Northeast Partnership to Reduce Climate Emissions Loses Dirtiest Member
Last month, some 360 miles from the Statehouse in Providence, the governor of Pennsylvania and the state Legislature reached a budget deal that will impact Rhode Island and the rest of southern New England.
The deal ended Pennsylvania’s passive participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a multi-state program that sets a cap on planet-warming emissions and requires power plants in the 10 participating states to buy allowances to release carbon dioxide. Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut are RGGI members.
Pennsylvania’s exit from RGGI will cost that state a projected $20 billion in foregone revenue over the next 12 years, according to the Acadia Center, removing the state’s most promising, cost-effective policy lever to reduce harmful emissions from the power sector and leaving it without any meaningful climate and energy affordability policy.
“Instead of allowing the state Supreme Court to rule on RGGI’s legality, Pennsylvania’s elected officials have chosen to abandon the program outright at a time when the program’s benefits are most urgently needed,” according to Paola Moncado Tamayo, the Acadia Center’s senior policy and data analyst. “This is a grave setback for Pennsylvania’s energy, climate, and affordability policies, and it leaves literal billions of dollars in revenues on the table that could have been invested to improve household affordability, reduce energy consumption, improve public health in polluted communities, and insulate everyday families from rising energy costs driven by data center development in Pennsylvania.”
Jamie Dickerson, senior director of climate and clean energy programs at the Acadia Center, noted the value of the RGGI program for both consumers and the environment has been proven year after year, yielding more than twice as many energy bill savings ($20.2 billion) versus program revenues ($9.7 billion) since its Jan. 1, 2009 inception.
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