Linden/Clark- GOP General Assembly candidates in LD 22 Lisa Fabrizio and Patricia Quattrocchi say that Governor Phil Murphy is attempting to move his clean energy plan forward much too fast.

Expecting to have 90% of NJ homes electrified to meet Murphy’s climate and energy goals by 2050 is wishful thinking. Wanting to have heating and cooling with electric heat pumps rather than natural gas or other fossil fuels as discussed in the recently released report from the DEP is the kind of stuff dreams are made of. The number of homes using electricity for heat here in the Garden State is minimal.

Most publicly well known among Murphy’s clean energy initiatives is of course his desire to have 4.5 million electric cars on New Jersey’s roads by the year 2035. As most people know this component of the plan has been met with a loud roar of opposition coming from Garden State drivers, especially automotive enthusiasts. 2035 will see the ban of sales of gasoline powered vehicles in NJ. Since the start of 2023 there are less than 100,000 EVs on our highways so doing the math, that goal is not within reach as at current rates that is roughly only 1.4 Mil by ‘35.

Governor Murphy needs to take another look at his expectations according to Fabrizio & Quattrocchi. Pointing to information put forth by the Affordable Energy for NJ Coalition website. For a 1900 sq. Ft home the cost to obtain/install a heat pump is in the $20,000 range. And the pumps struggle to perform adequately in both the winter to supply warmth and summer to cool.

As for all electric vehicles on the roads within 12 yrs. NJ drivers love their internal combustion engines and many are not going to be ready to give them up “no way, no how”. According to the NJ DEP website It takes from one half hour to a half day even overnight to charge an EV battery, depending on the charging station and size of the battery in the vehicle. It takes a fraction of that time to fill a gas tank and after all time is money.

Something that the Governor, a former exec with Goldman Sachs, seems to have had slip his mind is that 10%, or one million of residents in NJ lived below the poverty line in 2021. Surely with inflation raising prices of everything the past couple of years there are probably more.

The candidates ventured to say that most NJ residents do not have cash resources like those of the Governor but rather are living week to week.

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