Van Drew: New Jersey Engineered its own Energy Crisis

January 13, 2026 — Every month, families across New Jersey open their electric bills and ask the same question: How did it get this bad?

I hear this question at diners, in the grocery store and from concerned constituents across the district who do not understand how we reached this point. The answer is not complicated. This crisis was engineered by years of bad energy policy, where political agendas came first, and common sense came last.

At its core, New Jersey’s energy crisis is a supply-and-demand problem. The state made it harder to produce reliable energy while, at the same time, demand was skyrocketing. When supply goes down and demand goes up, prices rise. That is exactly what is happening right now.

Gov. Murphy’s Energy Master Plan pushed New Jersey toward 100% “clean energy” on an aggressive timeline without a realistic backup plan. Since he took office, six power plants in New Jersey have shut down. His administration failed to act to keep them operating and failed to replace them with reliable alternatives. Since 2011, nuclear and natural gas have supplied over 90% of New Jersey’s electricity. When you shut down reliable generation before replacements are ready, you create a shortage. And when New Jersey cannot produce enough power, we are forced to bring in electricity from other states at higher prices, and those costs are passed directly to the ratepayer.

Some want to blame PJM, the regional grid operator, for high-capacity prices, but that is not the full picture. PJM warned for years that retiring power plants faster than new generation comes online would lead to higher prices and reliability problems. Rather than responding to those warnings by securing reliable replacement power, New Jersey tied its energy strategy almost entirely to offshore wind, without a workable alternative if those projects failed.

I have warned about offshore wind for years. Not only because of the national security risks of placing foreign-controlled critical energy infrastructure off our coast, or the risks to our environment and economy, but because offshore wind is expensive and unreliable. Even the nonpartisan New Jersey Ratepayer Advocate warned these projects would drive up utility costs. In 2023, Ørsted walked away from its planned offshore wind project, citing inflation, supply chain disruptions and financing costs. Shell New Energies followed by pulling out of the Atlantic Shores project. Reality finally caught up with these “green” dreams.

At the same time, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities failed the people it was supposed to serve. Instead of implementing policies that supplied energy in the most cost-effective way, they became advocates for offshore wind. At public meetings, members of the BPU openly wore pro-offshore wind lapel pins while voting on policies that directly affected electric rates. They rubber-stamped rate hikes, mandated smart meters and forced families to pay for electric vehicle charging infrastructure whether they own an EV or not. Last summer, the BPU approved a rate hike of roughly 20% when ratepayers were already facing record-high bills. Because of this, along with the greed of Atlantic City Electric and other similar companies, some families saw their bills double or even triple. All of this happened while making it harder to build the power plants needed to support a growing electric load, including increased demand from AI data centers.

In my time in office, I have worked across administrations to support responsible energy infrastructure. I pushed to fill vacancies on the Pinelands Commission so projects would not be stalled indefinitely. I supported the Transco pipeline to strengthen supply, only to see it killed by activist lawsuits. I worked with unions to try to save jobs at Beesleys Point to no avail.

This is a policy failure at the state and federal levels, with New Jersey families facing the consequences. With a new administration coming in, the responsibility now shifts to Gov.-elect Sherrill to confront the situation head on. Continuing the same policies will only lock families into higher costs and greater risk.

Real relief requires practical action. That means moving into the design phase for new nuclear generation at Salem, seriously evaluating the reinstatement of generation at Oyster Creek, and investing in new natural gas facilities to ensure reliability and affordability. Families do not have the luxury of waiting for unproven policies to work themselves out. They need reliable, affordable power now.

This crisis did not happen by chance. It was the result of deliberate policy choices. Until New Jersey’s energy policy is grounded in reliability, affordability and reality, families will continue to pay the price for decisions they did not make.

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