As expected, the Department of Environmental Protection’s Environmental Quality Board yesterday voted 13-6 to publish proposed rules for public comment on Governor Tom Wolf’s plan to tie Pennsylvania to the multi-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative – known as RGGI – which will sign the death warrant for Indiana County’s coal-fired power plants and plunge the county into an economic disaster.
The state would join RGGI in 2022, Wolf’s last year in office. Wolf claims shutting down the power plants will create 30,000 jobs, reduce carbon emissions by 188 million tons in eight years, and reduce other pollutants.
His critics, especially Indiana County’s legislative delegates, point out that the plants already exceed federal regulations on carbon emissions, and closing them will cost thousands of jobs, cripple school districts, and the science says there will be no emissions gains. Plus, they say, Pennsylvania will become an energy importer for the first time ever instead of an exporter.
On Indiana In the Morning on WCCS yesterday, Senator Joe Pittman says the exodus has already begun since Wolf made his announcement last October.
The Environmental Quality Board, which is controlled by Wolf’s appointees, made its decision despite numerous recommendations by its own committees against RGGI. It also rejected motions to expand the public comment period from 60 to 120 to 180 days, and to have a hearing in Indiana County, prompting a scolding by board member Mark Caskey, the CEO of SteelNation in Canonsburg. He said, “I think it is just absolutely despicable that you Left, New Green Dealers can’t even give Indiana County coal miners and power workers the decency to have a (expletive) hearing in their county.
DEP Policy Director Jessica Shirley hid behind the pandemic in her response, saying if it was possible to hold in-person hearings, Indiana County would be a target area.
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