Assembly Republican leader Jon Bramnick (R-21) had some critical words for one utility. He told NJ Today Managing Editor Mike Schneider the first two weeks after superstorm Sandy was the most difficult of any storm aftermath in New Jersey’s history.
Lawmakers are reviewing all aspects of New Jersey’s storm response. The most scrutinized area is perhaps the utility industry. Bramnick didn’t mince words about which utilities performed well, and not so well, during the crisis.
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“I thought PSE&G’s response was excellent, even in communications.”
But he had less than stellar things to say about JCP&L. He blasted the utility for merely offering weathe-related information without any details about response time.
“You would get on a conference call or you would talk to them on the phone and they would give you a broad-based explanation of how many lineman they had, why the weather was the way it was, where the storm came from,” Bramnick said. “My point was ‘look, we get that, and we understand how bad the storm is.’ All I wanted to know, to some specifics, was if your trucks can’t be in Union County, tell me they’re in Sussex County or in Monmouth County, because there is a crisis there. All people want to know, we are adults, we can take bad news, but we have to understand what they are doing, and we never got that.”
He thinks the reason for the stark difference in how the two utilities performed had to do with those working on the front lines.
“I think that it had to do with the people that they had assigned to those specific communities, who had worked those communities for long period of times, knew those communities, knew the leaders. I just think that [PSE&G] had a better grasp on the facts and where the trucks were,” he said.
Not too long ago, Republican lawmakers, led by the Christie administration, were advocating for a tax cut. But in the post-Sandy world, Bramnick and other GOP members are now adopting a wait and see approach. Bramnick says that while he always favors a tax cut, it will largely depend upon revenue numbers that have yet to come in.
Much has been made about the show of bipartisanship after Sandy, but Bramnick says that bipartisanship in Trenton has been in evidence long before the storm. “We passed a lot of bills that were tough bills on a bipartisan nature,” he said. Still, he acknowledged the unprecedented level of cooperation Sandy inspired on both sides of the political aisle. “Not anyone took a shot at the governor or we didn’t take shots of each other.”
Compared to Washington, D.C., he says the way he and fellow Republican Tom Kean, Jr. get along with Democrats Sheila Oliver and Steve Sweeney, it’s almost as if they’re all on the same side.
A flurry of legislative bills have been introduced that are again highlighting the party divisions. Earlier this month, Assembly Democrats passed a bill to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $8.50.
Bramnick says it’s no secret that House Speaker Sheila Oliver has been in favor of a minimum wage. For Republicans, he says, the issue is about how to impose a new minimum wage.
“If it’s tied into an annual increase, I don’t think they’re going to get any support on that issue. As to those business bills, if it costs money, and it’s not in the budget, we’ve said, and the governor has said, you need to do it as one package with the budget in mind, otherwise you can’t really plan for your budget in the coming year.”