Pa. Senate moves to repeal Wolf-era cap-and-trade regs
Sep. 18—HARRISBURG — Republicans in the Pennsylvania Senate carried a vote Tuesday to repeal Wolf administration-era regulations establishing terms of the commonwealth's participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
Opposition to RGGI is fierce among Republicans in both chambers of the General Assembly. The 27-22 party-line vote advancing Senate Bill 1058 to the state House is the latest attempt to undo former Gov. Tom Wolf's actions in 2019 that opponents in the Legislature and energy sector say amounts to a carbon tax.
Senate Republicans voted in favor while their Democratic counterparts voted in opposition.
"Leaving our environmental and economic destiny to the whims of RGGI's New England states is just bad policy for Pennsylvania when our electric power is distributed east and west in the PJM grid," Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Union/Lycoming/Bradford/Sullivan/Tioga, the bill's primary sponsor, said. "It is time to repeal this regulation and focus on putting forth commonsense, environmentally responsible energy policy that recognizes and champions Pennsylvania as an energy producer."
Regulations for the CO2 Budget Trading Program were promulgated by the Department of Environmental Protection and the Environmental Quality Board.
Last year, the Commonwealth Court ruled that Pennsylvania's participation in RGGI was unconstitutional as it amounted to an illegal tax, one needing legislative approval rather than regulatory enactment.
Wolf's successor, Gov. Josh Shapiro, was tepid about RGGI during his gubernatorial campaign. However, he appealed the ruling to the state Supreme Court but said his action was intended to preserve executive authority. That appeal remains pending.
RGGI is a cap-and-trade program intended to cut carbon emissions from power plants. Power generators pay for allowances of each ton of carbon dioxide emitted. Pennsylvania became the 12th state to join RGGI when the Wolf administration finalized participation in 2022, however, the commonwealth's participation is on hold pending litigation.
Opponents like Yaw and his fellow Senate Republicans say the program risks weakening Pennsylvania's energy sector. They say the public would see increased rates for electricity while energy production would dip and direct and indirect jobs would disappear
Yaw, who chairs the Senate Environmental Resources & Energy Committee, said Pennsylvania power plants would close. He added during floor remarks that there have been no new investments in baseload energy generation in the five years since action was taken to enter RGGI.
"If the RGGI Electricity Tax would go into effect, it would mean hundreds of millions of dollars of increases on electric bills, impacting every electricity consumer in this commonwealth. We must help families feeling the strain of inflation — not put more pressure on their household budgets," Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Armstrong/Indiana/Jefferson/Westmoreland, said.
Shapiro made an attempted compromise in March, one Republicans have shown little interest in, when he announced a two-pronged "cap-and-invest" proposal.
One part is a Pennsylvania-only cap-and-trade program known as PACER, or the Pennsylvania Climate Emission Reduction, which effectively is a RGGI alternative that would reinvest credits purchased by power plants exceeding carbon emissions limits — 70% toward rebates for electricity customers, 30% toward clean energy projects.
The second part, the Pennsylvania Reliable Energy Sustainability Standard, or PRESS, would update the commonwealth's existing alternative energy portfolio requiring all utilities to purchase 50% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2035.
Sen Carolyn Comitta, D-Chester, minority chair of the Senate Environmental Resources & Energy Committee, said state lawmakers have spent too much time focusing on withdrawing from RGGI and little time on potential alternatives.
"It seems like we are just going in circles or going backward," Comitta said prior to Tuesday's floor vote. "It's time to turn the page and move forward to protect our planet, our children and our communities."
Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Lehigh/Northampton, said the General Assembly's obsession with RGGI itself is risking progress in strengthening Pennsylvania's energy sector, saying an industry investment in her own district could be at risk. She suggested creating a cabinet-level position, secretary of energy, to oversee the energy sector in the commonwealth.
PJM Interconnection, the regional electric grid powering Pennsylvania and 12 other states plus Washington D.C., says that reliability is at risk during the transition to renewable resources as electric demand swells, coal-fired power plants are retired and replacement projects lag.
Boscola referred to PJM's annual power auction this summer where prices were 800% higher than the year prior.
"We are stuck on RGGI, we can't get over it, we're obsessed with it," Boscola said.
