Soon after being sworn in on Tuesday, Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey signed six executive orders aimed at tackling the state’s high electricity costs, its vexing regulatory processes and the risks that technology poses to children’s safety and mental health.
The quick succession of executive orders — she paused in the middle of her inaugural address to sign two — dovetailed with key priorities that Ms. Sherrill, a Democrat, identified while campaigning for governor.
Her first signature as New Jersey’s 57th governor was on an order that dedicated state funds for consumer rebates to offset future electricity rate hikes and gave the state’s Board of Public Utilities new powers to pause or modify actions that could result in higher customer costs.
“The current cost of electricity has reached the point of crisis for many residents and families and requires bold action to provide short-term relief and medium and long-term strategies and reforms to improve our energy system,” she wrote.
Her second executive order addressed the complexities of energy pricing and the need to increase in-state power generation. Ms. Sherrill specifically ordered the state’s utility board to seek out new solar power opportunities by March 1 and to sign contracts before the end of the year.
The order also created a Nuclear Power Task Force, which will be responsible for developing new nuclear generation facilities in New Jersey.
Justin Balik of Evergreen Action, an advocacy group focused on addressing climate change, called Ms. Sherrill’s orders a “smart combination” of ratepayer relief and longer-term efforts to “deliver systemic reforms for a lower-cost energy system.”
“It is refreshing to see a governor not only correctly diagnose what’s wrong with our energy system, but also demonstrate the clear political will to fix it,” Mr. Balik said in a statement.
The third executive order laid out ethical standards for state employees, and the fourth created a new job title: the state’s chief operating officer. Ms. Sherrill, who served four terms in Congress, appointed Kellie Doucette, her former House legislative director, as New Jersey’s first chief operating officer and gave her broad responsibilities for “organizational effectiveness.”
Ms. Sherrill’s fifth executive order aimed to simplify and modernize the state’s regulatory processes and established what she calls a “cross-agency permitting team.” Borrowing a basketball phrase, she said her administration would require agencies to set “permitting shot clocks” with an eye toward reducing the time it takes to issue necessary project approvals.
The final Day 1 executive order created a new office within the Department of Health to coordinate efforts to keep children safe online. It directed all state agencies with jurisdiction over issues tied to children and technology to “prioritize children’s mental health outcomes.”
Ms. Sherrill said that recorded increases in the rate of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts among children coincided with widespread cellphone use and the rapid growth of social media and artificial intelligence technologies.
This, she said, had “fundamentally altered how children communicate, learn and socialize.”
“A coordinated, whole-of-government approach is necessary to identify opportunities for the state to improve children’s mental health outcomes in the context of internet and social media use,” she wrote.
Tracey Tully is a reporter for The Times who covers New Jersey, where she has lived for more than 20 years.
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