NJ moves to charge industry for pollution, climate crisis
By: Charles Stile
Political Stile
USA Today Network
..... An ambitious plan to change New Jersey's fossil fuel industry as much as $50 billion for pollution spewed in the past moved closer to final passage in the Assembly - despite push-back from the pillars of the business and petroleum lobbies, who warned Trenton lawmakers that the proposed legislation would kill jobs and raise prices at the gas pump.
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The Polluters Pay to Make New Jersey Affordable Act has put New Jersey's progressive movement on a collision course with an industry that has maintained deep roots in Garden state soil. The energy industry's interests in New Jersey date to John Rockefeller's establishment in the early 1900s of operation for Standard Oil at the Bayway Refinery in Linden and Elizabeth, a landmark known for its gas-fired towers and the sulfurous smog that once defined New Jersey as the armpit of the Northeast.
..... The measure was prompted by a coalition of environmental activists with an unusually aggressive, public lobbying campaign.
..... Their efforts included a digital video and a public letter signed by 22 Democratic Assembly memes pleading with Speaker Craig Coughlin to post the bill. Advocates for it sought to frame the planned change on the polluters of the past as a way to help stave off the ravages of climate change in the future.
..... The bill, which cleared the Democratic-controlled Assembly Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, June 23, [2023] along party lines, would change a "fair share" assessment on "the world's largest fossil fuel extractors' and related companies that environmentalists say belched out an estimated 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases emissions in New Jersey between 1995 and 2004.
..... Modeled after similar measure passed in New York and Vermont, the bill would require that proceeds be used for a wide range of expensive climate change remediation projects, including flood protections, drinking water protections, upgrades to mass transit, improvements to school and other steps to protect environmentally sensitive areas.
..... A similar push foundered in the last legislate session, but supporter retooled their fort, dropping the unpopular word "Superfund" from the bill's title and faming the measure as consistent with Governor Milie Sherrill's campaign mantra last year [2025] to make New Jersey affordable. Advocates promoted the plan as a way to ease the burden on taxpayers by making the polluters pick up the table for the costly climate change-related measures almost certain to come in the future.
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"Right now, taxpayers are paying 100% of the costs of climate change, and those costs show up through ricing property taxes, they show up through soaring utility bills and they show up through rising insurance premiums," Matt Smith, New Jersey director of Food & Water Watch, said in a pres conference before Tuesday's [06/23/2026] hearing in Trenton. "That must end."
What both sides said
..... During the hearing busies and Big Oil representative and their Republican supporters on the committee attacked the measure as an existential threat to the industry. New Jersey's economy and communities. A $50 billion hit would trickle down to higher prices at the pump and on products reliant on petroleum, ranging from eyeglasses to shoes to car tiers and asphalt and medical equipment, like intravenous tubing.
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"To demonize a handful of companies who have, for years and decades, offered products hat you've asked for, that you're bought, that you've sued, that have made us healtheire, wealthier, more educated, and more successful as a society, and now y9u want to turn around and retroactively tax them for that? Shame on you," said Assemblyman Jay webber, R-Morris, who derided the bill as an "ideological cash grab."
..... But supporters of the bill dismissed the dire economic warning and argued that the arrangement is similar to the settlement reached with Big tobacco and opioid manufacturers. Those payouts did not destroy the industries, they argued. They also said the funds were "booked" on the companies; balance sheets as liberalities and did not come form the operating budget and earnings of the company, meaning that the companies would not be likely to pass along the cost to consumers.
.... And, they noted, gas prices are set by a global commodities market - as Americans have been forced to learn with the close of the Strait of Hormus in the Persian Gulf during Iran War - and by competition.
..... "You can live on the coast; you can live inland. It doesn't maters where you live. The impact of climate is huge, and polluters should pay, just like the tobacco industry paid, just like the opioid industry paid," Amy Goldsmith, director of Clean Water Aston, said before the hearing. "It's time for Big Oil to pay."
..... Foes of the bill noted that the tobacco and opioid settlements were reached as a result of lengthy litigation, not by legislation. Dennis Hart, executive director of the Che misty Council of New Jersey, also argued that despite claims that some of the proceeds would go to climate change programs run be state government agencies and department, the money would likely vanish in the vortex of the state's general revenue fund.
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"It's basically going into the general treasury and let the departments decide what they want to do," he said.
..... Despite the complaints, Tuesday's [06/23/2026] hearing was extraordinary. Typically, New Jersey's progressive activists testify in Trenton against a wall of legislative resistance. But this time, they entered the hearing with the majority of votes favoring them, and it was the powerful business interest struggling to break through. But how long will that last?
..... The fate of the measure is uncertain in the state Senate. Activists are hoping that the Senate Appropriators Committee will take up the bill later this week, [06/26/2026] setting the stage for final votes next week, [06/29/2026] when the fiscal year 2027 budget is expected to win final passage. Sherrill's office has remained noncommittal; Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin of Woodbridge, represents parts of Middlesex dotted with oil tank farms; and Senate President Nicholas Scutari prettiness Union County home to the Bayway, one of two refineries left in the state.
..... Supporters have momentum this week [06/24/2026] - but the road remains uphill.