By Tom Schuster, Clean Energy Program Director
President Biden has the most ambitious climate agenda of any administration to date, and his early work to undo some of the harmful policies of the Trump Administration is providing some tailwinds for our state-level climate action. Below are updates on two ways we are working to cut pollution from our largest sources of climate-disrupting pollution in Pennsylvania.
Continuing the March to Join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
Pennsylvania is in the process of becoming the first fossil fuel net exporting state to place a declining cap on electric sector carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, thanks to Governor Wolf's 2019 executive order to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). If you thought such a move might cause the coal and gas industries to have a conniption, you would be right. While engaging in the process to ensure that the proposal is as strong and equitable as possible, we also fought hard in the legislature last session to block a bill that would prevent the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) from adopting ANY regulation to limit ANY greenhouse gas. Ultimately, House Bill (HB) 2025 did pass this fall, but Governor Wolf vetoed it. The motivation for the opposition is simple: DEP's modeling (as well as our independent analysis) of RGGI impacts shows it will accelerate the abandonment of coal as an electricity source in Pennsylvania and will essentially stop the buildout of new gas power plants.
In December, it was finally our turn to go on the offensive. The DEP scheduled ten virtual public hearings between 12/8/20 and 12/14/20 (very challenging timing!), with a total of roughly 450 speaker slots. Knowing how the industry had mobilized earlier in the year, our coalition of about 40 organizations set a goal of holding 300-350 of those slots. After the first day, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette noted that 84 of the 87 speakers supported PA joining RGGI, and represented “a diverse swath of environmental and community activists, small business owners, Jewish and Christian faith leaders, farmers, mothers, students, scientists, and academics.” It didn’t get any better for RGGI opponents after that, as by the time the hearings wrapped up, our coalition tallied 431 testifiers in favor against 20 opposed. In fact, the support was so overwhelming that two legislators who were scheduled to testify on 12/14, who were the ones leading the charge on the anti-RGGI legislation, didn't even show up!
Sierra Club turned out over 60 of the speakers, and I want to send a huge thank you to those of you who took the time to speak up on this critical issue. We followed it up with an action alert that generated over 1200 written comments and coordinated technical comments with PennFuture, Clean Air Council, National Resources Defense Council, and several frontline community groups. Notably, there is virtually no environmental justice-based opposition to RGGI like we have seen in some other states. Our coalition includes a number of groups focused on equity from the perspective of frontline communities, low-income ratepayers, and communities of color, who have been engaged with DEP since the process began. They recognize the limits of the program, are focused on making it better, and believe that RGGI is an important tool to reduce our climate impacts in a state where the Republican majority in the legislature still refuses to accept that climate change is even a problem.
We still have nearly a year to go before this rule is finalized, and since the election did not improve the makeup of the PA legislature, we expect renewed legislative attacks in the new session. But our overwhelming support during the public hearings and comment period should give at least some legislators pause and shore up the Governor and our allies to push back against those attacks. We’ll be calling on you again to help us hold the line in the legislature, and there will also be an opportunity in the coming months to weigh in on how the proceeds from the CO2 allowance auctions are spent. The auction is projected to produce around $300 million annually that can be reinvested in clean energy, efficiency, pollution abatement, and clean jobs where they are most needed. Stay tuned!
Cleaner Cars Coming to Pennsylvania?
Anyone who has attempted to shop for an electric vehicle (EV) in Pennsylvania has probably run into a frustrating issue: other than Tesla, not only are most models not available for sale at our dealerships, many dealers don’t know anything about them or how to order them.
There is a simple reason for this. California (CA) has a requirement that an increasing percentage of new vehicle sales be zero-emission as part of its fight against air pollution and climate change. Under Section 177 of the Clean Air Act, other states are able to adopt CA’s air quality-related regulations, and ten states to date have adopted the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) standards. In order to avoid fines for non-compliance, most automakers send their limited inventories of EVs to these states instead of Pennsylvania.
Fortunately, that could soon change. In February, Governor Wolf announced that he has directed the DEP to initiate a rulemaking to adopt the California ZEV mandate. If this becomes law, automakers would have to earn credits by selling EVs, hydrogen vehicles, and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs, which receive fewer credits than full ZEVs). The credit requirement roughly translates to 8% of vehicle sales by 2025 (a nearly 7-fold increase over the current EV market share).
There is a complicated system of credit trading and banking that means the 8 percent sales target is not hard and fast for each member state. But the rule is critical for two reasons beyond the actual sales numbers. First, Pennsylvania’s large auto market would be leveraged to help drive up the production of EVs by automakers. Second, many more EV and PHEV models would be available for purchase in PA. For these reasons, this rulemaking is perhaps the most important step that we can take to increase public acceptance and adoption of EVs.
We expect that the most vocal opposition to this rule will come from the auto dealers associations, as they will face pressure from manufacturers to increase EV sales, and stand to lose income from the service side of their business since EVs require significantly less maintenance. So, we’ll have to demonstrate strong public support for this rule in order to get it finalized before the end of Wolf’s second term and ensure it survives the next administration, no matter who is in office. There will be a public comment period in late 2021 or early 2022, but as with RGGI, we will start early to earn positive press coverage and build a coalition in support of the clean cars rule.
Anyone interested in lending a hand to help get either of these rules across the finish line can reach out to Tom Schuster. Thank you for helping to build a clean energy future!
This blog was included as part of the Spring 2021 Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!