Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s effort to exit from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in January should be a wake-up call for Pennsylvania, state Sen. Gene Yaw (R-23rd) said.
RGGI is the 11-state carbon market that requires carbon-emitting power plants to purchase allowances for their emissions. Since the law putting Virginia in RGGI, Virginia has earned nearly $228 million in funding, which the state used for programs to boost energy efficiency for low-income families and combat rising sea levels in coastal areas.
Yaw said the amount utility companies pay into the program is double what RGGI’s proponents said it would cost and that it will be utility consumers that will foot the bill.
“This is the reality facing Pennsylvania,” Yaw said. “Everything we’ve been promised about RGGI since Gov. Tom Wolf signed the 2019 executive order committing us to the program has changed, for the worse. The clearing price of credits sold at auction has quadrupled. The purported emissions reductions have been all but erased, based on analysis from our 13-state grid operator PJM, who notes that nothing RGGI does will stop carbon pollution from non-participating regions ‘leaking’ into the air we breathe day in and day out.”
Yaw said Wolf’s executive order also strips the state Department of Environmental Protection of the ability to assist the state’s low-income residents when it comes to their utility bills.
“At least in Virginia, the proceeds of the RGGI auctions could be diverted to help offset increased utility rates,” Yaw said. “That’s because state lawmakers crafted and adopted legislation authorizing the program and dictating the use of its profits. Pennsylvanians, however, are not so fortunate.”
On Jan. 10, Wolf vetoed anti-RGGI legislation that would have stopped the state from joining RGGI. State Senate Republicans have said they will override the governor’s veto and that joining the initiative would cost the state jobs and other economic benefits.
“As the third-largest energy producer and second-largest producer of natural gas in the U.S., no other state has more to lose economically than Pennsylvania by joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative,” caucus spokesperson Erica Clayton Wright said in a written statement. “The governor’s stance on joining RGGI will result in the loss of good-paying jobs and harm our state’s economy. The Senate Republican Caucus remains steadfast in our position and plans to take steps to override the governor’s actions.”