State House Votes To Block Pennsylvania from Joining RGGI As Governor Wolf Pledges To Veto Attack On Climate Initiative

Harrisburg, PA — Today, the Pennsylvania House passed SCRRR1 disapproving of a regulation enabling Pennsylvania to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The bill now heads to Governor Wolf, who has pledged to veto it to ensure the state joins the carbon emissions reduction initiative in 2022. Based on today’s vote, neither the House nor the Senate would have enough votes to override that veto.

Since its inception in 2009, RGGI has reduced power sector carbon dioxide emissions across its eleven member states by auctioning carbon credits that fund investments into clean energy programs. The program will incentivize power providers in Pennsylvania to steadily reduce their climate-disrupting CO2 pollution from coal, oil, and gas power plants and switch to clean energy, creating thousands of jobs, cleaning up air pollution, and developing the local clean energy economy. 

Tom Schuster, Clean Energy Program Director for the Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter, issued the following statement:

“While today’s vote was expected given the legislature’s history of obstruction on this issue, it is still extremely disappointing to see them try to block Pennsylvania’s entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. A legislator simply cannot claim to support climate action while voting to block the only program on the table that will reduce carbon emissions, improve public health, and create local jobs. We thank Governor Wolf for his steadfast commitment to RGGI, and we will continue to fully support him in defending the program going forward, including upholding his veto of this misguided resolution. Our elected leaders need to act on climate now because the longer they wait to reduce emissions, the more drastic measures we’ll have to take to avoid catastrophic climate disruption.”