(Bloomberg) -- New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy plans to sign a bill requiring utility customers to spend more than $300 million a year to rescue struggling nuclear power plants run by Exelon Corp. and Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., according to a person familiar with the matter.

The legislation, approved in April by the state’s Democrat-controlled legislature, aims to keep the state’s three nuclear plants operating, after owners warned the facilities were no longer economic amid lower power prices. Murphy, a Democrat who was sworn-in in January, has not said publicly if he supports the measure, which environmentalists oppose.

Murphy plans to sign the legislation along with bills promoting wind and solar energy, according to the person, who asked not to be identified because the matter isn’t public. One bill would revive a long-stalled plan to build a wind farm off the coast of Atlantic City. The other calls for half the state’s energy to come from renewable energy by 2030.

The governor’s nuclear decision comes after New York and Illinois have already thrown lifelines to reactors, which are struggling to turn profits as cheap natural gas and renewable energy have depressed power prices. More than a quarter of U.S. nuclear power plants don’t make enough money to cover their operating costs, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Supporters say keeping the reactors operating saves jobs and helps states achieve clean-energy goals.

PSEG Chief Executive Officer Ralph Izzo warned investors in February that closing the reactors would have a “crushing economic impact.”

The Sierra Club is one of several environmental groups that have criticized the plan, calling it the “biggest corporate subsidy in state history.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Elise Young in Trenton at eyoung30@bloomberg.net;Brian Eckhouse in New York at beckhouse@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Doan at ldoan6@bloomberg.net, Joe Ryan, Tina Davis

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