Pennsylvania Rep. Gene Yaw (R-Lycoming) sent a letter to the PJM Interconnection leadership asking for major reforms to the regional capacity market to ensure states are held accountable for their energy policies.
Yaw, chair of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, said states that are pursuing aggressive climate policies should bear the costs of those decisions rather than shifting them onto consumers in states like Pennsylvania.
“As a state that has responsibly maintained dispatchable generation and natural gas infrastructure, Pennsylvania should not be forced to subsidize the policy decisions of neighboring states that are actively undermining grid reliability,” Yaw said. “Families, manufacturers and employers deserve a market structure that rewards responsible energy policy rather than penalizing it.”
Yaw praised the recent white paper from PJM, “Powering Reliability Through Market Design,” which acknowledged growing reliability risks facing the electric grid. The report highlighted challenges caused by surging data-center demand, the retirement of dispatchable power generation and rising construction costs, he said.
Additionally, Yaw criticized policies in states like Virginia and Maryland whose aggressive renewable energy mandates, participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) and rapid expansion of energy-intensive data centers have increase pressures on the grid while shifting costs across all of the PJM region.
He also renewed his opposition to a flat PJM-wide price cap extension supported by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, and argued the policy unfairly spreads costs evenly across members states regardless of which states place the largest strain on the system, calling for a hybrid approach to maintain a base price cap that used targeted surcharges in areas facing shortages caused by state policies instead.
A hybrid policy would shift responsibility to the states driving energy shortages and reliability concerns, and help states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio continue to support reliable power generation and help maintain grid stability.