The Wolf administration has announced what it calls “a set of guiding equity principles” that outlines its next step in the imposition of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative on Pennsylvania, and has also hired the non-profit Delta Institute to help it sell the concept to the communities and workers that will be impacted should the regulations be implemented.
In a news release yesterday, Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Patrick McDonnell said the 10 virtual public hearings and a two-month public comment period shows that Pennsylvanians “want us to participate in RGGI now,” adding that the equity principles “will help guide the development of the final RGGI regulation, and how the investments of the revenue from the allowance auctions will be made.”
The Wolf administration continues to claim the state will receive a $300 million windfall in the first year of the RGGI regulations from the sale of emissions credits by electricity generators who use coal, even though local lawmakers and industry representatives say those plants will close and there will be no sale of emissions credits, and therefore no revenue.
The next step in the RGGI process is a DEP review of the public comments and incorporation of them into the final regulatory language. Near-final language will then be shared with the Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee, Citizen’s Advisory Council, and Small Business Advisory Committee later in the spring for feedback, and the final regulations will be presented to the Environmental Quality Board later in the summer.
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