Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has appealed the two Commonwealth Court decisions that declared the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative unconstitutional.
The plan, also known as RGGI, was introduced during Governor Wolf’s time in office. His executive order would have put Pennsylvania into a multi-state compact to put a cap on carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants and force them to buy credits to compensate for the carbon emissions. The ruling was declared unconstitutional by Commonwealth Court on November 1st, ruling that RGGI equated to a tax, and that cannot be put in place by an executive order, and required the approval of the state legislature to put it into effect.
In his statement, the Governor said that the appeal is not an endorsement of RGGI. He said that the decisions made by Commonwealth Court were “limited to questions of executive authority, and our Administration must appeal in order to protect that important authority for this administration and all future Governors.“ In the past, Shapiro has been unwilling to commit to keeping the state in the compact, and if he wins the appeals, it’s not known if he will keep the state in RGGI.
In his own statement, Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman called the appeal a “misguided decision”, and that the Governor’s actions put family sustaining jobs at risk and “stymies the ability for any meaningful conversations on energy and environmental policy in the Pennsylvania Legislature.”
The matter now goes before the State Supreme Court.
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