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MTNJ ASk Sherrill B Block 0930_2026-09-30-18-25-17

Welcome back to Ask Governor Sherrill here on News 12. Governor, uh, we have a call right now from Gabe in Bergen. Gabe, thanks for calling in. What's your question? Um, she, you know, she, she made a promise on, um, lowering, um, electric, the electric bill, and I'm still paying pretty close to $800 to $1000 a month on electric. OK, thanks Gabe. Uh, so I'm, I'm not sure if you heard the first part about that. He wanted to know about lowering electric bills because he's still paying, I think he said around $800 a month. Uh, a very similar question to one that we, we got from somebody named Cody in Denville wants to know when the electric bill will actually be going down because even though the rates have been frozen, they're still seeing them tick up, right. The first thing I did when I took office was to freeze utility rate hikes for a couple of reasons. One, because it was really the straw that was breaking people's backs. They went up by double digits last year and were set to go up by another double digits this year, so we stopped that. The other reason I did it is because for all the, I call them the alphabet soup of agencies, the grid manager, PJM, the FERC, uh, BPU, all the, the people responsible, utility companies for, uh, our electricity costs were dumping the cost. They were in control of it, and yet they weren't taking the hits. They were dumping all the costs on ratepayers. And so what this did was really put the pressure back on the agencies to find different pathways for it to stop. Just shoving costs on ratepayers. So what we did to immediately take care of people after that heat dome, after the really hot summer for some of our low and moderate income people across the state, we put $150 into their utility bill to stabilize their rates because we knew how hot this summer was. We've also taken out a charge that had been on your utility bill for years to encourage utility companies to join the grid. Well, they did that years ago. They did not need that, so we took that off the bill. And now what we're doing is really expanding power generation to drive down costs. I've approved 18 solar and battery storage projects. Uh, we've approved community solar so certain communities will see their costs go down more rapidly. And then we're working on things to actually give individuals control over their utility bill, balcony solar plug-in solar, so you can buy a solar panel and literally just plug it in. And start to see your rates go down. Um, we're also looking at things like if you have a Nest thermometer and agree to certain things with the power company, you can see your costs go down. Uh, we're building out things like virtual power plants which were mostly theoretical across the country. We're doing it here in New Jersey. That'll give us more power generation about the. Same as a large gas generator facility. So I'm glad you mentioned generator. Amelia wrote on social media she has a question about grid reliability in general and the threats to the grid. She is also interested in portable solar generators, saying that they offer a clean backup solution, especially with Very high costs for gas powered generators right now, but she notes the high upfront costs for these. So she asks what plans or programs are being considered to offer rebates, maybe financial incentives for solar generators, ensuring both renters and homeowners across New Jersey have affordable access to backup power during an emergency. I would love to speak to this woman in person because she is obviously deep in the weeds on the utility costs which we'd love to go um to go deep into it and certainly if she wants to have a further discussion I will put her in touch um with the head of my energy group um but in the meantime um we are continuing to work out different plans. And so that people can take that ownership, um, so I, it's very interesting the idea of providing some rebates to actually purchasing that I'm happy to look into that uh we've also what we're working to do is for some of those people who we have said if you are gonna operate here you're gonna have to bring your own generation um we're looking at ways that they will be able to pay. Uh, ratepayers to say have a battery pack like think of a Tesla battery pack in their home so that they can um get generation for that and pay for the cash. You can see a world where they pay people to have these solar batteries, solar generators, um, so they can again get power into the grid in the way they need. um, so we have a lot of ideas. I'd love to hear from her and we will have someone reach out if we have her contact info. Uh, yes, we can definitely get that to you, um, actually you you. You mentioned because we're on the topic of this and we're talking about strain on the grid, I do want to talk about AI data centers here and we actually have a social question from a viewer. This is from Joe. He says, Governor Sherrill, with the recent environmental violations at Data One in Vineland and Equinox in Secaucus, that's where we saw the diesel spill, would you now consider a statewide ban? How do you respond to people who say $1 million fine, that was for Data One, is not enough? We have really moved forward in this state um because local communities want control over this situation and what I heard again and again is that they felt. Like there were backroom deals being made, they didn't get to weigh in, and these things were harming their community and communities should be making the decisions based on their own community. So what we've done is put in place the strongest guardrails in the country, and we did that months ago, one of the first states to do so. And what this means is we're saying you have to bring your own. Generation, you're not gonna raise rates for everyone in the state. You've got to invest in our grid. We have an old grid and we really need updates and if they're using it, they should invest in it. You need to use labor. You need to use union labor to make sure that we're creating jobs. Um, you need to do community benefits agreements with the town. If a town wants to move forward in this way, probably think a town that has large, um. You know, large corporate areas instead of homes um throughout the whole town if they wanna move into to that then they need community benefits um. You know, building a new school, for example, and at the same time we are going to monitor the water and power usage because as you've seen we're committed to holding people accountable. It's interesting because just this week Focus NJ, it's a nonpartisan research firm, released a report and basically the goal was it seems as though what they were doing is. They were debunking some of the myths out there about data centers, saying that some of the widespread criticisms are simply not rooted in fact. In particular, they say the claim that data centers increase electric bills overlooks more recent and extensive evidence that properly planned data center growth can actually act as a deflationary force on residential electric rates. Is that something that your team is going to look into as it tries to assess going forward the plan? I think the key thing you said there was properly planned and to date it hasn't been properly planned and so for example we saw Virginia um have exponential growth in data centers they happen to be in our regional grid and so they were driving up usage throughout our entire grid and we were having to pay for it so certainly properly planned with a plan to bring their own energy generation maybe with a plan. For example, to have a bunch of people, um, which they're gonna have solar generators or the battery packs which they'll use virtual power plants like that, uh, we are setting up the rules of the road so they can do that, but that is why our guardrails are key because it's not just simply, you know, a hope that they will properly plan. We are going to demand proper planning. Governor, we have to take another quick break. We'll be right back with more of Ask Governor Sherrill after this.

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9-30-26 NJ ASK SHERRILL C BLOCK

Welcome back to Ask Governor Cheryl. Governor, uh, we have a question on social media here. This is from Ray and it's about flock cameras. Uh, she's from Edison. Where the township approved this resolution, uh, to purchase about 90 additional cameras, she says it's obvious that the vast majority of citizens in New Jersey don't like flock cameras. I mean, we, we've seen some mixed opinion on them, or she continues, or any invasion of privacy, privacy, excuse me. So as our governor, what can be done to protect our privacy from police, township, and private company overreach? That's a great question. Um, we have to balance the privacy rights of people with the public safety needs of communities and so, uh, we have seen communities that wanted some license plate readers in towns because of the rash of car thefts and that really has helped police to address that but at the same time. Uh, we have the attorney general using, um, regulations to make sure that, uh, police departments aren't keeping that information, that they're not using it to track people inappropriately, um, and that, um, they are really keeping it to the to to where we need it for law enforcement purposes and protect people's privacy rights, but I'm happy to continue those conversations and that's something that communities are weighing. Uh, whether or not they think this is a good means of addressing, like I said, we had a real rash of car thefts where it really seemed to be helpful there, but you know we're seeing reports from other states about how people have misused them and with AI coming on. Um, with all the ways in which people's privacy has been invaded, these are important conversations right now. And the better we do on these early days, um, and coming up with the regulations to protect people, I think the better we'll do as we go down this new technology path. Governor, this is a very big week for you. Uh, you and Governor Hochul in New York got to flip the switch on that, that giant boring machine for the Gateway Tunnel project. Just talk about the milestone very quickly and, and what this now means going forward. Well, I. You know I'm gonna have to have some words with Governor Hochle because she said the boring machine was anything but boring, which is such a bad dad joke, and now it's in my head, but. It is, um, however, it was amazing. It's a feat of engineering the likes of which you rarely see in your lifetime. This, this boring machine, which I think viewers can see on their screen now, it was purpose built for this. I was asked how many of these are there in the world. Uh, there's this one, and there's some like it, but this is very particularly built for the bedrock of New York, New Jersey, um, and so it will go into that right away. They're halfway through about there will be, um. A shaft down into the muck because it will change the sediment will change and they will change how they drill through, um, but this is such hard rock. This will go about 30 ft a day, um, once it gets rolling, so it won't be fast, but it is truly amazing. How different it is. The last time we dug a tunnel under the Hudson was in the time of Teddy Roosevelt 100 years ago. The technology has changed so much they now, because we understand what the bends are, uh, scuba divers are well aware of the bends. Um, they didn't understand that, so people were really having horrible reactions to the pressurized going down into the, the pressure of that tunnel they were digging. Now they have pressurized chambers they'll be sending people into it is. It is truly a marvel, Governor. We have to take a break, but how do you keep the money? To keep flowing into the project because the Trump administration earlier in the month filed a notice of appeal challenging that ruling earlier this year that forced Gateway construction to stop. We're well aware in New Jersey of how Trump operates. I mean, we've seen him destroy Atlantic City and, you know, drive everyone into bankruptcy and use the courts to try to get his way and to line his pockets, but that's not happening here. Uh, we have been on our front foot every step of the way. I've been in court against him 5 times. We've won all 5 times. We will continue to fight for people here. This is the people's money. It's not the president's pocketbook. All right, we have to take another break. We'll be right back with more of Ask Governor Sherrill when we come back.

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9-30-26 NJ ASK SHERRILL D BLOCK

Welcome back to Ask Governor Sherrill, special edition of New Jersey Power and Politics. I'm Eric Lance Kerner again with Governor Mikey Sherrill. Governor, again, it's great to have you. Uh, remember you can get us questions numerous ways. You can give us a call at 888-News 12 NJ 888-639-7126. You can post your questions on our social media platforms, News 12 New Jersey, Facebook, Instagram, or X pages. Governor, let's talk about Newark Liberty Airport, uh, and I'm not talking about how it ranked in, it ranked actually fairly low in, uh, JD Power poll recently, but, uh, two investigations that are now going on into what happened there just about a week and a half ago with this contractor who severed a fiber line. Everything ground to a halt at the airport. Disrupted service. How can something like this be prevented from happening again? And what are you hearing at this point about the investigations? Well, I, I think we can make better investment in our infrastructure over the long term. Um, this has been a problem since, uh, you know, we started, uh, hearing about the movement from Long Island when. Um, the air traffic controllers went down to the Philadelphia area, the Tracon area down there. Um, they didn't have a lot of the equipment in place to make that move very well. There was almost like a line connecting them, and we've certainly seen how fragile the infrastructure still is despite so much time and despite this being one of the most heavily trafficked airspaces in the nation. Of course it happened during Climate Week. Uh, we had a lot going on, a lot of people in and out. It, it really ground everything to a halt. That airport is key to the economy of the region as well. And so to have such poor infrastructure in place right now is unacceptable. It's something we've seen across the board. It's why I fought so hard for years for the Gateway Tunnel project, which has been long overdue. You know for so much time there's been this attitude of if you just get government out of the way everything's gonna work and we're coming to the logical end of that government needs to function. It needs to function effectively and efficiently and when you don't have somebody minding the store with cost overruns or when you don't have somebody making long term investments and kicking the can down the road, uh, I was the first governor to make a full pension payment in my first budget since Christine Todd Whitman. Imagine that. I mean we have been underfunding that pension for decades, so now instead of paying $1.5 billion for our pension in our budget, we're paying $7 billion because of debt and fees. So because of this we have got to see government perform better. I am telling you people in New Jersey know that we are taking on the status quo. We're taking on entrenched interests, but to see this happen in our busiest airspace where one fiber optic line could go down, that was the secondary line. From what I understand, the primary line was out of use for some reason. So again, I've spoken to United. I've spoken to the Department of Transportation. I'm speaking to others to get to the bottom of it. Yeah, I mean there was definitely some finger pointing. Energy Transit CEO and President Chris Kaluri mentioned Verizon. Verizon says nope, it wasn't us. So I mean again, so what needs to happen. To prevent any potential danger or hazard going forward or the inconvenience to travelers or the impact on our local economy because I mean that's all three things are are what could happen in a situation like this better and redundant systems I was told that was. The backup system I have not gotten an answer yet on how long the primary system was not working um so that kind of thing especially when you have climate week going on and you know how important this infrastructure is to not have backup redundant systems and look you know. I think that this Trump administration is a complete failure. I have said that many times. I will continue to say that in this instance, this is a long term failure to invest in infrastructure going back many decades. That is what has to change in this country. We have got to actually ensure the government runs effectively. No more kicking the can down the road, no more accepting the status quo, no more saying, oh, that's just really hard. I was told when I wanted to. Run for Governor Mikey, uh, why would you want to do that? There's just hard problems that you can never solve. I have not found one yet. They're hard problems, but they're solvable. Governor, let's talk about independent contractors. Uh, the leaders of the state's two largest business groups, along with lawmakers, by the way, from both sides of the aisle again, freelancers as well, have implored you. To delay the October 1st start of the ABC test for independent contractors and for the folks at home who don't know what that is because it it's, it's very into the weeds and for for people who aren't affected by it. Uh, it's meant to determine whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee under state law. So you have Tom Bracken from the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce, Michelle Siekerker from NJBIA, both writing that under the new rules, uh, legitimate independent contractors can demonstrate nearly every traditional indicator of independence and still fail to. Test. So that brings us to a question from a viewer, and this is from Kim Cavan from Long Valley who writes the ABC test faced 99% public opposition in thousands of written comments, overwhelming opposition, several standing, uh, standing room only public hearings, and says that even Senate President Nicholas Gutari has asked you to delay this rule until July of 2027. Uh, will you grant that delay? This is a rule that simply puts into place, simply codifies the rules and regulations that are already in place, the court decisions, what we're acting under. So if you are an independent contractor today you will be an independent contractor tomorrow um I think there's a lot of misunderstanding of what's in this test if there are areas where it has um somehow swept people into its. who should not be there, then I am more than happy to work with the legislature on specific carve outs for those groups. But it seems as though the argument is, and this is something that the Senate president is also on board with, is that you should figure that out now instead of allowing it to take effect. Before there's mass confusion and before people are actually harmed when it's not intended that they suffer harm. Well, despite the fact that it's simply putting in statute what we have in regulation now, there should not be the mass confusion. Like I said, if you're an independent contractor today, you will be one tomorrow. This is about fairness. This is about making sure workers are protected and ensuring that the law reflects that and again. It is well within the power of our Senate and our assembly to take action if there are carve-outs needed, and I will work with them to do so if that's necessary. Governor, let's shift gears, talk about school health costs if we can here. Uh, the School Employees Health Benefits Commission approved this pretty sizable increase for public health plans by as much as 34% for teachers in 2027. Uh, Jacqueline from Union wrote in. Asking, can you please express to us teachers what you've done to help them, she says they're experiencing larger class sizes, workloads that aren't feasible for one teacher, districts constantly cutting jobs, high medical costs, already paying 7.5% into pension, almost $200 a month in teacher dues, and now this 34% health care charge only for teachers. So she goes on to say you haven't seen it yet. But you will when all the teachers who've been teaching 20 years plus retire, those positions will be hard to fill because many young adults can't afford living in New Jersey on a teacher's salary. This is something that I had been hearing throughout my campaign about how difficult it was becoming teaching here and how the cost just kept going up. Um And a lot of this was because of poor decisions in our state health benefits plan where the can had just been kicked down the road because this was one of those things where people said oh if you become the next governor you're gonna have to do something about the state health benefits plan. I would argue that that shouldn't just suddenly occur to people that it was getting worse and worse and there were a lot of places where we could have done something where it would have been easier. But I'm committed to fixing the state health benefits plan. It's been what we've been working on all summer because uh we have put. More money into the school budget than we've ever put in our school budget before and yet we are still seeing towns without enough money for some of these benefit packages we're still seeing teachers whose costs go up every single year um and your caller's right, people are not gonna wanna go into this profession if they don't see a good pathway forward and it is such a critical profession so many members of my family, um. So many teachers that have impacted my own life. I was so proud to have my freshman biology teacher and my, um, subschool principal from high school come to my inauguration. I mean that was the kind of impact people had so that's why we've put money into the program earlier to stabilize it. This was, uh, what the actuary tables had said, um, and, and we just. At this point we have got to bring everyone together, which we are doing the unions, the insurance companies, the hospital systems, the pharmaceuticals, the PBMs all together so that we can begin to take the actions and drive these costs down. So you just heard from a teacher. Now let's hear from a student. We have a 7th grader, Jojo from Howell, on the line. Jojo, thanks for calling in. What's your question? Thank you, sir. Um, Governor Sherrill, my question is, how are you going to make New Jersey schools better? Jojo, that is a great question, and the fact that you just called into this program and are watching is truly impressive. Um, thank you so. That is something always on my mind, as you may know, I have 4 kids of my own. 2 are still in high school. And our schools, our public school system, I think is one of the critical jobs of governor to run a great public school system, not just because I think it is the best pathway to create opportunity for everyone in our state, no matter where you live or who your parents are, but at the same time because that's also how we attract great businesses to our state, um, we have a wonderful workforce because. The education people receive, but also, um, people want to send their kids to these great public schools but in too many ways they're just not up to snuff. Um, 3rd grade reading, for example, is not where it needs to be. That's why we are putting in phonics education mandates, um, so that we can help, uh, make sure that our reading scores go up. We've also put money into mental health throughout all of our schools because we've seen the real damage taking place with. Social media we've uh put higher funding into high intensity tutoring that's how students sort of fall behind we can help them catch up and we are constantly looking at how we are going to ensure our schools not only are the best they possibly can be but are also set up to educate students for the new technologies coming. All right, Governor, we have to take another break. Thank you, Jojo for calling in. We'll be right back with more of the Ask Up the show.

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9-30-26 NJ ASK SHERRILL E BLOCK

How is she going to protect free and fair elections? Been getting a lot of questions about uh election integrity governor, especially of course we've got the midterms coming up uh and questions on the heels of the 6600 non-citizens who were in the uh able to register to vote via the NBC and the several 100 who actually did. Certainly, um, and I get a lot of questions on this. People are really concerned, uh, as they should be. We've seen the DOJ go into polling places, uh, the FBI, and I think Wyoming. We saw a sheriff at Riverside in California take 650,000 ballots. Um, the courts had to order him to return them. We've seen just, uh, you know, across the country different attempts to undermine our elections. The SAVE Act alone, uh, using the SAVE database, 100,000 people in Texas were, um, supposed to be removed from the voter rolls. Uh, the president continues to. Uh, uh, worked to get access to our voter rolls. I have rebuffed him at every turn, uh, and he's lost in court about 20 times, and yet he continues to try to get access to our private data and the voter rolls. So we're working incredibly hard. We have great people now. Um, Shirley Amahalu has, uh, now is our Secretary of State. She is protecting the election. She's a former federal prosecutor, which is important because of all those things I said. She worked at the state AG's office. She was our comptroller. Now she's acting Secretary of State. At the same time, uh, we run a very resilient election system meaning it is hard to attack it and it is designed to make sure we have a free and fair vote so you can vote by mail we have mail drop boxes so that you can actually deliver them right to the mail drop. Box to turn your ballot in across the state we have early in-person voting. So if you're worried about your polling place because we know ICE has threatened to attack polling places, you can go anywhere in your county during early in-person voting and certainly we are going to protect our polling places on election day. Uh, state senators Buco and Corado actually introduced legislation, I'm sure you saw this, uh, that would do 3 things. Eliminate automatic voter registration at the Motor Vehicle Commission in the wake of what happened with with the NBC. Implement voter identification requirements in all future elections. That's something that you said that you would be open to if there was legislation for it in New Jersey. And the third would be to conduct biannual independent and transparent audits to clean up our voter rolls. How does that sound to you? Well, the first point of it, ending automatic voter registration to me seems like this age-old idea I've been so frustrated with that government can't run things well. I mean, we should be able, I'm sure that they would point to what happened with the NBC a couple of years ago to say certainly they can't, and that is why we're investigating that because that should never have happened. We are changing vendors. There should be, we are doing routine audits into our systems now that we have put in place because of this that should have already been in place, but. How a state like New Jersey, one of the most innovative states in the nation, anyone could ever think we can't run a fair motor vehicle registration where there are protections in place and we assure ourselves through checking it and making sure that it is running as predicted. How anyone could think we could not do that safely and securely is beyond me. So is the Secretary of State Division of Elections, are they independently verifying the motor voter information now? They are. Um, they are going through that with checks, um, and we're developing systems that will be even, um, you know, more routine checks after this. We're certainly doing it now, but this is gonna be a long term thing. This isn't just to get us through the election. This is now going to be part of the process, as I said, we're changing vendors, um, and we are making sure that we're running this system. I, uh, I will tell you, to me, when you bring all your documents to motor vehicles to get your real ID, that's often when you first move to our state. To me this makes a lot of sense as to why that would be the time when you register to vote. Governor, we have to take another quick break. We still have a few more minutes left for more questions.

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9-30-26 NJ ASK SHERRILL F BLOCK

This is not one of the sins that I would typically leave to the very last block of the show, Governor, but, uh, but, but, but I wanna talk about the economy. Uh, New Jersey lost more than 25,000 jobs in July, another 1700 in August, and we keep hearing about big companies packing up and moving out of state. So guilty pleasures music, that's the handle, uh, I wrote a que I wrote this question What are you going to do to attract business investment instead of driving away all the longtime taxpaying businesses that have recently left the state? Um, well, we have been hearing from businesses across our state about just what it is that they need to flourish here because we want this to be a great state to do business and one of my key priorities is really changing that climate here in New Jersey and making it much more welcoming to business. We have great New Jersey companies here, but the spinoffs often don't stay. Here and it's important to us to develop those opportunities. So with that in mind, um, we have put together the EDA Choose New Jersey and the strategy team. We have the first ever chief operating officer giving a whole of government approach to so many of our agenda items. Um, I just sat down with them today on how we are not going to have such a scattershot approach. We're going to really target those key investment sectors life sciences, our defense base. Picatinny Arsenal and Lakehurst are some of the most innovative places in our in the country for the defense base. We have a one of its kind, almost, um, unmanned flight, uh, permissions down Atlantic City. We have the FAA Center, so we have a lot of opportunities here. I have so much more to tell you, but I know I'm gonna get the hook here. We have a hard stop, but I can't wait. We're gonna roll out, um, our, uh. Plan that we have been putting together to uh uh to businesses and the people of New Jersey this month. Well, I mean this is certainly something that is not going to be solved overnight and next month because tomorrow is October 1st. Thank you so much, uh, Governor Mikey Sherrill. Thanks so much for coming in studio and thank you for watching here on Ask Governor Sherrill on News 12 New Jersey. We'll see you again next time.

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Gov. Mikie Sherrill answered viewers' questions on News 12 New Jersey's “Ask Gov. Sherrill” program.

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