Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Jack Ciattarelli Props Up Fossil Fuel in Return to Failed Christie-Trump Environmental Legacy

TRENTON — With Earth Week underway, let’s take a look at Republican gubernatorial candidate Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli’s “plan” to safeguard our environment and combat climate change. How exactly would the Assemblyman do that? By siding with special interests like Big Oil and doubling down on the failed Christie-Trump environmental playbook.

Like Christie, the most anti-environmental governor in New Jersey’s history, Assemblyman Ciattarelli voted against and has repeatedly opposed rejoining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate effort to reduce carbon pollution from power companies in the Northeast, falsely claiming it would raise electricity rates and put New Jersey at a competitive disadvantage.

In reality, the decision to pull out of the RGGI cost New Jersey $300 million dollars in funding that would have bolstered initiatives for clean energy projects and to combat climate change. Ciattarelli, who earned just a 38% lifetime legislative rating from the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, also supported Trump’s disastrous decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

More than two-thirds of New Jerseyans view climate change as a crisis. Assemblyman Ciattarelli’s call for “accelerating our energy evolution towards natural gas” is not a plan, it’s a clear example that he’s in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry.

“In Assemblyman Ciattarelli’s New Jersey, a once-in-generation opportunity to create good-paying clean energy jobs and ensure clean water and air for children comes second to special interest politics,” said Murphy for Governor Spokesman Jerrel Harvey. “The Assemblyman opposes the RGGI and wants to slow-roll the development of clean energy in favor of fossil fuels — harming both our environment and our economic future.”