NJ Doesn't Join Initiative to Promote Zero Emission Vehicles

Eight states have agreed to put a lot more energy into promoting the sales of electric cars and other zero-emission vehicles -- but not New Jersey.

In an agreement announced last week by governors of those eight states, all but two of them in the Northeast, agreed to take steps to help usher in cleaner-running vehicles with the goal of putting 3.3 million zero-emission vehicles on the roads within a dozen years.

Zero-emission vehicles would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve air quality and public health, and promote economic growth by jump-starting a fledgling “green” industry, according to its proponents.

So what’s not to like? All of those goals are shared by New Jersey -- in its energy master plan, in a law requiring the state to reduce emissions contributing to global warming, and in another law designed to promote cleaner running vehicles.

Yet the Christie administration is not participating in the initiative.