On July 13, Board of Public Utilities President Christine Guhl-Sadovy published a guest column on NJ.com. Addressing ratepayers facing historically high monthly bills, she struck a tone of urgency – perhaps a little too late.
Rates have been climbing steadily since 2023. This was a chance to hear from the official 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.” So says the BPU’s mission statement. What we got instead was a political press release.
—————-
A regulatory board’s job is to anticipate issues, not get blindsided by them.
—————-
Guhl-Sadovy was appointed by Gov. Murphy in 2023 and confirmed by the Senate. She now sits in the governor’s 26-member cabinet and previously served as a member of his staff. That may explain why she speaks more like a loyalist than the head of what’s supposed to be a semi-autonomous regulatory agency. Whatever independence the role requires seems lost in translation.
When Murphy and several legislators gathered on June 5 to announce a $430 million ratepayer “relief” package, Guhl-Sadovy was the only non-elected official in the group photo. Her board hadn’t yet voted on the plan, but there she was pitching it like a seasoned campaign surrogate. She cast her vote on June 18 – no surprise there. But must her closeness to the governor be so conspicuous?
Then came her column. “In times like these,” she writes, “our focus must be clear: delivering real solutions and meaningful relief to the residents of New Jersey.” But hasn’t that been the job all along? Why is the BPU suddenly in overdrive only after the political blowback begins threatening the next gubernatorial contest?
————-
Guhl-Sadovy never has any blame to lay at the feet of the state.
————-
Gov. Murphy has placed the blame squarely on PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator for 13 states. He’s even accused them of market manipulation. And Guhl-Sadovy? She follows suit, pinning it on PJM, with barely a passing mention of state policy. Perhaps PJM deserves some scrutiny. But pretending that executive orders and policy decisions from Trenton played no role at all is disingenuous.
We don’t hear Guhl-Sadovy acknowledge that New Jersey shut down fossil fuel plants faster than it built replacements. Instead, she blames the Trump administration’s rollback of clean energy funding, as if that explains today’s rate spikes. The rate crisis we now face was already in motion well before Trump took office in 2017.
When the Danish energy company Orsted abruptly withdrew from two offshore wind projects last October, the BPU should have paused and reassessed. It didn’t. As setbacks piled up, crippling the state’s wind strategy, the board remained publicly quiet. In a recent panel at Stockton University, Guhl-Sadovy claimed the problems “happened too quickly” for the state to respond. That’s not good enough. A regulatory board’s job is to anticipate such issues, not get blindsided by them.
She now touts the “historic” $430 million relief package set to begin in September. But this short-term aid is little more than a Band-Aid. The money is designed to help ratepayers through the summer’s peak usage, but once spent, it’s gone. The higher rates, however, are here to stay. The political timing couldn’t be more obvious: Offer temporary relief just ahead of an election, and hope voters don’t notice the permanent burden.
Guhl-Sadovy promotes herself as a clean energy champion. Yet where was her outrage when Murphy and the Legislature quietly redirected $140 million from the Clean Energy Fund to the perpetually mismanaged NJ Transit? That raid went unchallenged by the BPU president, despite its implications for the very energy policies she claims to protect.
At a time when leadership requires honesty, foresight and independence, we get deflection, party-line messaging and a conspicuous silence on state responsibility. There is plenty of blame to go around, but Guhl-Sadovy never seems to have any to lay at the feet of the state, its energy policies or the board she heads.
Quotes From the Bible
“By their fruits ye shall know them.” – Matthew 7:20
Relevance: Guhl-Sadovy’s public alignment with the administration’s messaging, rather than with independent action or oversight, speaks louder than any column.
To the Rescue: Firefighters Recover Wedding Ring From Trash
Audio of the Cape May County Commissioners Meeting
Uninvited Dinner Guest Unwillingly Expelled From House
