NEWARK, NJ – Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) is now blaming President Donald Trump, accusing him of driving up energy costs and crippling renewable development as New Jersey households face some of the steepest power bill increases in the nation.
His comments come as residents grapple with electricity rate hikes of up to 21 percent and a winter expected to push already strained systems to the brink.
“Donald Trump’s energy policies are outrageous,” Booker said this week. “He is literally killing some of the lowest-cost energy for Americans—projects that are renewable, like solar and wind. And as a result, we’re seeing Americans have to pay up to $100 more on their energy costs for 2025 in New Jersey. It’s even higher here, and next year looks to be worse. As we face a winter that’s supposed to be very cold, Americans are going to pay the price for his bad policies.”
While Booker’s remarks echo frustration felt across the state, energy analysts say the causes of New Jersey’s price surge extend well beyond partisan blame, much of it, his own party’s doing.
The sharp rise is part of a broader regional crisis tied to grid bottlenecks, market rules, and an energy transition that has stalled midway—caught between the retirement of fossil and nuclear plants and delays in connecting new renewable projects.
PJM grid crisis and market price explosion
PJM has been the accommodating villain in this story.
New Jersey’s electricity is supplied through the PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission organization that manages the power grid across 13 states and Washington, D.C. In 2025, PJM’s annual capacity auction—the system through which utilities buy future energy reserves to ensure reliability—produced shocking results. The total capacity cost soared from roughly $2.2 billion in 2022 to more than $16 billion this year, a sixfold increase.
But without local energy sources, PJM’s role is necessary due to bad policies by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy.
That jump was directly passed to consumers. Utilities such as PSE&G and Jersey Central Power & Light, which act only as distributors, saw no profit from the increase but were required by regulation to collect the costs.
The surge drove average household electricity bills up by 17–21 percent beginning in June, with New Jersey now ranking twelfth nationwide in retail energy prices, about 15 percent above the U.S. average.
Analysts attribute the capacity market shock to two converging factors: explosive demand growth and severe supply shortages.
Electricity demand in the region has skyrocketed, largely due to the rapid expansion of data centers and artificial intelligence infrastructure. According to state data, new data centers—mostly in New Jersey and neighboring Pennsylvania—are expected to add load equivalent to a small city every year through the end of the decade. Pennsylvania alone has 20.5 gigawatts of planned capacity under construction, enough to power roughly 17 million homes.
But while demand has surged, new supply has lagged badly. PJM’s interconnection queue—the approval process that allows new power plants, batteries, and renewable installations to connect to the grid—has become jammed.
As of late 2025, nearly 143 gigawatts of proposed capacity were still waiting for review, including 79 projects in New Jersey. Many of these are solar, wind, or energy storage facilities. PJM has said it will not complete new reviews until at least 2026, effectively freezing much of the region’s renewable development pipeline.
Retired plants and the shrinking energy base
As the backlog worsens, the region’s existing power base has continued to shrink. Over the past decade, New Jersey has shut down several of its largest fossil fuel and nuclear plants under a mix of economic pressure and state clean energy mandates. That includes coal and natural gas units that once provided a reliable backup during peak demand, as well as the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, which supplied more than 600 megawatts before its closure in 2018.
The combined loss of these facilities has left New Jersey increasingly reliant on imported electricity from neighboring states. In 2016, the state briefly achieved near energy independence thanks to expanded natural gas capacity. But by 2025, more than 40 percent of its power was imported through the regional grid—electricity that fluctuates in price based on distant market conditions, fuel costs, and weather patterns.
Energy economists warn that this dependency creates price volatility. During severe events like Winter Storm Elliott in 2022, more than 70 percent of power outages across PJM were traced to natural gas plant failures—plants that not only cost more to restart but also require imported fuel, driving costs even higher for customers downstream.
“These plant closures were never offset with sufficient renewable or nuclear replacement,” said one analyst with the New Jersey Policy Perspective, a nonpartisan research organization. “We removed stable generation capacity before ensuring that new projects could come online, and the result is an imported power problem and a price crisis.”
Political blame and a fractured transition
Booker and other Democratic leaders argue that the roots of these issues go back to federal energy deregulation and policies of the Trump administration that favored fossil fuels over renewables. Trump’s rollback of clean energy incentives and withdrawal from regional climate initiatives, they say, delayed critical investments and discouraged private renewable developers who now face backlogs and permitting gridlock.
Republican officials, meanwhile, point to New Jersey’s own energy strategy.
They blame Governor Phil Murphy’s administration and the state’s Board of Public Utilities for closing coal and nuclear plants prematurely, implementing aggressive carbon-reduction targets, and pushing offshore wind projects that later stalled. They also argue that high subsidies, supply chain disruptions, and cost overruns have discouraged new energy investment.
Six major wind and solar projects slated for coastal and inland development have been delayed or canceled since 2023, leaving the state short of its renewable generation goals. Offshore wind farms off the Atlantic coast, once promoted as the cornerstone of Murphy’s clean energy plan, have faced escalating costs, permitting delays, and community opposition.
In the absence of new capacity, grid operators have had to rely on older, less efficient natural gas plants and imported electricity, both of which are more expensive. Analysts warn that if current trends continue, New Jersey’s average annual household power bill could exceed $2,000 by 2040—among the highest in the country.
Public frustration and political fallout
Public opinion reflects deep division over who deserves the blame. A July 2025 Fairleigh Dickinson University poll of 806 likely New Jersey voters found that 26 percent blame utilities for poor planning, 19 percent fault Governor Murphy, 15 percent cite the federal government, and 14 percent point to state legislators. Ten percent said energy producers are most responsible, while 13 percent were unsure.
Partisan divides remain stark. Republican voters overwhelmingly fault state Democrats for what they see as mismanagement and overregulation, while Democrats often attribute the crisis to federal policies and market manipulation under Trump’s administration.
The energy issue has already reshaped New Jersey’s political landscape. During the 2025 gubernatorial race, Democrats, led by now-Governor Mikie Sherrill, promised to freeze rates and require major data centers to contribute to infrastructure costs. Republicans, led by Jack Ciattarelli, called for reopening certain fossil plants and scaling back renewable mandates until new projects could be built.
A call for reform, not just blame
Despite the political finger-pointing, experts agree on one point: the problem is systemic. The combination of grid congestion, outdated infrastructure, regulatory delays, and policy whiplash between administrations has produced a fragile and expensive energy market.
Booker’s call to “stop Trump” resonates with his supporters, but analysts say fixing the crisis will require more than partisan rhetoric. Reforms to PJM’s capacity market, faster project approvals, and coordinated investment in both renewable and backup generation are essential to restoring stability.
Until then, New Jersey consumers will continue to bear the brunt of rising costs—victims of a system caught between an old energy economy that’s fading and a new one that’s not yet ready to take its place.
