NJ drops in solar production rankings | NJ Spotlight News njspotlight.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from njspotlight.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Credit: (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Jan. 7, 2021: A salesperson answers questions at a marijuana store in South Portland, Maine. Cannabis has rocketed to the top of the state’s agricultural crops.
It took more than four tortuous years and the creaky machinations of New Jersey Democratic politics before adult-use marijuana was legalized earlier this year. Now, the hard work actually began Monday with the first meeting of the state’s Cannabis Regulatory Commission.
The commission started the formidable task of constructing what is expected to be a safe and profitable $1 billion weed industry from scratch. That industry will be guided by a new regulatory bureaucracy created by this commission and given a mandate to mend the racial and social sins wrought by decades of biased and unjust law enforcement during marijuana prohibition.
Credit: (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Jan. 14, 2021: In Oxford, Maine, electrician Zach Newton works on wiring solar panels at the 38-acre BNRG/Dirigo solar farm.
The state is considering allowing out-of-state developers to obtain subsidies from utility customers to build grid-scale solar projects, a strategy that could lower costs to ratepayers, but might undermine the viability of the solar sector in New Jersey.
The proposal is key to the latest debate over how New Jersey is going to build enough solar projects to achieve ambitious targets in its Energy Master Plan, which projects the state is going to supply more than one-third of its electricity from solar energy by mid-century. Today, solar energy accounts for just roughly 5% of the state’s electricity.