New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has launched an online dashboard that will give residents a clearer look at how the state is spending the estimated $100 million a year it receives from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

The dashboard at present documents the state’s first expenditures — more than $22 million — allocated from the regional cap-and-trade program, which will pay for the purchase of 52 electric buses, trucks and shuttles, mainly for use by local governments.

The site eventually will document all expenditures of money collected by the state since the start of 2020, when it rejoined the RGGI, under which power plants must buy carbon credits for any greenhouse gases they emit over a state-set cap. So far, New Jersey has collected $115.8 million, or about $23 million a quarter.

Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy directed the state to return to RGGI in January 2018, seven years after his predecessor, Republican Chris Christie, pulled New Jersey out of the initiative. (See: NJ Senate Ushers in Revamped Nuclear Bailout Bill.)

New Jersey’s RGGI funds are being allocated in line with Murphy’s commitment to put the state on a path to use 100% clean energy by 2050 and cut GHG emissions by 80% from 2006 levels. With transportation generating about 42% of New Jersey’s carbon emissions, the state has placed a high priority on getting more electric vehicles onto the state’s roads. (See NJ Unveils Plan for 100% Clean Energy by 2050.)

The RGGI funds were part of the $100 million in grants Murphy announced on Feb. 16 to support clean, equitable transportation projects, which also received funding from New Jersey’s portion of the Volkswagen emissions fraud settlement.

George Brew, director of public works for the Township of Woodbridge, said the municipality was a prime candidate for the funding, because it has a history of early adoption of climate change measures, including the use of hybrid vehicles since 2008. Woodbridge will receive $2.49 million to buy two-24-seat electric shuttle buses and three electric garbage trucks, all of which will replace diesel vehicles more than 13 years old. The money will also be used to pay for charging equipment.

“We’re a big sustainable community, and we are always looking to upgrade our vehicles,” Brew said. The distance limitations on electric trucks likely won’t matter because the 60 to 70 miles that his garbage trucks typically travel each day, including the 24-mile round trip to the landfill in nearby New Brunswick, are well within the 100-mile range of the electric garbage truck, he said.

Clarity in Funding Expenditures

Started in 2005, the RGGI program caps the amount of carbon dioxide emissions for each member state and requires power plants in each state to buy allowances, either through auctions or on the secondary market, for the carbon dioxide they emit. The funds are then divided among the participants, which include Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia.

According to the RGGI website, the total raised from auctions to date is close to $4 billion.

The New Jersey dashboard provides detailed information on what each grant will be spent on, which city or county will receive the money and which agency or organization will receive it. The site also shows the estimated annual and lifetime reduction in different types of emissions from each expenditure, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and PM 2.5, which is small particulate matter.

The 18 grants documented on the dashboard include about $10 million to fund the purchase of 18 electric garbage trucks and $6.5 million going to fund the purchase of 17 school buses. The remaining $5.8 million will go toward the purchase of electric shuttles vans, mainly for senior citizen transportation, and medium-duty delivery trucks. Some of the applicants originally sought funding from the state’s Volkswagen settlement fund, but are now backed by RGGI money, the DEP said.

The launch of the DEP dashboard comes as the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) evaluates proposals to use RGGI funding in another pilot program, the New Jersey Zero Emission Incentive Program (NJ ZIP). NJEDA plans to award $15 million to businesses and organizations in and around Newark and Camden, which will receive vouchers for between $25,000 and $100,000 to help buy light- and medium-duty electric trucks. The program began soliciting applications on April 6 and has so far received 11 applications.

One environmental leader questioned the use of funds on electric vehicles, rather than nonmobile projects. Jeff Tittel, who retired last month as director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, said he would have preferred the state spend the RGGI money on combating emissions through nonmobile pollution sources, because that is where the funds originated.

“The main purpose of the money was to go for energy efficiency,” he said. When the state joined RGGI in 2007, the idea was to help “low- and moderate-income families to get them to reduce pollution, not only from power plants but also to help them save money on their electric bills, heating bills,” he said. That approach could result in a greater reduction of carbon emissions for the same investment than transportation investments, he said.

But Doug O’Malley, state director of Environment New Jersey, said it was refreshing to see a state agency present the expenditure of public funds in such a clear manner. He said that the DEP, by focusing its investments on electric vehicles, may have a broader impact by encouraging some municipalities to become early adopters of electric vehicles when they may otherwise not have done so for years.

“So, the RGGI money is used as the vanguard for transportation electrification in the state,” he said.

Funding Priorities

In a three-year plan starting in 2020, Murphy’s administration set four investment priorities for the use of RGGI funds:

• stimulating the use of clean transportation, especially in and around environmental justice communities;
• promoting the protection and maintenance of New Jersey’s tidal marshes and the benefits they bring to the carbon cycle;
• protecting the state’s forests;
• increasing the pace of clean energy investment and job growth across the state by creating a New Jersey green bank to help clean energy projects secure low-cost capital

The 18 grants awarded so far come under the first priority, known as the Catalyze Clean, Equitable Transportation Initiative. The largest award, of $2.51, million will fund the purchase of seven school buses by Belair Transport, of Orange, just outside Newark. The seven electric buses will reduce the emission of nitrogen oxide by 7,539 pounds and greenhouse gases by 1,054 short tons over a 15-year period, according to the company’s application.

Nine communities, including Woodbridge, will receive funds to replace diesel garbage trucks These vehicles can be a source of excessive pollution because of the way they are used, according to information compiled by the U.S. EPA, and included in the Woodbridge application filed with the DEP.

Garbage trucks drive slowly, with low energy efficiency and high emissions, and also stop frequently, with the engine in idle mode. As a result, the fuel consumption of garbage trucks is about 3 miles per gallon. Carbon emissions from a garbage truck are about seven times higher than a truck moving at cruising speed, according to the EPA.

“Early on, we identified the garbage truck as public enemy No. 1, in terms of diesel pollution,” said James Sherman, chief operating officer at Climate Change Mitigation Technologies of Montclair, which has helped Woodbridge and other communities apply for state funds for garbage trucks.

“It has to do with the duty cycle, one of the most inefficient duty cycles for a diesel engine, and results in the most diesel pollution in the community,” Sherman said. “The duty cycle of a garbage truck is that it starts, goes 20 to 30 feet, stops, loads, goes 20 or 30 feet, stops. And it does that four or five hundred times as it goes through the community. It’s called creep mode, and when you are in creep mode you are at your most inefficient use of a diesel engine.”

Environmental groups have also intensified their focus on diesel buses, saying they are significant polluters and the state is not moving fast enough to replace them with electric buses, mainly at NJ Transit, the state’s mass transit agency. A report released in March by New Jersey Policy Perspective, a nonprofit think tank, said the state would reap extensive health benefits and remove “significant environmental and public health costs” by accelerating the switch of NJ Transit’s 2,183 diesel buses to electric. A report by NJPIRG, a public interest advocacy group based in the state, urged governments across the U.S. to immediately phase out diesel school buses for health reasons. (See: Environmentalists Call for Faster Transition to Electric Buses in NJ)