Using photo-ops, Tammy Murphy is selling a new solar scam

By Sussex Watchdog
 
A previous Freeholder Board spent $600,000 on no-bid contracts without getting to the bottom of who was responsible and who profited from the solar scam that ripped-off Sussex County taxpayers to the tune of $26 million.  It was a story of political intrigue, secret committees made up of county bureaucrats and vendors with conflicts of interest, and Wall Street investors who stood to make a profit if it succeeded – but who lost nothing when it failed. 
 
And it wasn’t just Sussex County.  Although Sussex was hit the worst, taxpayers in Morris, Somerset, and Mercer Counties were also affected.  The solar scam and its aftermath consumed headlines in the New Jersey Herald and Star-Ledger for much of 2015-2018.  So… are you ready to do it all over again?    
 
Tammy Murphy is.
 
She’s fresh from forcing the State Board of Education to mandate a consumer sales-based curriculum that programs children to favor the taxpayer-subsidized energy alternatives promoted by such Wall Street giants as Tammy and Phil Murphy’s alma mater, Goldman-Sachs.  The solar industry is taking a page out of big tobacco’s marketing plan and getting their consumers young.  Get them young and you’ll maybe get 70 years out of them.  That’s a lot of profits!
 
Tammy Murphy has embarked on a public relations tour.  Yesterday she was in Sussex County, making nice to all those folks her husband refused to provide COVID-19 funding to for six months.  Murphy is targeting places like Sussex County because it has lots of farmland and lots of woodland… and her party has plans for it.

On Wednesday, the Philadelphia Inquirer broke the story about a solar developer operating in Salem County who wants to buy up 800 acres of prime farmland to build a sprawling power plant of 400,000 solar panels. 

Instead of beautiful farmland, Dakota Power Partners (in Sussex it was Mastec Power Partners) plans to construct a dystopian nightmare of 400,000 solar panels on stilts (so you can’t miss them) while underneath, 1,000 sheep will graze (making it a farm and earning it a farmland assessment).  Dakota Power Partners just opened an office in New Jersey, so it looks like they are here to stay.   
 
Under Governor Chris Christie, the state rolled back taxpayer-funded incentives, making big solar projects economically unfeasible.  That’s right, without taxpayer money and these scams simply don’t work.  But don’t worry, Governor Phil Murphy has made solar the centerpiece of his Energy Master Plan, so the taxpayer subsidies are back.  Just listen to this solar sales pitch from Goldman-Sachs… 

Leading the charge for Murphy’s Energy Master Plan is Democrat Bob Smith, Chairman of the State Senate’s Environment and Energy Committee.  He has proposed legislation to direct the state Board of Public Utilities to establish a utility-scale size solar energy program with farmland as a component. The bill, introduced August 25, would reintroduce incentives to encourage solar to be built on farmland and forests to try to meet the state’s aggressive plan of generating 17 gigawatts of solar power by 2035.  Murphy says he wants 100% of the state’s electrical power supplied by alternative energy by 2050

That’s right…

Murphy and the Democrats are proposing to clear-cut the state’s forests and destroy farmland to achieve Goldman-Sachs’ investment strategy of promoting solar.

Hey, that sales video wasn’t kidding when that fellow from Goldman-Sachs said that demand for solar was “policy-driven”. 
 
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Murphy’s plans have pissed-off some environmentalists.  The newspaper writes: 
 
Michelle Byers, executive director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, said the bill would toss a law that currently steers solar arrays toward brownfields, landfills, rooftops and parking lots.

The proposed law would not only make it easier to build large, utility-scale solar arrays on the state’s best farmland, it would also allow forests to be clear-cut to make way for solar projects, which makes no sense

Byers said in a statement.
 
The New Jersey Sierra Club hopes the state looks for space other than farmland and forests.
 
“As the scale of solar projects increase, it is important that New Jersey properly finds land for it,” Jeff Tittel, the club’s president, said in a statement. “We should use existing developments or brownfields, create sound barriers on highways, use barges, rooftops, ponds and more as suitable sites for solar panels.”
 
Peter Furey, executive director of the New Jersey Farm Bureau, said the solar bill has the potential to change the landscape.

We don’t want energy interests coming in and dictating to local planning boards,” Furey said. “We don’t want it on prime agricultural land. 

“We think the debate is not finished.”
 
Tammy Murphy has Sussex County in her sights and when she’s through with it, it’s going to look more like a scene out of Blade Runner than the bucolic “God’s Country” it is today.  Don’t worry though, if the state gets too ugly, Tammy and Phil have homes in Italy and Germany to decamp to.  They’re going to be okay… the rich always are. 

"It’s definitely going to change the landscape,”

David Dolbow, of Bil-Dow Farm, told the Philadelphia Inquirer, who wrote: “What he (Dolbow) fears most is the loss of thousands of acres of prime farmland to utility-scale solar systems.”
 
And if it all goes bust like the last solar scam did… well, after the grandkids of the current property taxpayers in Sussex County get done paying off the bill for the current solar scam, their grandkids can look forward to paying off the bill for the next solar scam.  See, it’s nice to leave something for future generations… for the children.

“I assumed solar panels would last for ever. I didn’t know what went into the making of them (referring to raw materials, including quartz, and the fossil fuels needed to manufacture the panels)."

(Michael Moore, environmentalist and documentary film producer)