AARP agrees that we need to move to greener, more environmentally friendly forms of energy generation. However, we need to avoid creating a problem while we are working toward this goal: we need to avoid burdening the people who pay utility bills with the costs of moving to new technologies — those should be the responsibility of the utility companies, not their customers.
Yet PSE&G and the Board of Public Utilities are discussing a proposal that will allow the utility giant to unfairly charge its customers $450 million to pay for its new solar energy generation project. This means that NJ utility bill payers, already paying the seventh highest bills in the country, will not only be shouldering the burden of paying for energy generation projects that are not their responsibility, but also will be funding the swelling bottom line of PSE&G by as much as $45 million along the way.
This solar energy program costs too much, helps too few, and, ultimately, is not the bill payers’ responsibility to pay for.
Dave Mollen
AARP New Jersey State President
