Skip to main content
Unleash your inner leader! 2025 Leadership Masterclass Series Enroll Today

New Jersey businesses want to hear two things from gubernatorial candidates in this 2025 election year: tax reform and regulatory reform, NJBIA President & CEO Michele Siekerka said on “State of Affairs with Steve Adubato” this past weekend. 

“Tax reform and regulatory reform – it’s all about affordability and the cost of doing business and being regionally competitive here in the State of New Jersey,” Siekerka told Adubato. “And we all know that currently we are not.” 

Siekerka cited the overly burdensome process of obtaining environmental permits as one example, noting it causes New Jersey companies to build projects in other states where they will not face such long permitting delays. 

“It takes our companies a significantly long time to get a new project online,” Siekerka said. “We need to look at the time sequence of getting shovels in the ground to finishing projects and a lot of that has to do with permitting, licensing, inspection, etcetera.” 

Gov. Phil Murphy vetoed an NJBIA-supported bill in 2021 that would have created the Government Efficiency and Regulatory Review (GEARR) Commission, despite having near unanimous bipartisan support from the Legislature, she noted.   

Siekerka said the legislation would have set up a review board “that businesses could have come to with concerns about regulations and then they could brainstorm about why this is getting stuck.” She expressed the hope that legislative leaders would work with the governor’s office to come up with a bill to make New Jersey more responsive to business owners. 

Go here to watch the interview that aired on “State of Affairs with Steve Adubato,” which aired on NJ PBS on Saturday and WNET-13 on Sunday.