With electricity rates set to balloon in 2 weeks, NJBPU President Christine Guhl-Sadovy appeared before the Legislature last week to provide testimony on budget priorities and answer critical questions. It was a must watch for what transpired.

On the heels of the total collapse of Offshore Wind Industry in NJ, President Guhl-Sadovy was asked several times whether any ratepayer money was still going toward offshore wind projects, including specifically about “transmission upgrades tied to wind development.” In fact, the BPU President said several times that ratepayers are not paying for wind energy that is not being generated and that there are “no ratepayer impacts.”

Unfortunately, no matter how many times she says it, it’s still not true:

And that’s a major problem because in a recent federal court affidavit, New Jersey BPU staff specifically joined in a filing along with other states as a challenge to the Trump administration’s halt to wind projects. The BPU argued just the opposite saying that the Trump administration is “jeopardizing environmental and economic benefits” of the transmission project.”

So we are left to ask, is it omission, confusion or intentional, because the BPU can’t argue one thing before the Legislature and another thing to the Federal government.

Either way, none of this is generating any more energy to meet demand and that’s the real problem we are facing.