With affordability front and center in the governor's race, rising utility costs have become a political lightning rod.

Both leading candidates say they have a fix in place that's ready for day one on the job, but their plans couldn't be more different.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gagas takes a look at what's really driving up your energy bill and whose plan has the most potential to bring it back down.

The cost of turning on your lights could just be a deciding factor in New Jersey's race for governor.

Ratepayers are already angry at rising electricity bills, which will only get worse this year.

Both candidates, Democratic Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill and Republican Jack Cittarelli, know this issue will rile up voters, and they're using it in their campaigns.

We all know it.

New Jersey's a mess.

And all Mikey Sherrill wants to talk about is President Trump.

Come on.

What does the president have to do with rising property taxes and higher electricity bills?

Day one as governor, I'm declaring a state of emergency on utility costs.

Using emergency powers to end these rate hikes and drive down your bills.

Both candidates have taken to finger pointing.

Cittarelli blamed Governor Murphy.

When the current administration took office, New Jersey was an electricity exporter.

Today we have to import it through the exchanges.

shut down six different plants, didn't expand our in south Jersey and didn' So here we are today havi and paying through the no PJM, the regional grid op electricity market rates.

of PJM.

That's this littl controls the grid or elec grid, our power supply.

up the market for that.

S up about 20% in the recent they've just on Tuesday, another 5% or another $140 faults PJM for delaying c from coming online that w power sources to the grid Both candidates have laid out their day one plans for cutting electricity costs with some specificity and some overlap.

On day one, I'm going to declare a state of emergency on utility costs, freezing utility rates on day one.

When I take office, the average New Jersey family won't see an increase in utility rates for an entire year.

I'll massively expand cheaper, cleaner power generation and building an energy arsenal in our state.

We're going to cut through red tape and eliminate permitting delays to get that done right now.

It means immediately breaking new ground on solar.

Abe Silverman has worked with the Murphy administration and he spoke with Sheryl's campaign about what he believes the state's energy plan should include as for freezing rates.

We're really looking at how do you go through each element of the bill and say what can we do to push this down in the very short term.

And that can be things like talking about how much money the utilities earn with on their investments.

We can talk about how do we change rules at the federal and regional level to bring prices down.

In a statement to us today, Sheryl's campaign took aim at her opponent and the utility companies, saying there's no time for timidity or for weak leaders like Jack Cittarelli, who refused to take on Trump, PJM or the utility companies to lower costs for New Jersey.

Meanwhile, Chittarelli says he'll take an all of the above approach to getting more energy online after he pulls New Jersey out of Reggie, an agreement with 10 other eastern seaboard states to limit carbon emissions.

On day one by executive order, I can pull out of the regional greenhouse gas initiative known to many people as Reggie.

That will save anywhere from 300 million to 600 million dollars a year in rate payer fees.

So we get the monthly electric bills down immediately.

The other thing I'm going to do is expand our natural gas fire electricity generation plants, lifting the unofficial moratorium on those that already exist, building three or four more new ones.

We can get them online within two years.

I want to put a shovel in the ground on day one for a fourth nuclear reactor.

And I certainly will look to accelerate solar wherever I can, particularly on commercial rooftops.

Eric Ford with the New Jersey Energy Policy Coalition says whoever becomes governor needs to keep all options open.

What other energy innovations are out there, like fuel cells, small turbines?

Is hydrogen part of that solution too, which it probably is.

Battery storage that was just passed by legislation I think is a good start.

As for wind turbines off our shores, Jack says that one's a hard no for him.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Joanna Gaggis.

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