Signing away the future: How bill S-3870 puts New Jersey on a dangerous energy path                          

It’s bad for ratepayers and the environment.

With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Mikie Sherrill has signed bill S-3870 into law, locking New Jersey into a future that is more expensive, more dangerous, and fundamentally at odds with its clean energy goals. This bill is being sold as a solution to affordability and energy demand, but in reality, it is a shell game, one that trades away environmental protections, burdens ratepayers, and props up an outdated and risky energy source.

At its core, S-3870 is built on a false promise. It claims to address rising energy costs, yet it doubles down on nuclear power, the most expensive and dangerous way to boil water. Instead of investing in proven, cost-effective solutions like wind, solar, and energy efficiency, the state is shifting billions toward nuclear subsidies. That’s not smart policy, it’s a bailout.

This legislation amounts to a blank check for utility companies like PSEG, forcing New Jersey families to shoulder the financial risk. Nuclear power has always been plagued by cost overruns, delays, and long-term liabilities. Those costs don’t disappear; they show up in higher electric bills. Calling this “affordability” is not just misleading, it’s dishonest.

Even worse, by funneling money and political capital into nuclear expansion, the state is actively undermining its own clean energy future. Renewable energy is not just cleaner, it’s cheaper and faster to deploy. But when the state commits to massive nuclear investments, it creates a chilling effect that pushes wind, solar, and storage projects to the sidelines. You cannot claim to support 100% clean energy while simultaneously blocking the very technologies that make it possible.

S-3870 also represents a dangerous rollback of environmental protections. By weakening the Coastal Area Facility Review Act, or CAFRA, the law gives unprecedented power to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection commissioner to waive critical safeguards for nuclear development. This is not streamlining, it is sidestepping. It removes transparency, limits public input, and opens the door to projects that would never survive proper scrutiny.

This kind of deregulation echoes some of the worst environmental policies we’ve seen at the federal level, where protections are stripped away under the guise of efficiency. But there is nothing efficient about exposing communities to greater environmental and safety risks.

And those risks are very real. New Jersey still has no permanent solution for radioactive waste, yet this law allows new nuclear development to move forward anyway. That means more waste stored on-site, often in areas vulnerable to flooding, sea-level rise, and extreme storms. We’ve already seen how close we came to disaster during Superstorm Sandy, when floodwaters approached the Oyster Creek nuclear facility. Now, instead of learning from that near miss, we are doubling down.

This is not just risky, it is reckless. It is, quite literally, environmental Russian roulette.

Perhaps most troubling is who truly benefits from this policy. The push for expanded nuclear capacity is being driven in large part by the skyrocketing energy demands of AI data centers and other large-scale corporate users. Instead of making energy more affordable for residents, S-3870 shifts the burden onto them, forcing everyday New Jerseyans to subsidize the energy appetite of Big Tech.

That is not energy policy; it is corporate welfare disguised as progress.

Supporters of the bill point to advanced nuclear technologies and small modular reactors, or SMRs, as the future. But these technologies remain largely unproven at scale, and they come with the same fundamental challenges: high costs, long timelines, and unresolved waste issues. Betting New Jersey’s energy future on speculative technology while ignoring readily available renewable solutions is not forward-thinking; it is a gamble.

And it is a gamble we cannot afford.

Real affordability does not come from deregulation or subsidies for expensive infrastructure. It comes from investing in energy efficiency, expanding renewable generation, modernizing the grid, and reducing demand. These are the solutions that lower costs, create jobs, and protect our environment.

S-3870 does the opposite.

It ties New Jersey to a costly and hazardous path, weakens environmental protections, and shifts financial risk onto the public, all while slowing down the transition to truly clean energy. At a time when we should be accelerating progress, this law drags us backward.

New Jersey has long prided itself on being a leader in environmental protection and clean energy innovation. With this decision, that leadership is in jeopardy.

We should be building a future powered by safe, affordable, renewable energy. Instead, we are investing in risk, subsidizing corporations, and eroding the very protections that keep our communities safe.

That is not progress.

That is surrender.