The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has a simple and straightforward mandate. It is the body charged with “ensuring that safe, adequate, and proper utility services are provided at reasonable, non-discriminatory rates to all members of the public who desire such services.” This part of their own statement of mission is available on the board’s official website.
State law takes care to establish the independence of the BPU. In the New Jersey Revised Statutes the board is listed as “in but not of” the Department of Treasury. This means that the BPU, while a state entity and housed in the department administratively, is independent of the department in terms of how it carries out its mission. It is not under the supervision or control of the department or any of its boards or officers.
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It is time for the BPU to listen to the very public that the board is there to serve.
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So what does all that say that is of import to how the BPU should work? Simply stated, the BPU is there to ensure, among other duties, that public electric and gas utilities, of which there are seven, “provide safe, adequate service at reasonable rates.” It also means that in accomplishing that task they are purposefully independent of the administrative department that hosts them and of elected officials who are themselves occupied with their own agendas.
The statutes are clear. The five members of the board – currently one seat is vacant – are appointed to six-year terms and confirmed with the advice and consent of the state Senate. Again by statute, the members of the BPU are expected to devote their entire time to the board’s mission and duties, free of an engagement in another “occupation, profession or other gainful employment.” For this service they are well-compensated, currently at the level of $175,000 per year.
Why are we spending so much time on this? The reason is that you could be easily confused if you spent any amount of effort in reading press releases or statements from the board following decisions that seemingly fail to address the needs and burdens of the public, perhaps better known as the ratepayers.
Consider the recent statement issued by the BPU regarding the approval of Triennium 2 energy efficiency programs. BPU President Christine Guhl-Sadovy speaks of the decision as a “milestone in our progress achieving the goals set out in Governor Murphy’s Energy Master Plan.” It is a way of addressing and announcing board actions that she repeats with almost every statement she makes.
Her language implies that the BPU is less an independent actor in a complex process that seeks to transform the state’s energy profile and more a committed organization there to rubber-stamp the administration’s policies. Guhl-Sadovy, once a Murphy staff member, does not speak as though she realizes her role has changed.
The announcement is revealing in other ways as well. It shows a board that is tone deaf to the uproar of these past few months concerning the direction of its oversight of electric utilities.
The statement goes on to praise the board’s decision as a further advance in achieving Murphy’s goals as expressed in Executive Order 316. The reference, of course, is to Murphy’s direction of an energy transition almost wholly on the basis of executive orders rather than actions of the elected Legislature.
Bipartisanship and compromise are actions that many politicians praise when preaching civics to the public, but unilateralism and executive action through appointed boards is our reality. The Board of Public Utilities, and especially its president, acts and speaks as if it were a cheerleading squad for the governor, rather than an independent board with direct responsibilities to the ratepaying public.
The fees involved in Triennium 2 are not huge, but electricity pricing these days can be viewed as the equivalent of death by a thousand cuts. A new fee here, a rise in transmission costs there, a hike in distribution rates, and then the coup de grace being soaring costs for electricity generation and supply.
Calls for the BPU to hold hearings to gather public input about rising costs fell on deaf ears. The Herald, as the news source with the largest distribution in Cape May County, can leave message after message seeking comment that gets no reply. The BPU is much too busy to spend time on informing the public in language the public can understand.
No release can come from the board’s press room that does not point in a self-serving way to the board’s “success” in furthering the governor’s agenda. Again the press release from the BPU on the Triennium 2 decision is titled “Murphy Administration Announces Approval of Triennium 2 Energy Efficiency Programs.” There is not even a pretense of independent action by the BPU.
Meanwhile, the New Jersey rate counsel, Brian Lipman, warns of more large increases in costs on the horizon. As he properly terms ratepayers “captive customers,” he urges that we stop trying to achieve energy transformation by shifting costs to ratepayers.
Of course the state would not be able to take what Lipman calls the “easy road” of funding actions through rates and fees without a cooperative BPU.
It is time for the BPU to listen to the very public that the board is there to serve. 2025 is looking like a year in which significant rate hikes are heading for New Jersey electricity consumers. It is time for the BPU to structure a way to get public feedback in a public hearing, and then to act on that feedback. They are not being paid to be members of the governor’s staff.
Quotes From the Bible
“Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.” – Mark 10:43-44
