Environment New Jersey’s Testimony on the FY25 Budget

Good morning, Madam Chair, and members of the Assembly Budget Committee. My name is Doug O’Malley, and I serve as Director of Environment New Jersey and I would like to present our organizational testimony responding to Governor Murphy’s FY25 Budget. All of New Jersey Transit’s riders are like Thelma and Louise hurtling to the fiscal cliff. We all know how that movie ended – in a fiery crash. We don’t want to repeat that ending with NJ Transit’s budget – and that’s the choice facing the New Jersey Legislature right now.

NJ Transit continues to face a deficit of close to $1 billion dollars is the largest funding crisis NJ Transit has faced in its 40 year plus history. NJ Transit will face cataclysmic service cuts in both rail and bus service with cascade of bus and rail line cancellations.  And instead of waiting for the last minute, Gov. Murphy has delivered with transformational investment of dedicated funding for NJ Transit – the white whale for transit riders – through the Corporate Transit Fee of $800 million. While structurally different, this is similar to MTA funding which asks the New York City business community to contribute to the cost of providing mass transit options.

Without dedicated funding, we won’t have a NJ Transit as we know it right now. Note, this funding will need to be constitutionally dedicated via the ballot just like the gas tax. Note, even with this proposal, there are structural deficits of the raiding of NJ Transit’s Capital Budget of more than $330 million to the operating budget and the need to ensure that the $70 million from the Clean Energy Fund transfer goes to its intended purpose of bus electrification.

The challenge for this Legislature is that it should adopt a Corporate Transit Fee and work to adopt the FY24 state funding level of $140 million to cancel the NJ Transit fare hikes. We shouldn’t balance NJ Transit’s budget on the backs of train and bus riders and this Legislature can provide the funding NJ Transit needs regardless of NJ Transit’s board actions next month. Note, the stealth 3% annual fare hikes without any public hearing violates the 2018 NJ Transit Reform Act and is out of step with other major transit agencies across the nation.

In addition, we wanted to provide brief testimony on three other key environmental issues facing the Legislature in the FY25 proposed budget.

• 12% of our new cars and light truck sales were electric vehicles in June 2023, according to the NJDEP. In California, we’ve seen asthma rates decrease in counties with higher sales rates of EVs. It’s a schizophrenic policy to roll back the EV sales tax exemption as we need every possible tool to be able to sell more EVs to reach our Clean Cars requirements.
• The New Jersey School of Conservation needs $3 million to allow all interested students to attend the national gem of environmental education tucked away in Stokes State Forest. The school previously received $2 million last fiscal year and underwent a series of desperately needed capital improvements, which had long been neglected under Montclair State University. We urge the Legislature to reverse the line item cut to $800,000 and provide full funding to ensure that the School can meet the incredibly strong demand.
• As part of the Clean Water and Healthy Families Coalition, we advocate for increased investment in our water infrastructure of $100 million to ensure we can reduce combined sewer overflows from polluting our waterways and to fulfill Gov. Murphy’s mandate to replace all lead service lines within the next decade.

Thank you so much for your testimony and I will work to