Energizing New Jersey
Reid Porter
Posted July 22, 2015
Our series highlighting the economic and jobs impact of energy in each of the 50 states continues today with New Jersey. Yesterday’s post looked at Texas and the series began with Virginia on June 29. All information covered in this series can be found online here, arranged on an interactive map of the United States. State-specific information across the country will be populated on this map as the series continues.
As we can see with Texas, the energy impacts of the states individually combine to form energy’s national economic and jobs picture: 9.8 million jobs supported and $1.2 trillion in value added.
Click on the thumbnail to bring up a two-page snapshot of energy’s benefits to New Jersey.
The top-line numbers: 143,000 jobs supported statewide, according to PwC; $19.8 billion added to the state economy; $10.1 billion contributed to the state’s labor income. All are significant drivers for the state’s economy.
Page 2 of the document highlights that, in New Jersey, EPA proposed ozone regulations could cost the state’s economy nearly $128 billion between 2017 and 2040 and place more than 70,400 jobs at risk, according to a study by NERA Economic Consulting.
Energy is critically important to New Jersey, serving as a key engine for the state economy – expanding job opportunities and offering the hope of prosperity to individual New Jerseyites and their families.
New Jersey also benefits from the production of oil and natural gas from shales and so-called “tight formations,” energy development that uses the proven engineering technologies of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” and horizontal drilling. Total jobs supported by these specific activities in New Jersey reached 19,753 in 2012. The job total is projected to climb to 34,455 in 2020 and to 40,537 in 2035, according to a report by IHS Global Insight.
The future benefits of energy for New Jersey – and the rest of the country – largely depend on national decisions on the country’s energy path. A new Wood Mackenzie study contrasts the benefits that a set of pro-development policies could have on energy supplies, jobs, the economy and American households with the likely negative effects on energy of regulatory constrained policies. The key comparisons are found on the first page of the linked document.
Energy is essential for all facets of our daily lives, from powering national, state and local economies to powering the family vehicle. Safe, responsible development of domestic oil and natural gas resources is linked to individual prosperity, energy security and basic liberties.
About The Author
Reid Porter is a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute. Before joining API, he worked as Account Supervisor at Edelman. Porter double majored in English Literature and the Spanish language at Middlebury College in Vermont. He enjoys traveling, cheering for the Green Bay Packers, soccer, rereading Hemingway novels and spending time with family.