HARRISBURG – After Senate Democrats failed to stand up for Pennsylvania workers and ratepayers, the fight against Gov. Tom Wolf’s $781 million carbon tax will continue in court, Sen. Pat Stefano (R-32) said.
While Republicans stood united to override the governor’s veto of the resolution that disapproves of Pennsylvania joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), Democrats voted against the state’s economic interests in favor of this discredited climate policy that will spike residential electricity bills 30% and kill 22,000 jobs.
Just last week, impartial analysis from the Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) concluded RGGI could nearly quadruple new electricity costs for consumers above the administration’s own year-old projections for the program. The IFO also warned members that “those costs would be pushed through to final customers.”
“I don’t understand how anyone who has been to the grocery store or gas pump lately could possibly vote to raise electricity costs for Pennsylvanians. People are already being buried by higher costs for necessities, and now Democrats want to take even more money out of everyone’s pockets? It’s unconscionable, especially because the environmental benefits are merely empty promises,” Stefano said.
RGGI will cripple Pennsylvania’s economic standing as a leading energy producer and leave the nation more reliant on fossil fuels from hostile nations than ever before, without ever achieving any of RGGI’s purported air quality improvements.
Multiple independent reports show that emissions from Pennsylvania’s power sector declined at a comparable rate to the other 10 RGGI states over the last decade, further undermining the flimsy justification the administration uses to force this unconstitutional tax onto 13 million residents.
Litigation to stop final implementation of RGGI in Pennsylvania is pending in state court.
CONTACT: Mark Fetzko, mfetzko@pasen.gov