New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Wednesday set a state goal of cutting carbon emissions to half of 2006 levels by 2030 and backed his pledge by allocating more than $33 million for purchasing medium- and heavy-duty (MHD) electric vehicles.

In signing an executive order on a Flanders landfill that a developer is converting to a solar farm, Murphy said the new goal would help the state meet is broader objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050.

“The time for wake-up calls is frankly long passed,” he said. “And while we can’t turn back the clock, we also can’t keep hitting snooze. Now is the time for bold action.”

To help meet the new goal, Murphy said his administration would spend $13.7 million in funds from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to buy 46 electric buses, three electric trucks and one shuttle bus. The recipients include five public school districts, two private Jewish schools and six companies that provide school bus services in the state.

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.)

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which helps administer the funds, said the grants would cover the differential between a regular diesel bus and an EV. An electric bus can cost more than $310,000, or three times as much as a diesel bus, according to a report released in March by Environment New Jersey and NJPIRG, a public interest advocacy group. (See NJ Floats New Electric Bus Plan.)

Murphy said his administration will also add $20 million to the New Jersey Zero Emission Incentive Program (NJZIP), a pilot program that provides local and state governments and businesses with incentives for the purchase of MHD electric trucks. Vouchers start at $25,000 for a Class 2b truck and then go up to $100,000 for a Class 6 truck.

Pallavi Madakasira, director of clean energy for the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA), said the agency expects to start accepting applications in the program Dec. 1.

“This is obviously not the only tool in the toolkit to achieve the goals laid out for the state,” she said at the governor’s signing event. “But it remains one of many interlocking efforts” designed to support the state’s “zero-emission transportation evolution.”

Calls for Tougher Action, Slowdown

Environmentalists welcomed the governor’s announcement. Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey, called it an “aggressive,” necessary step given the urgency highlighted by the damage caused by Hurricane Ida in September.

“Today’s announcement of $33 million in RGGI funding is a down payment when it comes to replacing dirty diesel trucks with clean electric options,” O’Malley said. “We thank the governor for setting this bold climate action mandate as he looks to his second term, and we look forward to working with the administration to fulfill this mandate through climate regulations.”

The governor’s announcement comes just over a week after he narrowly won re-election, with the help of support from environmental groups. Murphy’s announcement closely tracks the goal set out by Empower NJ, a coalition of about 60 environmental, community, faith and grassroots groups in a petition filed with the DEP in July calling for the agency to cut greenhouse gas emissions 50% below 2005 levels by 2030.

Tackling transportation emissions will be critical to the state’s carbon-reduction efforts because they constitute 42% of GHG emissions statewide. The state’s master plan, released in 2019, assumes that 75% of medium-duty trucks and 50% of heavy-duty trucks will be electric by 2050.

Empower and the Sierra Club released a join statement supporting Murphy’s move and calling for the governor to “immediately mandate this goal of 50% greenhouse gas reductions through rules and regulations.”

“This is what climate science demands,” they said. “This is an essential step forward in the fight to avert climate catastrophe.”

But the New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA), one of the state’s largest pro-business trade groups, encouraged Murphy to set more achievable goals. Raymond Cantor, the association’s vice president of government affairs, said it would take the state 15 years to cut 2006 emissions levels by the more modest target of 20%, mainly through switching from coal-fueled energy generation to natural gas fueled generation.

“It’s simply not feasible to get to 50% by the year 2030 without jeopardizing energy reliability or greatly impacting costs for all New Jerseyans,” he said. “We encourage the Murphy administration to work toward more pragmatic and realistic policies to reduce carbon, rather than the unattainable.”

Incentivizing EV Buying at the Jersey Shore

NJEDA, which administers NJZIP, approved the program’s expansion and additional funding at its monthly board meeting in Trenton on Wednesday. The pilot program started with $15 million to help fund the purchase of MHD trucks in and around Camden and Newark, and NJEDA increased it by $9.25 million in October to include municipalities around New Brunswick.

The latest funds will enable NJEDA to expand the program beyond the main three urban areas currently targeted to provide incentives to EV truck and bus purchasers in and around overburdened communities in less densely populated areas. Specifically, the shift will make eligible for incentives buyers in about 50 communities located within 10 miles of the Jersey Shore, including Atlantic City, Seaside Heights and Asbury Park.

The new program rules also broaden other aspects of the program. While designating $5 million for electric trucks purchased in the shore area, the program allocates another $10 million for electric passenger transportation, such as buses, shuttle buses and passenger vans. Another $5 million will go to small businesses that purchase an electric truck.

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 York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia. (See NJ RGGI Spending Focuses on Transportation.)