At a hearing on Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Environmental Quality Board ruled in favor of moving forward with Governor Wolf’s order to force Pennsylvania to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which has local state leaders disappointed.
The vote approved the RGGI “final form rulemaking”, and DEP secretary Patrick McDonnell said in a news release that the ruling was “a milestone in helping Pennsylvanians get one step closer to combatting the ills of climate change.”
In a statement issued after the vote was taken, Senator Joe Pittman said that while he expected it to pass the EQB, he was still disappointed with the vote, saying that the “EQB ruling completely ignores the many serious concerns expressed by affected communities across the Commonwealth, in particular the ones that rely on the carbon-emitting generation of electricity and the various industries that support it for their economic well-being.” He also said that the ruling today dismissed the various factors detailed by the Independent Regulatory Review Committee, which asked for a delay in RGGI’s implementation to January 1st of 2023.
State Representative Jim Struzzi also issued a statement following the vote, and he too was disappointed by the board’s decision. He said in his statement that no public comment was allowed at the hearing, and that other comment periods were “inadequate, held only by video conferencing rather than actual face-to-face input.”
Struzzi cited the damaging impacts RGGI could pose on Indiana and surrounding counties, and he said he vows to keep fighting for local jobs and communities.
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