TRENTON, NJ – Last week, social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit lit up with claims that Governor Phil Murphy had a financial stake in the massive offshore wind farms being built at the Jersey Shore.
A company called JECS Offshore which is contracted by Orsted for offshore wind scaffolding and construction-related services, shared the same name as the Murphy family’s UK holding company, JECS Limited.
Orsted is the company building the first round of wind turbines off the Jersey coastline.
Murphy’s lack of reply on the topic when these claims were made fueled the fires of speculation.
It turns out, Murphy’s administration does respond to emails, just not from Shore News Network. NJ 101.5’s Rick Rickman put down his soy latte long enough to reach out to the Murphy administration on the topic and they actually responded…to him.
Murphy communications director Alexandra Altman says the names are just a coincidence. We’re going to have to take Rickman’s word for it because the Murphy administration has never responded to our requests for comments since taking office.
“”There is no connection between JECS Ltd. and JECS Offshore Services, and any claim otherwise is absolutely false. Conflating two companies with similar names is another amateur scare tactic being used by groups whose sole focus is to stall the progress of New Jersey’s clean energy future,” she reportedly told NJ 101.5.
So that ends the debate once and for all. JECS Offshore and JECS Limited are not related. It’s just a coincidence, of course.
What makes the coincidence even more intriguing is that JECS Limited is named after Murphy’s four children. JECS Offshore was named after that company’s own children. Small world, we know.
What it doesn’t end is speculation regarding Phil Murphy’s underlying desire to pepper the Jersey Shore with wind turbines from Sandy Hook to Cape May.
In total, we’re looking at around 4,000, which would make it the biggest offshore wind farm in the world.
Shore News Network never once claimed JECS Limited and JECS Offshore were connected. Rickman never contacted Shore News Network before he wrote his misleading story claiming Shore News Network made any claim that the two were connected.