purported commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting environmental justice (see Executive Order #23):

For statewide context, according to DEP,

New Jersey’s current annual [RGGI regulated power sector] emissions of CO2 are about 18.6 million tons

That makes the Newark garbage incinerator one of NJ’s largest greenhouse gas emitters – that one plant represents almost 12% of Statewide emissions from the RGGI power sector.

According to the DEP draft permit, the Newark garbage incinerator is also a major polluter that emits huge quantities of hazardous air pollutants and fine particulate matter that cause adverse health effects, from asthma to cancer:

Resolution posted on Environment Committee Agenda and Withdrawn 24 Hours Later

It sure didn’t take long for political power to be exercised.

On Monday morning, I received an email from the OLS staff aide to the Senate Environment Committee announcing the Committee’s agenda for Monday December 9, 2019.

As I scrolled down the list of bills to be heard, I was surprised to read the final item listed, Senate Resolution #151, sponsored by Senator Weinberg, which “Urges Governor to impose moratorium on fossil fuel projects.” (emphases mine):

I read the Resolution, immediately Tweeted it and emailed it to activists, and urged people to attend the hearing to support it.

I was planning on suggesting to the sponsor and Chairman Smith an important amendment to note the existence of a “climate emergency” and to urge the Gov. to invoke his “emergency powers” under the NJ Constitution. The failure to note an emergency and to include emergency powers is a significant flaw in the Resolution. I planned to write a post about that before the hearing as well.

But before I could do so, just 24 hours later, on Tuesday, I got an email from OLS noting a “revised” agenda for December 9, 2019.

The “revision” was the withdrawal of SR 151.

Who killed that Resolution? Where did the pushback come from? Let’s explore those questions.

The Committee Chair, Senator Smith in this case, controls the Committee’s agenda, within limits set by the Senate President, in this case Senator Sweeney. Sometimes the Senate President directs the Chair to post and move a specific bill, sometimes the Senate President directs the Chair to block a bill.

But for the most part, the decisions on which bills to post for Committee hearing is under the control and discretion of the Committee Chair. The Chair makes these decisions frequently in consultation with his Senate colleagues and leadership, the sponsor(s) of the bill, external “stakeholders”, and sometimes with the “front office” (i.e. the Governor’s Office).

It is unusual, but not unprecedented, for a Committee agenda to be revised after it is announced.

Most of these unusual revisions to the agenda are to add bills – rarely is a bill or Resolution withdrawn.

Highly controversial bills, around which there is no consensus, or that are not “ripe”, are typically posted for “consideration only” (not vote), so the “stakeholders” can present testimony and legislators can debate the merits more fully and make necessary amendments to the proposed bill.

In this case, SR 151 was not “downgraded” to “for consideration only” status, it was completely withdrawn. 

There are several possible logical explanations, most of them deeply disturbing. Here are some that I can think of:

1. Perhaps Gov. Murphy’s Office requested that the Resolution be withdrawn, to avoid pre-empting his own upcoming announcement of a moratorium or inclusion of a moratorium in the final BPU Energy Master Plan.

In that case, obviously the Gov. would want the Resolution withdrawn to avoid stealing his thunder and creating the impression that he was responding to the political pressure of the legislature, not his own initiative.

This is the best possible interpretation. It is possible, but not very likely, as Gov. Murphy has had many opportunities to impose a moratorium or even talk about the issue and he has signed major legislation that ignores climate and his DEP has issued numerous approvals of permits to major GHG polluters with no GHG emission restrictions whatsoever.

2. Perhaps Senate President Sweeney directed Chairman Smith to withdraw the Resolution or otherwise twisted Smith’s arm (e.g. threatening him with blocking bills that Smith supports, like the electric vehicle bill).

This is very likely, as Sweeney has championed gas power plants and pipelines.

3. Perhaps gas industry and PSE&G lobbyists intervened directly with Chairman Smith and flexed their huge political muscles, or did so indirectly through Sweeney or Gov. Murphy’s Office or BPU.

This also is very likely, because Smith is known to listen very closely to PSE&G (e.g. Smith met with PSE&G CEO Izzo to cut the deal on the nuke bailout legislation – and remarkably, Smith even acknowledged this publicly. NJ Spotlight:

Yesterday, Sen. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex), who helped draft the law, told the Star-Ledger’s Tom Moran he decided to set the incentive at $300 million because PSEG CEO Ralph Izzo told him it was the right number.

4. Perhaps Chairman Smith, upon pressure from the usual suspects (see #1 – #3 above), got cold feet.

Perhaps Smith didn’t want a repeat of the controversial “Troopergate”, where activists were given a platform to protest and were forcibly removed from a legislative hearing by NJ State Police.

This too is likely, as Smith had to know that many climate activists would attend the hearing to support the Resolution.

5. Perhaps, upon reflection, someone realized that the lame duck session was not the proper forum to ram through such a controversial Resolution.

I made that argument in opposition to the pending electric vehicle bill. But that argument would not apply in this case, due to the emergency nature of the climate catastrophe and the pending regulatory approvals of fossil infrastructure.

This is very unlikely, as principled consideration of things like “democracy” and legitimacy are far from the minds of transactional Trenton policymakers.

6. Perhaps the sponsor, Senator Weinberg requested that the Resolution be withdrawn. Obviously, she would be subject to the same political pressures as Chairman Smith is.

This is possible but unlikely.

I also must note that, once again, as in electric vehicles, there appears to be major political malpractice in posting the Resolution during lame duck – thereby giving fossil industry opponents process arguments. There also are legitimate process arguments about the legislature injecting itself so forcefully on a major policy issue during the ongoing BPU energy planning process.

So, given the significance of the climate and fossil moratorium issues, the unusual and embarrassing withdrawal of the Resolution, and the various possible explanations – most of them corrupt – will the NJ press corps make calls to the suspects and demand answers?

NJ Spotlight, where are you?

I was a science nerd, but here’s the culture and politics I grew up in, that I took seriously, and formed my expectations for the future. We actually sang this song in our 6th grade chorus concert:

When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius
Aquarius
Aquarius

Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revelation
And the mind’s true liberation
Aquarius. ~~~ The Fifth Dimension (1969)

It was a time of compassion and caring:

When you’re down and out
When you’re on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you (ooo)
I’ll take your part, oh, when darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down. ~~~ Simon & Garfunkel (1970)

The social studies curriculum included civics and an entire semester of critical thinking, where we were encouraged to question authority, participate in government, engage in protest, and challenge the conventional wisdom printed in the NY Times.

We can change the world
Re-arrange the world
It’s dying … if you believe in justice
It’s dying … and if you believe in freedom
It’s dying … let a man live his own life
It’s dying … rules and regulations, who needs them
Open up the door. Chicago, CSNY (1971)

We were confronted with questions:

What’s it all about, Alfie?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?
Are we meant to take more than we give
Or are we meant to be kind?
And if only fools are kind, Alfie
Then I guess it is wise to be cruel
And if life belongs only to the strong, Alfie
What will you lend on an old golden rule? ~~~ Dionne Warwick, 1966

Dr. King led the way – in a letter from a Birmingham jail (1963)

“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

So how the hell did we get to the current Neoliberal nightmare?

Funny how this all comes back upon my mind –

My “Pandora Channel” is Gregorian Chants.

I listen to them at night. They comfort me and remind of the Pre-Vatican II Catholic Church I grew up in.

Yesterday, I learned of a 30 day offer to get other channels with no commercials and no financial commitment.

So, tonight, I searched for “1960’s folk”.

And, in an amazing and ironic technological feat, here we are.

But how can I even begin to convey what that music meant to me as a young boy?

The time has come for closing books and long last looks must end
And as I leave I know that I am leaving my best friend
A friend who taught me right from wrong and weak from strong
That’s a lot to learn, but what can I give you in return? ~~~ To Sir With Love (Lulu, 1967) 

And how disgusted I am with the current culture and politics and their Neoliberal intellectual foundations?:

Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. ~~~ Ayn Rand

We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice. ~~~ Friedrich Hayek

The error was a legacy of New Deal thinking, which glorified elected officials and career bureaucrats as disinterested servants of the public good, despite the obvious coercive effects of the programs they put into place. Why not instead see politicians and government administrators as self-interested players in the marketplace, trying to “maximize their utility”—that is, win the next election or enlarge their department’s budget? ~~~ The Architect of the Radical Right – How the Nobel Prize–winning economist James M. Buchanan shaped today’s antigovernment politics

“They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. ~~~ Margaret Thatcher (1987)

“Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” ~~~ Ronald Reagan, 1981

“The Era of Big government is over.” ~~~ Bill Clinton, 1996

The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer … From this moment on, it’s going to be America First. ~~~ Donald Trump, 2017

Please stop the nightmare, I want off.

Horror grips us as we watch you die
All we can do is echo your anguished cries
Stare as all human feelings die
We are leaving, you don’t need us

Go take your sister then by the hand
Lead her away from this foreign land
Far away where we might laugh again
We are leaving, you don’t need us. ~~~ Wooden Ships, CSNY (1969)