[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - Once again, he's back.

He's Greg Lalevee.

He's a business manager and General Vice President, International Union of Operating Engineers Local 825.

Good to see you, Greg.

- Good to be back, Steve, good to see you.

- You got it.

Let me disclose, longtime underwriter of our State of Affairs programming.

And I also have done some leadership coaching at Local 825.

Is that a fact, Greg?

- It is a fact, and we have a lot of fun having you here doing it.

- Yeah, I'm surprised you would admit that in public.

(both chuckle) Hey, let's talk leadership about energy policy.

Why do I get that look from you, right?

Why do you roll your eyes when I'm talking about energy policy?

There's going to be a new governor.

I just interviewed the two candidates for governor.

This is not a campaign program, but there will be a new governor in January of '26.

What should he or she be focused on regarding energy policy in the state, and how the heck does it impact your local?

- Well, the main focus should be to get as much electricity on the grid as fast as possible, irrespective of source.

We are at a severe crisis in our state when it comes to energy.

We demand about 19 gigawatts.

- Greg, translate that.

Gigawatts means?

- Well, it's a large demand, so.

- Okay.

- And we make 13.

So the bottom line is, we're about a third behind in our usage of what we make.

So we have to buy about a third of it off the grid.

And when you do that, your bill goes up 30%.

- How'd that happen?

- Well, it was failed policy.

We shut down several plants in this state.

The decisions to make those are all over the lot, but we shut down several coal-burning plants, we shut down the Oyster Creek nuclear plant, and we replaced it with nothing.

On January 1, 2018, New Jersey was a net exporter of electricity, and today we're a net importer to the tune of 6 gigawatts a year, which is significant.

- How does that impact utility rates in the state?

- Well, we have to go out to the grid and buy the shortage.

So it costs us money to do that.

For those in making public policy and in the public domain, I've seen several people call for us to get off of the PJM grid and make New Jersey.

- Explain to folks who, I'm sorry, Greg, a lot of acronyms.

PJM is what?

- PJM is the regional grid operator.

What what they do is across a number of states, their only job is to make sure that there is enough electricity everywhere through the area they service.

They don't make electricity, they don't run power plants, they just manage the electric through that grid.

So, electric, not to get too deep in the weeds, it's 60 hertz when it hits our house.

That's what we need to turn the lights on.

They make sure we all have it.

When New Jersey is short, they get it from somebody else who has excess.

If somebody else is short, they move electric there.

It's just one big conglomerate of sharing the resource so that we all keep our lights on all the time.

There has been calls for New Jersey to have its own grid, and the two examples for New Jersey to leave PJM and the two examples that I can think of are New York, which is on its own, whose prices have spiked higher than ours, and Texas.

And we remember a couple of years ago, citizens of Texas getting $3,000 electric bills for one month.

So, not a good solution.

- Speaking of solutions, there was a study done, Greg, and we may be talking about this before it becomes public, but by the time this airs, it will be public, right, Greg?

- Yes.

- So this was a study commissioned by your organization?

- Yes, it was.

- And Professor Matt Hale from Seton Hall University conducted the study.

- True.

Yes.

- And looked at, I'm not deposing you, Greg, I'm just trying to clarify.

(both chuckle) So, as I read an executive summary of this, there was an examination of New Jersey energy policy, but also comparing it to two other states, Pennsylvania and New York, correct?

- Yes.

Yeah, the three states.

- What were the most significant findings in that study?

- The most significant is that Pennsylvania shut down more plants, coal plants, than New Jersey did, but Pennsylvania still produces more electricity than it consumes.

So Pennsylvania is a net exporter to the grid.

New Jersey, again, a net importer.

New York, which stands on its own, had significantly higher price increases than New Jersey did.

- So, hold on, I want to be clear.

Are we saying that the governors of both states, all three are Democrats, by the way, in all three states.

Are the energy policies of those governors, as we speak right now, significantly different?

- Well, there's one major difference.

New Jersey, essentially, put everything on the line for offshore wind.

Pennsylvania does not have a coastline to deal with offshore wind, so Pennsylvania stayed into more traditional gas fuels because there is natural gas coming out of the Marcellus area in Pennsylvania.

They also built renewables.

There are onshore wind farms in Pennsylvania, not large but they're there.

There is solar fields in Pennsylvania.

But again, the dominant energy sources there have been coal and gas.

- And by the way, one of the quotes here in the executive summary from Professor Hale, New Jersey bet the farm on wind... and lost.

That being said, for those, including you, me, so many others, concerned about the climate, climate change.

What did the current administration do in New Jersey that does anything other than try to reduce the dangers of climate change?

- Well, it's a laudable goal, but some of the facts are just being completely ignored.

There was a large effort years ago to switch from coal to natural gas to improve the environment because gas was cleaner.

- Right.

- It burns cleaner, and the environment has significantly improved over that time.

During the Obama administration, there were regulations signed to switch out all of the gas pipes that are in the ground.

We have aging infrastructure here in New Jersey, we have cast iron pipes that are leaking, and there was an effort, and a still ongoing effort, because they're old and leaking to switch those to polypropylene and not leaking and seal the leaks up.

Since that time, carbon emissions have improved 38%.

We are moving in the right direction, we are making progress using natural gas.

The thought here was, we were shutting down plants while we hadn't even built the offshore wind yet.

If you build one, then turn off the other, then there's a discussion to be had.

When you shut down energy-producing plants and don't have them replaced yet, you end up where we are.

- A minute left.

These things were communicated to Governor Murphy from you and others who see it this way?

They were communicated clearly?

- We have been on a campaign for years, ringing the alarm bell about the energy crisis in this state.

- Before energy, before utility rates skyrocketed?

- Absolutely.

And I think one of the misses here.

Now, to be clear, Governor Murphy didn't make the call to shut down the energy plants, those who operated them did.

- Okay.

- That being said, though, when PSE&G shut down their last couple of coal plants, the quotes in there said that they were getting very expensive to operate.

That's true.

Many of the environmentalists will cite those quotes, what they won't do is finish the quote, which at the time said, because of cheap natural gas that was being harvested in the Marcellus region.

- Hey, Greg, let's do this.

This is when our time limits are always an issue.

Let's not only continue to talk about energy, but I want to talk more about, next time you join us, about infrastructure, and also, which this is partly about infrastructure, but also about safety and training and a whole range of other things.

Greg wrote an op-ed piece around some of those and other issues.

We'll talk about that next time.

Hey, Greg, thank you.

- Thanks, Steve, I appreciate it.

- Energy policy is complicated, that's the part I've taken away so far.

Thank you, Greg Lalevee.

We'll keep talking energy policy.

There'll be a new governor in 2026, and we'll engage he or she in this discussion.

See you next time.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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- (Narrator) This holiday season, the Community Food Bank of New Jersey the state's largest anti-hunger, anti-poverty organization, together with the hundreds of food pantries, soup kitchens and nutrition programs it serves is calling on all of us to unite.

Unite to end hunger.

Together we can make the holidays brighter for our New Jersey neighbors in need and help build a food secure future for our state.

New Jersey, now is the time.

Unite to end hunger.