The state’s growing reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear power is driving higher costs for ratepayers while slowing New Jersey’s transition to clean energy.

There is a lot of smoke in the air these days, and not just from the Canadian wildfires. As New Jersey residents check air quality alerts and watch the skies turn orange, Gov. Mikie Sherrill continues to tell us she is a climate leader. The problem is that when you look past the press releases and ribbon cuttings, her energy agenda is more fossil fuels and dangerous nuclear power than clean energy.

Gov. Sherrill is trying to smoke us on climate change while pursuing an energy policy that leaves ratepayers burned.

Her administration talks about clean energy but promotes natural gas, fast-tracks permits, signs nuclear giveaways, raids clean energy funds, and delays the renewable projects we need. It is an energy strategy that can best be described as “fossil foolishness.”

Instead of building an energy future for New Jersey, Gov. Sherrill is building a bridge to nowhere and sending us the toll bill.

New Jersey’s energy bills keep rising

New Jersey’s electric rates are already among the highest in the nation. Residential electricity prices average roughly 19.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with about 16.5 cents nationally. PJM recently approved massive transmission and capacity costs while utilities continue to profit. PJM’s 2025-26 capacity auction skyrocketed from $28.92 to $269.92 per megawatt-day, an increase of nearly 900%.

Yet instead of challenging the status quo, Gov. Sherrill has doubled down on the same policies that created the problem.

Her administration has supported gas expansion and provided waivers and exemptions that keep dirty energy projects moving. While she talks about reducing emissions, New Jersey continues to rely on fossil fuels imported from other states, exposing ratepayers to volatile energy markets. Many of these expanded gas plants will export electricity to New York and the PJM grid. We get the pollution, climate impacts, and rate hikes while they get the electricity.

Leaving renewables behind

Even worse, she has delayed and weakened the very programs that could reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Solar projects have stalled. Community solar has struggled to expand. Offshore wind has been left adrift. Energy efficiency programs lack the investment needed to make a real difference.

The governor has also diverted and raided funds intended for clean energy and climate programs. Nearly $190 million from the Clean Energy Fund and up to $510 million from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, have been diverted over the years to plug budget holes and subsidize other priorities instead of helping families lower their energy bills and reduce emissions.

That is like canceling your fire insurance policy while your house is already burning.

Nuclear: The most expensive way to boil water

Then there is nuclear power.

Gov. Sherrill signed legislation ending New Jersey’s decades-old prohibition on new nuclear plants and followed it with the Power NJ Act, creating subsidies and incentives for advanced nuclear reactors. The sales pitch sounds great. Clean, reliable energy, but the reality is far less attractive.

Small modular reactors are still expensive, largely untested, and generate radioactive waste that remains dangerous for thousands of years. They are “mini-Chernobyls” wrapped in a marketing campaign. The estimated cost of SMRs ranges from $12 million to $14 million per megawatt, compared with approximately $800,000 to $1 million per megawatt for utility-scale solar.

These reactors will not be built overnight. They will take years, if not decades, while ratepayers are put on the hook today. Nuclear projects across the country have a long history of cost overruns, delays, and stranded investments.

We have seen this movie before, and it always ends with ratepayers and taxpayers paying for the popcorn.

At the same time, every dollar spent subsidizing nuclear power is a dollar not invested in solar panels, battery storage, energy efficiency, or modernizing the grid. Nuclear power doesn’t replace renewables. It competes with them for limited public resources. It remains the most dangerous and expensive way to boil water.

Gov. Sherrill’s energy policy increasingly resembles an “all of the above” strategy, except for renewables. The only thing that will rise above all under her plan is our electric bill.

PJM: Saving a nickel while losing a dollar

Her recently signed PJM legislation, S1673/A2757, requires New Jersey utilities to remain members of PJM. While eliminating the voluntary participation bonus may save approximately $60 million annually, it misses the larger issue entirely.

PJM is one of the biggest reasons our rates continue to rise. Saving a nickel while losing a dollar is not energy policy. It’s bad math.

The regional grid operator has approved billions in transmission projects while maintaining a market structure that rewards delay and drives up costs. PJM’s auction system favors the highest bidders, pushing prices even higher. Bragging about saving consumers a fraction of a percent while remaining tied to PJM’s broken system is like bragging about getting free ice on the Titanic.

The legislation does not prevent New Jersey from leaving PJM, but it certainly sends a message that this administration is more interested in being part of the problem than solving it.

Data centers and dirty energy

Then there is the Data Center Fair Share Act, S731/A796.

Artificial intelligence data centers are poised to become some of the largest energy users in the country. The governor’s bill was promoted as a way to make these facilities pay their fair share, but it contains a major flaw. It does not require them to operate on 100% renewable energy.

Instead, these facilities will continue drawing power from PJM’s grid, which remains heavily dependent on natural gas and coal. A stronger bill requiring renewable energy was introduced but never enacted.

The law allows data centers to use accounting tricks and “virtual power plant” programs to offset demand by funding efficiency upgrades elsewhere. While efficiency is important, replacing a heat pump in Newark doesn’t magically make a data center in South Jersey run on clean electricity.

You can’t greenwash coal and gas and call it clean energy.

And while the legislation attempts to prevent direct infrastructure costs from being passed on to ratepayers, it cannot shield New Jersey families from the larger market impacts. If artificial intelligence dramatically increases electricity demand across PJM’s 13-state region, wholesale prices will rise, and so will our bills.

That means families could end up subsidizing ChatGPT while struggling to pay for air conditioning during the next heat wave.

Another bill, A5188, establishes an expedited review and fast-track process for utilities that opt to use advanced grid modernization technologies. The concern is that this legislation could bypass meaningful public participation, weaken environmental review, and fast-track transmission expansion primarily to serve data centers and large energy users.

A 21st-century problem with a 20th-century energy policy

Gov. Sherrill likes to say she is preparing New Jersey for the future. Unfortunately, her energy policies look more like a return to the past: more gas, more nuclear, more centralized power generation, and more dependence on out-of-state energy.

Meanwhile, climate change and its devastation continue to accelerate.

We are breathing smoke from Canadian wildfires, experiencing stronger storms, seeing more flooding, and paying more for electricity every year. New Jersey ranks among the states most vulnerable to climate impacts, yet our energy strategy remains trapped in the 20th century.

If Gov. Sherrill were serious about climate change, she would stop treating renewable energy like a side dish and make it the main course.

What New Jersey should be doing instead

We should be investing in aggressive energy efficiency and conservation programs that lower demand instead of stealing money from those programs. We should expand rooftop, community, and utility-scale solar. We should build battery storage and microgrids that keep the lights on during storms. We should support distributed generation that produces power where it is used instead of transmitting it hundreds of miles across the region.

Most importantly, New Jersey should seriously examine leaving PJM and partnering with New York and New England on a cleaner, more accountable regional energy strategy.

The cheapest kilowatt is the one you never use. The cleanest power plant is the one you never have to build.

Gov. Sherrill can continue selling New Jersey a fossil-fueled fantasy wrapped in climate rhetoric, or she can embrace a real clean energy future.

Right now, her policies are generating plenty of power, just not the kind that keeps the lights on. They are generating higher bills, more pollution, more climate impacts, and more health problems. She is using a smoke screen to hide her energy agenda from the public, but eventually the smoke clears.

And when it does, New Jerseyans will see what has been fueling this administration all along: fossil fuels, false promises, and an energy policy that leaves ratepayers holding the bill.

The public will see through the smoke screen and demand what they deserve: a clean, affordable, and resilient energy future.