Joining multistate initiative puts Pa. on greener path
After years of hard work and advocacy, Pennsylvania stands at the cusp of enacting the most significant set of policies in its history to tackle our planet’s climate crisis. Thanks to the steadfast leadership of environmental champions in Harrisburg, we are now poised to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate effort with a proven track record of reducing climate pollution from the energy sector.
Pennsylvania, ranked fourth in the nation for emissions, is the first oil and gas producing state to join RGGI, which puts a price on carbon pollution that reflects the environmental impacts of burning dirty fossil fuels. States then invest these proceeds in projects that lower energy costs for families and consumers, create jobs and expand access to clean, renewable energy such as wind and solar power.
Since 2005, the states in the RGGI pact reduced their power sector carbon emissions by 45%. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is aiming to reduce the state’s carbon pollution 26% by 2025 and 80% by 2050.
RGGI will jumpstart existing efforts to build a 21st century economy powered by clean, renewable energy even as scientists warn that we are running out of time to avert a climate catastrophe.
With President Biden’s climate agenda still under negotiation in Congress, it’s important Pennsylvania take the lead and serve as a model for other states, particularly those with significant oil and gas operations, to tackle this crisis head-on.
Pennsylvanians are already seeing the impacts of climate change, with severe storms and increased flooding destroying homes and businesses and warmer temperatures hurting the state’s agricultural industry.
Joining RGGI is essential if we are to confront this growing crisis. Our energy sector is the second-largest source of carbon pollution in our economy. There’s simply no way to get the carbon pollution reductions we need to protect the health of our families and our economy without cleaning up the power sector.
RGGI doesn’t just mean fewer emissions from dirty fossil fuel
plants, however. Transitioning to clean energy makes economic sense and will provide a substantial economic boost that will create jobs, lower energy costs and make local businesses more competitive.
Pennsylvania will be able to invest hundreds of millions of dollars a year in RGGI proceeds to turbocharge our green energy industry, growing Pennsylvania’s economy by nearly $2 billion by 2030 while creating more than 30,000 jobs as we put union members to work in growing green energy industries, installing new solar installations and wind farms.
We’ll also be able to invest in programs that increase energy efficiency and lower costs for
Pennsylvania’s working families and local businesses.
And we can leverage these investments to address the scourge of environmental racism that has plagued communities of color in Pennsylvania for generations as we focus benefits and job creation in communities that have borne a disproportionate share of the pollution that is a legacy of our industrial past.
This critical environmental victory is being achieved because environmental champions in Harrisburg have stood firm against the unprecedented assault the oil and gas industry, and their extremist allies in the Legislature, levied against RGGI.
After failing to stop the state from adopting rules that pave the
way for our entrance into RGGI, legislative leaders tried to stop the regulations themselves from being published, a routine final step that allows them to be implemented. This unprecedented attempt to politicize the routine workings of government represented an attack on the very rule of law that undergirds our entire political system.
Thus far, the delay cost Pennsylvania more than $200 million in RGGI proceeds that could have been invested in creating jobs and lowering costs for consumers.
Now that these regulations have finally been formally adopted, we need to stand firm against additional baseless legal attacks on RGGI by corporate polluters, and their lackeys, seeking to protect their profits at the expense of the
prosperous clean energy future that we are now building in Pennsylvania.
We also commit to working with Gov. Wolf, his administration and environmental champions in the Legislature to deliver on a plan to invest the proceeds of this program in ways that maximize its benefits for the environment, for the cause of environmental justice and for the economic health of our local businesses and working families.
Now is the time to seize this historic moment to build a stronger, more sustainable Pennsylvania.