BURLINGTON COUNTY DEMOCRATS “STRAIGHT A’S FOR CHANGE” TEAM ANNOUNCES COMPREHENSIVE AFFORDABLE GREEN ENERGY PLAN

(Mount Laurel):           Chris Brown and Mary Anne Reinhart, Democratic candidates for Burlington County Freeholder today announced their comprehensive green energy plan to make Burlington County more cost effective, cleaner and more environmentally friendly.

With municipalities throughout Burlington County suffering significant tax increases as a result of the reckless spending and taxing policies of the incumbent Republicans, it is more important than ever to have elected officials dedicated to doing everything possible to improve government services.

The Straight A's for Change Team has been campaigning on their platform of making Burlington County government more Affordable, Accessible and Accountable and Brown and Reinhart felt that with energy costs crippling the region the time to act was now.

"Not only do we believe this plan will help reduce taxes and improve services, but it will allow us to do our part to make Burlington County more energy efficient and environmentally friendly," said Reinhart. 

Brown and Reinhart's Plan for Affordable Green Energy

Mission Statement

Brown and Reinhart are committed to implementing an energy plan for Burlington County and its 40 towns that will promote environmental stewardship and conservation by a wide array of green practices and policies in the course of providing the most affordable, clean and cost effective energy plan designed to create energy audits, plan energy efficiency, green building, greening county vehicle fleets, transportation, water conservation, and educational outreach, recycling and waste reduction, thus reducing the county's carbon footprint that will make the county more environmentally friendly and saving the taxpayers money.

The Energy Plan: How We Get it Done....

• Energy Audit Blueprint- this blueprint will enable the county to audit and conduct energy- usage assessments of all county owned facilities, vehicles and countywide greenhouse emissions.

The goal of these audits is to give the county some guidance as to what kinds of energy-savings practices would save them money - for instance, solar panels, new windows, new doors, energy efficient lighting, and natural gas.  The audits will show the annual energy costs associated with particular buildings; the cost suggested improvement; the potential energy and cost savings; and how long it will take to recoup the improvement costs.

• Energy Review Committee - comprised of representatives from various departments i.e., planning, health, public works, law enforcement, emergency management. This committee will help develop new cost saving, environmentally friendly initiatives that will improve energy efficiency in public buildings, planning new environmentally efficient structures, reusing resources, and encourage the residents to be more environmentally aware and responsible.

Energy Efficiency

County Facilities/Buildings

• Energy Star Equipment - requires all county agencies to purchase Energy Star equipment and appliances and encourage all 40 municipalities to do the same.
• Existing Buildings/Infrastructure - retrofit these buildings and adopt policy for all new buildings and traffic signals to have energy efficient lighting.
• Green Building/LEED - Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design offers sustainable features; Energy Star windows & appliances, low VOC paint, solar panels, recycled concrete, Bamboo floors and cabinets.
• Renewable Energy - Solar Panels & Windmills

• o Solar Panels - New Jersey's farsightedness on renewable energy has made it the nation's second largest solar market, second only to California. In fact, the state Board of Public Utilities (BPU) rebate program has been so successful in encouraging homeowners and business to convert to solar that the program got inundated resulting in lengthy delays. The BPU is now phasing out rebates in favor of a system that allows homeowners to recoup more costs from the utility companies.
• o Windmills - Electricity Department of Energy reports that 20% of America's electricity can come from wind. 2005 Stanford University study found that there is enough wind power worldwide to satisfy global demand 7 times over - even if only 20% of wind power could be captured.

County Vehicle Fleets

• Reduce Carbon Emissions
• Reduce the number of cars in the County fleet
• Reduce emissions by eliminating the idling of all county vehicles and any vehicle on county property and work with municipalities to enforce anti-idling laws.
• Purchase Hybrid vehicles - Somerset County now owns 37 hybrid motor vehicles in its fleet and will purchase 2-4 hybrids this year. (The Reporter 5/8/08)

-OR-

• Purchase natural gas vehicles (NGV) - they are already available and combine top performance with low emissions. The natural gas Honda Civic GX is rated as the cleanest production vehicle in the world.

• o Natural Gas - is our country's second largest energy source, domestic natural gas reserves are twice that of petroleum, it is cheap- less than $1.00 per gallon. It is a cheap, effective and versatile fuel, less than 1% of natural gas is currently used for transportation.
• o Natural Gas and bio-fuel are the only domestic energy sources used for transportation.
• o Natural gas is the cleanest transportation fuel available today, according to the California Energy Commission, critical greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas are 23% lower than diesel and 30% lower than gasoline.

Alternative transportation

• Car-Pooling incentives for county employees.
• Employee incentives- encourage private businesses to offer incentives to their employees who car-pool, take public transportation, ride bicycles or buy hybrid vehicles to commute to work.

Energy Stewardship Plan - Partner with local governments, schools with compatible goals to educate, engage and provide environmental programs for public and private entities on cleaner vehicles, energy efficiency and renewable energy by:

• Reducing air pollution - buying fuel efficient cars, optimization of energy efficiency and thus reduction of CO2 emissions, switch to electricity from renewable sources i.e., windmills, solar panels.
• Recycling and waste reduction - continually educate and/or remind the public that they need to routinely recycle all recyclable materials because this reduces the waste at the landfill, it's good for the environment and saves the taxpayers money.
• Community Programs
  • Cool Cities Program - encourage all 40 towns in Burlington County to join this program which is one of many recent greenhouse gas emissions reduction programs.  Eighty one towns in NJ belong to this program; only 2 towns in Burlington County currently participate in the program.
  • New Jersey's Clean Energy Program - Clean Energy financing for Schools and Local Governments offers financial incentives and low-interest financing to develop comprehensive energy efficiency and renewable energy generation projects, and to save money each month through the low-interest financing programs.

Funding Mechanisms - energy conservation and cost containment is becoming increasingly important in municipalities; with the budget cuts at the state level it is unlikely that schools and towns will make the green energy plan a priority unless they get help.  Somerset County plans to fund its own Energy Audits Grants program with:

• Capital Funds
• Bond Issue
• Mini-Grants and Technical Assistance - create a grant program that may be used in conjunction with a similar program that the NJBPU will launch this year.  In order to be eligible for a grant the project must be located in Burlington County.  The building must be publicly owned, publicly funded or a public benefit project.

"By no means is this an all-inclusive blueprint for making Burlington County greener.  But the investment in this proposed plan and other initiatives are a much needed start. One of our first actions upon being sworn in will be to assemble a top panel of environmentalists, business leaders, scientists, county and municipal leaders to help Burlington County "Go Green" and make our government more affordable, more environmentally friendly, cleaner and more efficient," said Reinhart.

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