The State Senate yesterday passed Representative Jim Struzzi’s bill that would give the legislature oversight on Governor Tom Wolf’s effort to join the ten-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, known as RGGI. The vote was 33-17 and included five Democrats in addition to the 28 Republican senators.
The bill creates the Pennsylvania Carbon Dioxide Cap and Trade Authorization Act and clarifies that Wolf does not have the authority to unilaterally join RGGI. It bars the Department of Environmental Protection from following through on Wolf’s executive order to start the process of joining RGGI, which the governor announced last October.
Senator Joe Pittman had introduced a companion bill. Commenting on the passage of the House bill, Pittman summarized what the carbon tax would mean for Pennsylvania’s residents.
Indiana County’s four power plants would very likely be forced to shut down if the state joins the compact, costing the region thousands of jobs at the plants and at support businesses. It would also cause severe hardship to the county and to the school districts in which those plants operate, notably Homer Center and United.
Struzzi again asked yesterday the question that Wolf has refused to answer: “Given Pennsylvania is already ahead of the carbon dioxide reduction goals established under the governor’s Climate Action Plan, why would we want to jeopardize thousands of Pennsylvania jobs and trigger significantly higher electricity rate increases when the existing competitive market has already achieved these gains?”
After yesterday’s Senate passage, the bill goes to the governor’s office. Wolf is expected to veto it.
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