Polluter Pay Bill
The New Jersey State Assembly is currently trying to pass `Pollution Pays’ Bill A-3735. This bill will assess oil and gas companies’ financial penalties to pay for climate change `disasters’ and environmental mitigation projects in New Jersey. This bill is great virtue signally, completely unworkable and will harm New Jersey residents.
The proposed purpose is
“Polluters Pay to Make New Jersey More Affordable Act”; imposes cost recovery payments on certain fossil fuel companies for funds needed for climate change adaptation; establishes program in DEP to collect and oversee distribution of funds.**
And the money will be spent on
The fund would support areas including flood mitigation, infrastructure improvements, public health initiatives and extreme heat protections.
There are numerous problems with the bill. The first is does the state even have the legal authority to assess companies for alleged and non specific damages. The carbon dioxide emissions are a federal issue. Another issue is are state residents willing to reduce their living standards to significantly reduce gas and oil consumption.
The “polluter pays” principle sounds reasonable on the surface — if you cause harm, you pay for it. But applied to fossil fuels, it contains a fundamental logical error: it counts only the costs while treating the benefits as if they don’t exist.
Think about what it would mean to apply consistent accounting. Fossil fuels didn’t just emit CO2 — they powered the heating systems, agricultural machinery, hospitals, and flood infrastructure that made humanity vastly safer from climate. Climate-related deaths have dropped 98% over the last century precisely as fossil fuel use rose. The “polluter pays” framing demands we calculate a liability while erasing the enormous credit on the other side of the ledger. (AlexAI)
New Jersey’s bill follows similar bills passed in the last two years by Vermont and New York. What have their bills produced; nothing except litigation and legal bills. No environmental costs have been estimated and verified. Only guesses fly around. How much money do New Jersey residents want to spend on legal bills?
Passing this bill means significant legal bills and long project delays on supposedly critical infrastructure. It will raise fuel costs as companies raise prices to cover the penalties and withdraw from the New Jersey market.
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Seth Grossman, Executive Director
LibertyAndProsperity.com
