🔥 ANOTHER expensive, embarrassing stunt that will soon throw added fuel on the dumpster fire of unconstitutional bills in NJ (forget the fun title and it's this): Trenton Dems want to slap fossil fuel companies with $50B in RETROACTIVE costs for oil, gas & coal that was legally produced going all the way back to 1995. Oh, to be a fly on the wall when they drafted this thing: 🔵: “We’ll go back 30 years and make them pay FIFTY BILLION!!!” (high-fives all around) 🙌🙌 🔴: Um...you don't think there's a problem with punishing somebody today for something they legally did 30 years ago? 🔵: “Fine. We won’t call it punishment. It’s...remedial. A $50B mandatory contribution.” 🔴: But NJ can’t just take over FEDERAL energy & emissions policy. 🔵: “Easy. We wrote that we’re not doing that.” 🔴: But you’re literally putting a $50B price tag on companies based on fossil fuels they produced. 🔵: “All good. We said that we’re not regulating federal energy production either.” 🔴: So you're making them liable, but you're saying it isn't their fault? 🔵: “Yep. We just wrote ‘strict liability without regard to fault.’” 🔴: What are you calling this thing? 🔵: “The ‘Make Polluters Pay’ Act.” 😂😂😂 I’M SORRY. WHAT?! You literally called them POLLUTERS, told them to PAY, went back 30 years to calculate the bill...and then wrote into the same bill that this isn't about fault & isn't punitive. Amazing. These funds are allegedly to pay for "statewide climate change adaptation and infrastructure resilience projects." Apparently, the Majority’s nonstop push for high-density housing, paving over farmland & open space, and covering everything green with impervious surfaces has nothing to do with water having nowhere to go. It's just totally fossil fuels, because...(political) science. What happened next is even funnier, if that's even possible. They found some “experts” to tell us the $50B bill won’t hit us either, and that testimony was like stand-up comedy: "Oh no! The companies won’t pass those costs along. Their shareholders will just absorb it." THE HELL THEY WON’T. Homeowners, renters, workers, the building trades, small businesses, manufacturers, trucking, farmers, commuters...we all get whacked. $50 BILLION doesn't "get absorbed by the shareholders". It hits energy, transportation, construction, and anything & everything that needs fuel to make it or move it. Even NJs nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services put a giant warning label on this hot mess: “SUBSTANTIAL LEGAL RISK,” with “significant uncertainty” over whether the State can even legally collect the money. And how much will taxpayers spend defending this beast in court? Who knows. OLS says the legal costs are "indeterminate". That's a fancy word that means "a boatload" in this context. Maybe we should ask New York how this brilliant idea is going. Their similar (and just as dim) bill is already facing multiple federal challenges. And guess what the federal judge went straight to at the hearing last month? “Does New York’s law encroach on powers reserved for the FEDERAL government?” You know...the exact problem NJ thinks it handled by writing “but we’re not doing that” into the bill. 😂 Vermont’s version is fighting for its life in federal court, too. It's going swimmingly. But ABSOLUTELY. NJ should definitely throw $50B on the table and see how it goes. FULL STEAM AHEAD!!!! It’s another Trenton scheme to rob Peter to pay Paul, except no one told Peter in 1995 that a bill was coming 30 years later. And when Peter gets it, he’s punting it right back to us. Another harebrained plan from a Majority that's always cooking up another get-rich-quick scheme to fund their spending addiction. And somehow, every scheme ends the same way: WE PAY. READ MORE via @BINJENEWS binje.com/op-eds/op-ed-new-j… @NJAssemblyGOP @NJSenateGOP @njassemblydems @NJSenDems @GovSherrillNJ @NJBIA @SaveJersey @wakeupnj