NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Gov. Phil Murphy signed legislation and an executive order on Friday ending New Jersey's COVID-19 public health emergency, which has been in place for over a year.
Murphy signed legislation passed by the Democrat-led Legislature on Thursday enabling the emergency to end. He then signed an executive order ending it.
"Today's lifting of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency is a clear and decisive step on the path toward normalcy," Murphy said in a statement. "The past 15 months have been a challenge, and I thank every New Jerseyan who stayed home, masked up, took precautions to keep this virus in check, and got vaccinated for allowing us to get to this point."
Murphy first signed an executive order declaring a public health emergency at the outset of the pandemic on March 9, 2020. He's renewed it every month since then until recently, when he said he planned to let it expire, but not without legislation that enshrined certain parts of his orders.
The majority of executive orders issued as part of the public health emergency will expire 30 days from Friday, Murphy's office said.
While the legislation ends most of the more than 100 executive orders that Murphy enacted, it leaves about a dozen of them in place until January.
The public health emergency ended the same day that New Jersey lifted all indoor gathering limits. Last week, the state lifted its indoor mask mandate and social distancing requirements in most settings.
Murphy and legislative leaders announced recently that they'd work to end the public health emergency that gave the governor extraordinary powers, including mandating masks and requiring social distancing.
The legislation leaves in place a moratoriums on evictions and utility shutoffs, among others. It also leaves in place an executive order that barred the garnishment of stimulus checks and extends certain rulemaking deadlines, among other directives from the governor.
The legislation also provides that the state's face mask and distancing requirements cannot be more restrictive than what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise. It does, though, allow for more stringent requirements if the state's COVID-19 hospitalizations spike, the transmission rate rises above 1 or spot positivity increases substantially.
Republicans derided the legislation as window dressing, saying that it accomplishes nothing that couldn't have been done by the governor on his own since the power to end the public health emergency rests with him.
"The bill is completely useless," Republican Assembly member Brian Bergen said during a debate on the Assembly floor.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
