Action in Trenton

NJUA Ensures Utilities are Exempt from Corporate Business Tax

In S.3513, NJUA helped ensure the state’s utilities are exempt from a 2.5% corporate transit fee on taxpayers with allocated taxable net income in excess of $10 million.

NJUA Advocates for Amendments to Service Outage Notification Bill

NJUA reached out to Sen. Brian Stack and the Senate Majority Office staff citing concerns with the practical implementation and administration of Stack’s S.274, which establishes utility plans to disseminate service outage information to customers. Christina Farrell reiterated the importance of ensuring that utility customers have the option to opt-in to receive outage information in a method of communication they prefer.

NJUA Testifies in Opposition to Storm Penalties Bill

Along with submitting written comments, Christina Farrell and Joey Gurrentz of the NJUA testified in opposition to S.2358, Senator Shirley Turner’s storm penalties bill, in the Senate Economic Growth Committee on May 16. The NJUA focused on why the bill is unnecessary considering that investor-owned electric utilities have invested billions of dollars towards reliability and hardening infrastructure.

NJUA Testifies in Opposition to Senator Ruiz’s Legionella Bill 

In S. 2188/A.1970, NJUA is concerned that excessive use of chemical disinfectants (i.e. over-chlorinating) will have significant impacts. That includes increased corrosivity, which could result in metal leaching (including lead and copper), pipe failure and discolored water; increased chlorine taste and odor to the water which consumers can find objectionable and higher concentrations of free chlorine residuals that can lead to an increase in dissolved disinfection byproducts.

NJUA is also asking the bill be amended to specify that, for water systems that use chloramine, the disinfectant residual threshold be measured in total chlorineconcentration rather than concentration of monochloramine. The NJUA met with the Governor’s office and the Senate Majority office to push these amendments.

NJUA Secures Amendment in Boil Water Advisory Bill

A.516 would require public water systems to provide certain notices concerning boil water notices. NJUA worked on amendments regarding how best to notify local officials and when.

NJUA Focuses on Telecom

In A.500, NJUA worked with the sponsors of the legislation to integrate amendments. The bill would require telecommunications companies to provide prorated refunds for service outages of longer than 72 hours