Jim Willis
Editor & Publisher, Marcellus Drilling News (MDN)

Tom Wolf, Gov. Condescension, is pushing RGGI during a health crisis he helped create and a bi-partisan group of legislators is saying no and fighting back.

We previously told you about Gov. Wolf’s executive order (EO) to force Pennsylvania to join with northeastern states in the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a regional alliance to slap a carbon tax on coal and natural gas-fired electric plants in order to force them out of business. Eighteen Pennsylvania State Senators sent a letter to Wolf on April 21 asking him to withdraw his EO. On Tuesday, a group of 58 House members, including 10 Democrats, sent a similar letter to Wolf requesting the same thing.

The letter sent Tuesday points out “much has changed” since the pandemic. Pennsylvania’s economy is tanking and RGGI will kill hundreds (perhaps thousands) of more jobs. Now is not the time to dally around with social engineering experiments and selecting energy sources for people–at the cost of jobs and the economy. It’s notable that 10 Democrats joined Republicans to oppose their own governor.

At the request of Rep. Donna Oberlander (R-Armstrong/Clarion/Forest), Rep. Jim Struzzi (R-Indiana) and Rep. Pam Snyder (D-Greene/Washington/Fayette), a bipartisan group of 58 Pennsylvania House of Representatives members signed a letter urging Gov. Tom Wolf and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to suspend Pennsylvania’s regulatory efforts to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

“Much has changed since Gov. Wolf’s RGGI Executive Order,” said Oberlander. “A pandemic has swept the globe, crushing the world’s and Pennsylvania’s economy. Pennsylvania needs to focus on preserving the jobs we have, like those held by the thousands of workers and families who rely on electric generation plants in Armstrong and Indiana counties. Now is not the time to allow policies to advance, like RGGI, that threaten to destroy those jobs and communities.”

Wolf’s RGGI Executive Order directs DEP to “[i]nclude a robust public outreach effort working with the business community, energy producers, energy suppliers, organized labor, environmental groups and others” with respect to “the development and implementation” of the RGGI regulation.

“To date, DEP has yet to meet with the plant owners or unions representing workers who will lose their jobs in the event Pennsylvania joins RGGI,” said Snyder. “When the governor promised ‘a robust public outreach,’ we all expected far more from DEP than restricting that outreach to the bare minimum required by law for the promulgation of regulations.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has also restricted the ability of impacted stakeholders to communicate with their elected officials. This has been especially so for individuals and organizations opposed to RGGI.

“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Wolf’s response to it, a large number of local and state organized labor groups, along with coal and natural gas electric plant owners, have been forced to cancel rallies, town hall meetings and other public events,” said Struzzi, “This is certainly not the time to force a job killing regulation like RGGI down the throats of those who fear for their jobs, yet are prohibited from communicating those fears due to stay-at-home orders.”

The bipartisan House letter highlighted the following factors in urging the governor to rescind the RGGI Executive Order:

•  The RGGI Executive Order directs DEP to conduct a “robust public outreach” to develop and implement the RGGI regulation, not the bare statutory minimum.To date, DEP has yet to contact plant owners, labor unions and counties impacted by RGGI, and efforts by those groups to conduct public rallies and meetings have been prohibited by the pandemic.

•  DEP just published the RGGI modeling data, which demonstrated the following:

>  The modeling data relies on assumptions in place prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impacts, and is thus already obsolete.

>  RGGI will trigger the near immediate (and certainly premature) closure of every coal and many less-efficient gas plants in PA. In year one of RGGI, 2022, DEP modeling projects an 89% decline in coal-fired generation.

>  Modeling conclusions did not consider any of the economic fallout associated with these plant closures, which will extend beyond direct workers and plants, to include supply chain, contract jobs, school districts and local governments.

>  Across PJM, carbon dioxide reductions will be minimal as a result of increased power production from non-RGGI states, which is inconsistent with the governor’s directive regarding “leakage.”

>  In 2030, carbon dioxide emissions in Pennsylvania will be comparable with or without Pennsylvania joining RGGI.

•  The only “public outreach” from DEP to date has been through a virtual format and limited to its advisory committees (i.e., CAC and AQTAC) and, during last week’s meeting, DEP prohibited public comment. And, for next week’s AQTAC meeting, it limits public comment period to 15 minutes.

•  COVID has eliminated meaningful public comment. Labor rallies have been cancelled, standing committee hearings cancelled and local town hall meetings cancelled.

The bipartisan House letter to the governor concluded that, if Wolf rescinds the RGGI order, it will “remove a significant point of disagreement between your administration and the General Assembly in the months ahead and, instead, will enable all of us to focus our time and efforts toward overcoming the devastating impacts from COVID-19 to the Pennsylvania economy.”

Editor’s Note: Tom Wolf will ignore this, of course. He may well be the most condescending governor Pennsylvania has ever had; the spoiled child who grew up to be governor. He just extended the WuFlu lockdown for the rest of Pennsylvania (not among the 24 counties released to “yellow” today to June 24) when it’s obvious that almost none of our counties outside of Philadelphia have a serious problem outside of nursing homes and that problem was created by the arrogant Tom Wolf himself along with his totally incompetent Secretary of Health.

PA Secretary of Health Levine and Governor Tom Wolf

They did so by aping Andrew Cuomo and Howard Zucker, their New York counterparts, in ordering our nursing to take WuFlu patients, which is nothing short of criminal behavior and, now, as a result, 69% of our WuFlu deaths are in nursing homes. But, Tom Wolf is avoiding the problem by punishing the entire state. This is Tom Wolf is; a petulant man-child and he’s not going to relent on RGGI either unless he’s forced to do so. Thankfully, there is bi-partisan resistance but is there enough? It looks as if this may require a Federal lawsuit.

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