Wolf wants Pa. power plant emission plan to fight climate change – By Marcy Levy (Associated Press) / June 18 2019
HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Wolf is asking Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled Legislature to take the first steps to authorize the state to join a regional consortium of states that sets a price and caps on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants.
The Democratic governor’s move is part of his effort to fight climate change in the nation’s No. 3 electric power state, while the price paid by power plant owners to emit carbon dioxide would net hundreds of millions of dollars each year for state government.
Mr. Wolf said in April that he wanted to take a serious look at it, comments that came amid a heated debate in the state Capitol over whether Pennsylvania’s nuclear power plant owners should be able to charge ratepayers for their “zero emission” electricity in the age of global warming.
Mr. Wolf’s aides have approached key lawmakers about adding the provision to budget-related legislation that’s expected to pass this month before lawmakers depart Harrisburg for their traditional summer break.
His administration did not respond to requests to discuss it. Rank-and-file lawmakers said they have not been briefed on discussions, while top Republican lawmakers said they were reviewing it.
“They reached out, we said that we would work with them to see if there was something we could all be comfortable with, we haven’t landed on that yet,” Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre, said. “So we’re going through it.”
The consortium, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, is a cap-and-trade program among Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states.
In the past, Mr. Wolf’s office has said Pennsylvania has broad authority to regulate air pollution, including carbon emissions, although it said that using that authority to impose an emissions cap would be susceptible to a court challenge.
Winning legislative backing could give the Wolf administration additional legal protection to write regulations under its existing air pollution control authority to require power plants to buy credits for carbon dioxide emissions and to allow the credits to be traded in the consortium’s market.
Separate legislation would be required to spend the money raised by auctioning emissions allowances, the Wolf administration has said.
In consortium states, owners of power plants fueled by coal, oil or natural gas with a capacity of 25 megawatts must buy a credit for every ton of carbon dioxide they emit.
That gives them an incentive to lower their emissions while making non-emitting plants — such as nuclear plants, wind turbines and solar installations — more cost competitive in power markets, said Jackson Morris, a climate and clean energy specialist for the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council.
Selling the credits would net Pennsylvania hundreds of millions of dollars annually. With dozens of coal and natural gas-fired power plants, Pennsylvania would be, by far, the biggest emissions state in the consortium. It emits about 92 million tons a year compared with the consortium’s 2019 cap of 80.2 million tons.
Credits sold at the most recent auction for $5.62. Meanwhile, the cap is programmed to drop by 3% a year through 2030.
The mechanics of writing the regulations necessary to join the consortium and then winning approval from the consortium states to join will take time.
The earliest Pennsylvania could reasonably join and see the program take effect is 2021, Mr. Morris said.
