New Jersey has never been shy about demanding penance from taxpayers.
Property taxes, tolls, and layers of fees keep residents on their knees for their alleged sins—like heating their homes, driving to work, or even sitting down at the local diner.
Now Trenton is rolling out a new plan for environmental absolution: the Climate Superfund Act, casting fossil-fuel companies as villains and making ordinary homeowners foot the bill for their redemption.
And some environmental activists, egged on by political allies, are demanding local governments blame fossil-fuel companies and encouraging them to be held financially responsible for Hurricane Sandy.
Backers of the plan just launched an $80,000 digital ad push arguing “there are no red or blue floods,” a homily that preaches virtuous climate policies while quietly passing the collection plate to the middle class.
But the NJ Climate Superfund proposal isn’t a righteous reckoning. It’s a massive cash grab disguised as justice, an open-ended liability scheme that hammers families with higher utility bills, transportation costs, and prices on everything depending on energy.
Don’t be fooled by the “polluters pay” slogan. The real polluters of your paycheck are the same bureaucrats selling this scheme. Trenton lawmakers are counting on residents not to notice until the damage is done.
The climate altar call is simple. The state will tally decades of environmental “damage,” hand fossil-fuel companies the bill, and declare a moral victory. In the press releases, it will sound biblical and heroic. Corporate guilt confronted and conquered at last. The planet “purified” and New Jersey cast as global savior.
But New Jersey families know better. When Trenton talks about “big corporations paying up,” the middle class picks up the tab. The state can sermonize all it wants, but there is no world in which companies absorb tens of billions in new liability without passing it along. They’ll raise prices. This is what happens every single time the government tries to play economic Robin Hood.
It’s no secret. Every time the government adds a tax, a fee, or a shiny new regulation, the end result is always the same: higher prices for the rest of us. Bureaucrats can dress it up in green rhetoric, but the slogan doesn’t change the math.
Independent analysis shows where this leads. The Institute for Legal Reform estimates that even a $1 billion liability could raise household costs by $230 a year. Scale $40 billion—entirely plausible—and families could face more than $9,000 in new costs every year. Not justice, just legalized pickpocketing on the middle class.
Trenton prefers heroic rhetoric to explaining why families in Edison, Cherry Hill, and Montclair should pay for sins they didn’t commit.
New Jerseyans don’t reject environmental responsibility. They reject hypocrisy. What they don’t want is another disguised hit to their budget.
The state’s homeowners have become Trenton’s eternal ATM when a grand idea needs real money.
Big, expensive ideas in New Jersey reappear just when voters stop paying attention—after elections, after the yard signs come down, after families settle back into their routines. The Climate Superfund won’t vanish after the headlines fade.
That’s why New Jersey families need their eyes open now.
Every homeowner, every parent budgeting for college, every commuter dreading higher gas prices should demand answers from their elected representatives in the New Jersey Assembly and Senate. Why does a bill framed as corporate accountability financially drain the middle class?
New Jersey families deserve honesty. They deserve clarity about consequences, and leaders who don’t hide new expenses behind climate grandstanding.
The Climate Superfund isn’t a righteous crusade. It’s about taking your money. The bill represents penance for sins the middle class didn’t commit, and families will pay the price unless voters stop it.