NJ Is Toast

Your state economy is in the dumper, so much so that you are selling off highways to bridge budget deficits and the state itself is increasingly looked upon as the last major employer in the ... state. Oh, and your taxes are sky high. So, what do you do?

If you're liberal Jon Corzine, I suppose you drive 80 miles per hour without your seat belt on to a music concert to announce legislation that out greens California and is going to drive up energy prices, as well as significantly increase government regulation within the state, making your state even less friendly for business. California opted for voluntary guidelines; NJ's are mandatory.

And I especially love it when political hacks who run government regulated utilities talk about how people and business won't mind the cost, because they want to save the planet. The planet will be here long after NJ is nothing but a shell of what it once was economically. But then, that's the case, already, actually.

Public Service Enterprise Group, owner of New Jersey's largest utility, said PSEG supports the law but that it would lead to higher power prices.

"I believe customs are willing to pay for the higher costs associated with the environmental benefits," the company's Chief Executive Ralph Izzo told Reuters at the ceremony where Corzine sighed the bill.

The New Jersey Business and Industry Association opposes the law, saying it would raise fees and give sweeping powers to state agencies

New Jersey became on Friday the first U.S. state to mandate sharp greenhouse gas reductions by 2050 to help fight climate change.

The law, signed by Gov. Jon Corzine, a Democrat, makes New Jersey the latest state to bypass the Bush administration by setting mandatory regulations to fight emissions of gases that scientists link to global warming.

The Global Warming Response Act mandates cuts of greenhouse gas emissions throughout New Jersey's economy by about 16 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050 in the country's most densely populated state.

Scientists say heat-trapping emissions need to be cut by that much to prevent the worst effects of global warming including deadly storms, flooding and droughts.

New Jersey, which has a hub of oil refineries and chemical plants in its northern region, aims to fight emissions by promoting renewable energy like solar and wind power and by helping consumers to conserve power.

Comments

[seekeronos]

NJ seems to be a mirror of what NY was becoming under Mario Cuomo a generation ago, and is the microcosm of what the far left wing in this country want to do America should they get Hitlary, Barack Hussein Obama, or that other hair-flipping twit in the White House as well as gaining more seats in Congress. Heaven forbid that happens and we start seeing the SCOTUS packed until the next century with justices so far to the left that make Ruth Bader-Ginsberg look like Mussolini.

[Phoenix]

"...political hacks who run government regulated utilities talk about how people and business won't mind the cost, because they want to save the planet."

Right. If that isn't the most revolting hogwash... Ten years from now, New Jersey will be America's Somalia.

[Fausta]

People and corporations have been fleeing NJ in droves, with over 100,000 jobs leaving the state in the past decade.
More of that to come.

I know I have plans to leave, too.

[Fred Beloit]

Good for Corsine. He is accelerating the downfall of New Jersey. It seems every election day that this is what the NJ majority wants. Godspeed democracy. Perhaps eventually they will see the Dems for what they are.

[andrew]

The suicidal streak even in the most advanced country in the world never ceases to amaze. The Left runs everything that they touch into the ground yet people in various regions of the country vote for them no matter what.

[southdakotaboy]

At some point the smart people will all have left to go to Red states and the stupid will be left in blue states. After the next census it will be interesting to see the new House of Reps numbers. The Republicans might be able to recapture the house with very little effort, just because of the new demographics.