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May 25, 2012 Here's what you'll find in this edition: NEWS AROUND THE STATE APPRAISAL SERVICES TRAINING CLASS SCHEDULE MEET THE FOLKS AT LIBERTY GAS MEMBER BENEFIT PARTNER MESSAGE A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM BELLOMO FUELS POLITICAL PARTICIPATON: THE NJGCA PAC
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE: GREETINGS & SAL-UTATIONS! ALTERNATE FUELS CONFERENCE, NATURAL GAS WORKSHOP, DELINQUENT LSRP, AND MINIMUM WAGE It’s good to be back at home. As you know, I was in California all last week at the Alternative Clean Transportation Expo. The weather in California may be nice, but it doesn’t nearly make up for all the nuts that live out there. They actually offered me soy milk when I went to get a coffee; why any human being would choose to drink soy “milk” is something I will never be able to understand. In my book drinking soy milk is something that should be prevented by the Geneva Conventions. The Expo, however, was extremely educational. I moderated a panel on “Integrating Alternative Fuel Refueling Infrastructure into the Existing Retail Environment”. I was joined by several individuals from all manner of organizations devoted to alternative energy.
Introduction of the panel Sal moderated
Sal making his presentation
Home CNG Charging Station. Cost $7000 12 hour charge time.
Natural Gas light truck engine
CNG passenger vehicle tanks. One fills the space of the spare tire.
More CNG passenger vehicle tanks
LNG tanks for over the road 18 wheeler
CNG Ford F-250 pickup
Peterbilt Tractor
Chrysler & Toyota natural gas vehicles
Natural Gas Minivan
Natural Gas work trucks
Natural Gas garbage truck
Typical CNG dispenser
All Electric Plug-In from China...185 mile range
Typical CNG Refueling Compressor
Typical CNG Refueling Compressor
Chevrolet Plug-In All Electric Vehicle
Honda Plug-In All Electric Vehicle One of the members of the panel represented a $30 billion company that operates truck stops across the country. They are actively building a nationwide natural gas refueling network so that a truck can deliver anywhere in the country without having to worry about running out of fuel. Trucks will be able to fill up with natural gas at very convenient and accessible locations like they do now with petroleum fuels. Critically important: these stations will be open to the general public to refuel. That means whenever one of your customers is shopping for a new car, they will do so with the knowledge that if they buy a natural gas fueled car they will be able to refill at a nationwide network of truck stops. And if you don’t have a way for them to fill up at your station that means you just forever lost a regular customer! Why buy a natural gas powered car? The incentive is that any business that either converts an existing diesel vehicle to natural gas or purchases a vehicle that runs on natural gas will receive huge tax credits AND will literally cut their future fuel costs in half! The same economic attraction will be there for small businesses that have 2 or 3 service vehicles, company cars, delivery trucks, school boards looking to save on their school buses, landscapers, taxis, contractors, and more are all examples of companies that should be anxious to cut their fuel bills in half, especially given the volatility of the gasoline market over the last few years and the fact that in the next few years the overall trends of gasoline is eternally upwards. My goal is to act like a dating service and hook you up with them. If your location is one where natural gas would be a good fit, and we can assist you in finding a few good, reliable commercial accounts, which will give you a base of customers who will regularly purchase natural gas from you. I know many of you have lots of house accounts that would happily welcome a way to find permanent savings on their fuel costs. Last week I saw the wave of vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, and end users of not just natural gas but also electric vehicles, biofuels, and hydrogen vehicles. They have invested significant amounts of time and money into these projects and have a plan to see it pay off in the near future. There are literally billions of dollars on the line with alternative fueled vehicles. These are very smart people who will simply not allow themselves to lose all that money. This wave is coming like a tsunami, and as far ahead of the curve as I thought I’ve been, I’m actually behind. I should have been beating you up on this issue even more a year ago. Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, BMW, and others are all jumping feet first into alternate fueled vehicles and in a major way. Crucially, the vehicles they are producing are all very nice, comfortable, and attractive. If you didn’t know you weren’t driving a non-gasoline powered car, you wouldn’t even notice, that’s how great they look and perform. The technologies are emerging so fast, and so many reputable companies are investing so much, this simply will not go away whether you or anyone else likes it or not. Now would be the perfect time to remind you of the Natural Gas Vehicle Workshop that NJGCA is cosponsoring with the NJ Clean Cities Coalition on July 12th. We are putting this event on for your benefit, so that you can get ready for the future. You can get more details on the event by CLICKING HERE. You can regiser for the event by CLICKING HERE. I also encourage you to attend the Clean Cities stakeholder meeting being held on June 12th which will provide more info on other alternate fueled vehicles such as electric cars. Before I left I was asked to attend a quickly gathered meeting with the NJDEP. Just my luck, it was being held on the day I was fighting my way through the airport, so I sent NJGCA staffers Debbie Hill and Eric Blomgren in my place. I had hoped the meeting would be an announcement of plans for New Jersey to speed up the elimination of Stage II vapor recovery, but unfortunately we will have to wait a little bit longer for that. It turned out the meeting was for the NJDEP to let us know that they are concerned about the approximately 400 sites in New Jersey who are presently being remediated and were required under the law to hire a licensed site remediation professional (LSRP) by May 1st but did not. I am expecting a comprehensive list to be provided to me shortly and I will be contacting those members whose names appear on that list to see if we can assist you in hiring an LSRP for your site. There will be costly penalties if you don’t comply, for starters they will refuse to renew your UST registration the next time it is due. Of course if your site is not involved in any remediation you need not worry as you are not required to hire an LSRP. But if you know that you must be on the list, don’t wait for me to contact you, take action immediately. If you need assistance, please call me! Don’t delay an instant, this can be extremely costly. On top of that, NJDEP officials made clear that the earlier you correct this problem, the easier they will be on you. A brief update on some legislation we are watching in Trenton. I've talked to you before about the problems with the gift card law that was passed a few years ago. It stated that any money on a gift card that went unused for 2 years would be taken by the state, leaving retailers to jump through hoops if a consumer decided to use that gift card again. It also would have meant that the retailer would have had to collect the zip code of everyone buying gift cards going forward. This was seen as so onerous that major gift card retailers decided they would stop selling gift cards in the state of New Jersey beginning at the end of June. Because of that legislators are now moving to repeal this law. S-1928 sponsored by Senators Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen) and Fred Madden (D-Gloucester) would undo most of the aspects of the law, except the provision that banned inactivity fees. It was passed by a Senate committee with no votes against it on May 17th. On Wednesday I sent out a Wildfire Alert asking you to call or email you legislator to speak out against the proposed minimum wage increase. After two hours of floor debate, and despite opposition from the business community, the General Assembly passed the bill that would increase the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $8.50 an hour and automatically increase it every year based on increases in the consumer price index. The final tally was 46-33. My concern is that even though most of you pay your employees more than the minimum wage, if the minimum wage increases then these employees will also demand an increase in their wage to match it. I don't know why these legislators are pushing for this increase during these tough economic times. It's not like your profits have jumped in the last year! The bill still needs to go to the Senate for consideration and then to the Governor's desk before it's official law, so we'll still have the opportunity to chime in. For the Policy Patrol this week we have S-1914 from Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester). The Senate President was instrumental in working with the Governor to institute the the plan two years ago to cap the growth of property taxes at 2%, with a few exceptions. This has lead to many towns which don't want to cut costs to try and get around the cap by instituting user fees for services that were previously covered by property taxes, such as trash collection or police and fire services. This bill would prevent these towns from sucking more money from your pockets and force them to share services and cut bloated salaries and benefits. For the Manure Pile, I bring you A-2886, a bill which, I'm not joking here, would name blueberry pie as the official New Jersey "State Dessert". Now, as much as I love it, and even though I certainly eat too much of it, the idea that anyone would consider this to be a worthwhile act of state policy is ludicrous. Who cares what the state dessert is? Do we really need a resolution to know that blueberry pie is delicious? Thanks for listening – See you next week. Regards,
NEWS AROUND THE STATE 5/24/2012: 5/22/2012: 5/21/2012: 5/17/2012:
TRAINING CLASSES!! PLEASE NOTE: FUTURE DATES WILL BE ADDED UPON REQUEST AND ACCORDING TO DEMAND. CONTACT DEBBIE at 973-376-0066 or DEBBIE@NJGCA.ORG TO LET HER KNOW YOU ARE INTERESTED IN TAKING A SPECIFIC CLASS. THIS WILL ALLOW US TO GAUGE YOUR NEEDS AND KEEP TRACK OF THOSE WISHING TO PARTICIPATE!!
MEMBER BENEFIT PARTNER MESSAGE TMP Energy Solutions We have had a number of NJGCA members successfully reduce their rate per kWh signing up through our energy saving program. We know it’s difficult to collect 12 months worth of previous electric bills to get an “accurate” analysis when comparing a variable rate to a fixed rate, but we now have another option available. This new solution is a power purchase option; the other program is still in full force and has saved members thousands of dollars. If you sign up for the power purchase option, you will be grouped with other NJGCA members until the minimum KW demand is acquired. By pooling the member’s usage together, you will be able to take advantage, as large energy users do, and receive a lower kWh rate. Each member will receive their own contract. Each member is responsible to sign and return the agreement the day it is received in order to secure the price for their group. Please do your due diligence, so when you receive the proposal and the agreement you will be able to make an intelligent decision. If by chance, you still want us to assess you bills, to give you a price to compare, we will require12 months of your most recent utility bills. There are no bills required, but we would still like to have one bill per meter on file to check account #’s, meter #’s service addresses and other pertinent information incase there is a problem. The term of the agreement is for 12 months. During this term period, you will have price protection against any energy price increases along with a low fixed kWh rate. If you are interested in becoming part of this power purchase option, please contact Phil Apruzzi at the NJGCA. Remember when you sign up your energy through the NJGCA Energy Program, TMP makes a considerable donation to the NJGCA Scholarship Fund through their proceeds. This has no affect on your rate, and costs you nothing out of pocket. We hope to help hundreds of NJGCA members reduce their utility costs by participating in this and our other cost reduction programs. Our purpose, in the endeavor, is to help NJGCA members lower their energy costs while supporting the NJGCA Scholarship Fund. Contact Phil Apruzzi at 973-376-0066 or email Phil at phil@njgca.org. Mention that you are interested in saving money on your energy bills. NJGCA & TMP Energy Solutions will handle all the rest.
POLITICAL PARTICIPATON: THE NJGCA PAC
Promoting our agenda in Trenton is of utmost importance to NJGCA and our members. We defeated BELOW COST SELLING We made history in getting FIRST RIGHT OF REFUSAL signed into law! We have built large support for RIGHT TO REPAIR and got it passed out of the Assembly We defended your small business against the false accusations of Attorney General Anne Milgram We gained wide support to move New Jersey to an all PIF Inspection System and close the CIF lanes ...and MUCH MORE!! In each instance, we achieved these goals with the help of our friends in the Legislature! If every member contributes just $100.00 we will be able to provide the help necessary to ensure victory for our allies. PLEASE SEND YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO: I understand that times are tough for all NJGCA members, but this is just as important as any battle we have fought in the past. We have made great progress in Trenton. I hope that you will answer the call. ?
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