Latest news with #RGGI
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pa. justices ask in oral arguments: Is RGGI a tax, a fee, or something completely different?
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court July, 2024 (Jen Barker Worley/ Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts) The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative could put fossil fuel-burning power plants out of business and significantly increase energy costs for consumers, electricity producers and Republican opponents of the program said Tuesday in state Supreme Court. They argued the state Department of Environmental Protection overstepped its authority and violated the constitution by imposing an impermissible tax on electricity generators who release climate-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro's Department of Environmental Protection says that's not the case, because lawmakers decades ago gave it broad authority to control air pollution. Its lawyer, Thomas Hazlett, argued before the court that requiring power producers to pay for allowances to release climate-warming carbon dioxide is within that authority. 'The policy choice that the legislature made and the duty that it imposed … is to prevent, control, reduce and abate air pollution,' Hazlett said. 'Carbon dioxide is an air pollutant.' Environmental groups argued the state constitution guarantees the protection of public resources including clean air and that the DEP's plan to limit carbon emissions is constitutional because it is part of its program to protect the public's environmental rights. 'Air is a public trust resource, and the department and other trustees have to act to protect it,' Jessica O'Neil, who represented Penn Future, the Sierra Club, the Clean Air Council and the Environmental Defense Fund, said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE But Brigid Landy Khuri, representing Senate Republican Leader Joe Pittman, President Pro Tempore Kim Ward and Energy Committee Chairman Gen Yaw, said the agency overstepped its authority by joining 11 other northeast states in the carbon credit exchange. 'If the purpose is just to cap and regulate CO₂, that's one thing,' Khuri said. 'If the purpose is … to change the entire dynamic of our electric generation system, that's absolutely a policy decision that must be made in the General Assembly, that was not made here.' Pennsylvania joined the program, known as RGGI, in 2022 under Gov. Tom Wolf's administration. RGGI requires power plant operators to bid for the rights to emit quantities of carbon dioxide as a byproduct of burning coal, oil and natural gas to make electricity. It's designed to reduce emissions by gradually decreasing the number of credits over several years and investing the auction proceeds in energy efficiency and clean energy technologies in each state. In more than two hours of arguments the justices questioned the extent to which the DEP can regulate other sources of greenhouse gas emissions from cars, or even cows. But the main question before the court was whether the lower Commonwealth Court incorrectly determined the requirement to buy carbon credits was an illegal tax. In its 2023 decision, the appellate court said that Pennsylvania's participation in RGGI must be approved through the General Assembly and that the Department of Environmental Protection does not have the authority to impose a tax. Hazlett said the DEP contends that the requirement to purchase carbon credits is actually a fee, but the justices asked whether there is a third option. Justice David Wecht suggested the creation of a marketplace for carbon credits is more like the state is selling a product or an asset. 'It's like environmental Bitcoin,' Wecht said, noting that the credits are different from licenses for which the DEP charges fees because they can be sold on a secondary market. 'What authority does DEP have to create a product that the General Assembly has not authorized them to create … and then reap the profits from the sales, whatever they may be, along with its brothers and sister states who agree to enter into this conglomerate?' Wecht asked. The legislature created the authority for the DEP to regulate the burning of fossil fuels and the emission of pollutants in the Air Pollution Control Act, which was first passed in 1959. The sale of carbon credits was determined to be an efficient way to exercise that authority, Hazlett said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX He added that controlling industrial emissions with credits that can be traded has been around since the 1980s, when the state sought to control acid rain emissions. Hazlett said the intent of the program is not to put the fossil fuel industry out of business. 'The idea of the regulatory regime is to allow the regulated entities to manage their business in the most efficient way,' Hazlett said, noting that generators could reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by improving technology or using other fuels. David Fine, who represents a consortium of generating companies that use fossil fuels, said the case before the court is not about whether RGGI is a good program, but rather, whether the executive branch has the authority to implement such a program. Responding to the court's inquiry about how much RGGI would generate in auction proceeds, Fine said that based on an auction for the other states last year, Pennsylvania would have received $2 billion in costs that electricity producers would pass on to consumers. He argued the court should conclude a cost of that magnitude should not be implemented without legislative approval. 'That's multiple times the entire DEP budget,' Fine said. 'All of that without the General Assembly voted in favor of it. This will cripple an industry. This will imperil jobs, and it will also imperil investment in Pennsylvania business.'
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
State Supreme Court will hear arguments over Pa.'s membership in Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
(Getty Images) Pennsylvania's long-delayed membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that would require fossil fuel burning power plants to pay for carbon dioxide emissions will be the subject of arguments Tuesday before the state Supreme Court. The program, known as RGGI, established a carbon credit auction for electricity producers in 11 northeast states to pay for the right to emit carbon dioxide. The money received would go to each state for uses, ranging from utility assistance and energy efficiency projects to subsidies for alternative energy. Gov. Tom Wolf entered the compact in 2022 over the objections of Republican state lawmakers. They raised concerns it would increase electricity prices, hasten the closing of the commonwealth's remaining coal power plants, and not reduce carbon emissions overall, but simply force them into other states. In a legal challenge to the program's constitutionality, GOP leaders in the House and Senate contended the requirement to buy carbon credits was an impermissible tax. A Commonwealth Court panel of five judges agreed. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE In its decision, the appellate court said that Pennsylvania's participation in RGGI must be approved through the General Assembly and that the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) does not have the authority to impose a tax. Gov. Josh Shapiro's administration appealed, with the DEP, arguing that the commonwealth's membership in RGGI is authorized by the state's Air Pollution Control Act (APCA). The law empowers the state to enact rules and regulations to reduce pollution, including establishing fees used to eliminate air emissions. Several nonprofit citizens rights and environmental groups including Penn Future, the Sierra Club, the Clean Air Council and the Environmental Defense Fund moved to intervene in the appeal. They argue the Commonwealth Court wrongly decided the case because it failed to consider the DEP and Environmental Quality Board's obligations under the Environmental Rights Amendment (ERA) to the state constitution. The groups also back the DEP's argument that the agency is empowered to establish fees to enforce the APCA. Adopted in 1971, the ERA requires the commonwealth to preserve public natural resources for the benefit of all people. It's considered one of the strongest such constitutional protections in the nation, according to PennFuture. Since the Commonwealth Court's decision in 2023, Shapiro has introduced a Pennsylvania-focused alternative to RGGI called the Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction Act (PACER) that he said would leverage the commonwealth's status as an energy exporter to fund carbon-neutral energy development. Sen. Carolyn Comitta (D-Chester) who plans to introduce legislation to establish PACER, said Shapiro's alternative was developed in collaboration with Republican lawmakers and energy companies. Comitta said the Supreme Court case and RGGI would make the Supreme Court case moot, but GOP lawmakers have said the plan falls short of their goals to reduce energy costs and ensure reliable electricity supplies. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday in Harrisburg. An audio stream of the proceedings is available on YouTube. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Your Turn: The real waste in Pennsylvania government
In a remarkable moment at the Feb. 27 House budget hearing for Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection, state Rep. Josh Kail, R-15, Brighton Township, declared it 'outrageous' that citizens, including his constituents, have the right to petition DEP for a change in environmental rules. Acting Secretary Jessica Shirley explained that DEP's 'rulemaking' process allows everyday people to ask for a new rule or repeal an existing one. And if a citizen's petition is backed by scientific data, it can merit review by the DEP's rulemaking body, the Environmental Quality Board. Shirley also explained that EQB's review includes legislative touch points and consent, as well as legislators among its members. Evidently. too fixated on degrading the democratic process to listen, Kail then delivered a textbook non sequitur, stating that since DEP rulemaking includes 'absolutely no legislative input,' the agency's time spent in rulemaking is 'wasted.' His claim is both erroneous and authoritarian. Kail's performance red-flags whether he understands or even cares what a legislator's job requires under our constitution. How can any legislator call listening to everyday citizens a waste of time when the heart of being a legislator is to hear and represent constituents' needs? More so, why would any legislator be outraged (or even pretend to be, as Kail's thespian muscle-flexing suggested) at a lawful, 40-year-old process designed to ensure public input – a process our Legislature wrote and passed and understood to be protected by the First Amendment? Then comes the biggest question of all: Do we – as a country of, by, and for the People – continue to elect legislators who want to take power from us? Or do we refuse to elect legislators who call our voices a 'waste?' That Kail tried to shame the DEP for working with the People to create regulations is in itself shameful. Under the pretense that time spent addressing the People's petitions is fiscal squandering, Kail named three such petitions to exemplify his point: One for joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), one for increasing security bonds for oil and gas wells, and one for establishing mandatory set-backs for oil and gas wells. Given that all three petitions would bring hundreds of millions in income and savings to Pennsylvania, characterizing time spent on them as fiscally irresponsible is a farce. If Kail actually listened to the People, his feigned fiscal concerns would be relieved. Although the RGGI matter started from a rulemaking petition, when Gov. Tom Wolf signed an executive order requiring DEP to join RGGI, the petition was set aside. But this cap-and-trade program of CO2 would have brought in an estimated $443 million in income to be spent only on clean air initiatives such as monitoring and constraining polluting facilities. If Kail could imagine how much his constituents, who are plagued by carcinogenic emissions from thousands of oil wells, need DEP to step up and protect them, he might be able to help legislate the funding DEP needs to do so. Or is that funding a waste? The well-bonding petition asked oil and gas companies to post higher bonds before drilling a well. The current bond amount is $2,500, which creates zero incentive for companies to plug wells at a cost of about tens of thousands of dollars per well. It's a business no-brainer to default on the bond, rather than spend twenty times more to plug a well. So that defaulting leaves Pennsylvanians with the public health and environmental wreckage, while taxing them for the massive cost of plugging up to hundreds of thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells. While Pennsylvania is currently fighting for $300 million in federal funding to plug wells, the People's well bonding petition simply proposed raising bonds to about $38,000. Is such a proposal really a waste? Finally, the setbacks petition seeks a common-sense mandate that oil and gas wells not be built too close to waterways and buildings. Currently, health-harming wells can be and are built only 500 feet from buildings such as schools and hospitals. Instead, this People's petition asked DEP to base these distances on scientific research by requiring Set-backs of 5,280 ft from any building 'serving the vulnerable' (schools, hospitals). Set-backs of 3,281 ft from any building or drinking water well. Setbacks of 750 ft from any waterway. Is Kail l saying that protecting our children, our elderly, our infirm, is a waste? Is protecting our drinking water a waste? Any citizen who values their voice should scorn Kail's disingenuous performance on Feb. 27 and his audacious inclination to snatch away our power to develop and shape regulations. The right to hold Kail accountable rests especially with the People of his 15th District, which includes Shell's massive pollution-spewing plastics plant, along with half of Washington County – the most fracked county in Pennsylvania. The real waste in our state government is not time spent on the DEP rulemaking process. It's time spent by lobbied legislators in selling out the government of, by, and for the People to the petrochemical industry. Terrie Baumgardner is a resident of Aliquippa and Clean Air Council's Outreach Coordinator for Beaver County. This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Opinion: The real waste in Pennsylvania government
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Virginia nurse now charged with abusing three babies at Henrico hospital and more headlines
The state Capitol. (Photo by Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury) • 'The Virginia localities most dependent on federal funding are generally in Southwest Virginia.'—Cardinal News • 'Court freezes order on Virginia's RGGI exit.'—E&E News by Politico • 'Measles case reported at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia.'—WAVY • 'Virginia Severe Weather Preparedness Week begins: Important weather topics you need to know.'—13NewsNow • 'Virginia nurse now charged with abusing three babies at Henrico hospital.'—WTVR SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
