Guest Essay: Pennsylvania And Virginia Face Fight Of Their Lives - [What The Coal, Natural Gas Industries Want In PA]
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By Sen. Gene Yaw (R-Lycoming)

As Russian bombs fall on Ukraine, Pennsylvania refineries refine Russian crude oil and oil and natural gas prices are locked to every word said by Russian despots, Sen. Gene Yaw (R-Lycoming), Majority Chair of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee distributed this guest essay entitled “Pennsylvania and Virginia Face Fight Of Their Lives.”  It follows a March 1 essay he posted on the same topics entitled “Are We Nuts?” The new essay outlines what the coal and natural gas industries want to happen in Pennsylvania--

If Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration gets its way in Commonwealth Court, Pennsylvania will join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in a matter of weeks.

The administration’s potential victory – a hollow quest to lower carbon emissions in Pennsylvania – will cost residents $2 billion in the next five years.

How? According to the Department of Environmental Protection’s own budget projections, energy producers will spend an estimated $410 million each year buying credits at RGGI’s quarterly auctions meant to offset the emissions their facilities generate.

Make no mistake, this is a carbon tax, which means utilities will increase customers’ rates to recoup their added costs.

So now, on top of record-breaking inflation, skyrocketing gas prices and supply chain nightmares, Pennsylvanians will pay up to 25% more to keep the lights on and stay warm during winter.

And that clean air RGGI promises to deliver? It won’t exist either, since nothing can prevent carbon dioxide and other air pollutants emitted from power plants in Ohio or West Virginia from drifting across state lines.

Even the most optimistic projections today show a CO2 reduction of less than 1% by 2030.

Virginia recognizes the abject failure of RGGI to achieve any of its stated goals and wasted no time reversing course on the legislature’s shortsighted decision to join the program two years ago.

Despite wailing and gnashing of teeth from the green lobby, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive action – and corresponding legislative action – will protect the state’s most vulnerable from an unconscionable spike in utility costs at a time when global conflict and economic uncertainty threaten us all.

If only this administration felt a similar allegiance to the 13 million people it represents. If only they supported energy policy that prioritized independence and valued the plentiful resource right beneath their feet.

Instead, the proposal is to leave Pennsylvania’s environmental and economic destiny to the whims of elected officials in New York and New Jersey.

In each auction, the 11 states compete for a finite number of credits allowed under the regional cap. That number is based on a collective goal to reduce emissions 30% by 2030.

That means New England states – Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut – joined New York, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia in setting an “acceptable” level of power sector carbon pollution.

None of those states boast a robust energy industry, but rather – in the case of New England, specifically – rely on foreign gas and oil imports to meet demand.

So Pennsylvania, the number two natural gas producer in the country and the nation’s top power exporter, should set its environmental policies based on Vermont’s or Maine’s or New York’s standards?

This isn’t the first time the administration listened to liberal idealogues from states that bear little resemblance to our own.

For example, the administration sat idly by while other mid-Atlantic states in the Delaware River Basin Commission made rules that restricted Pennsylvania’s energy development.

Pennsylvania routinely adopts a “regional” approach to complex issues without recognizing the unique challenges we face or the inherent economic power we alone hold. RGGI is a prime example.

In Virginia, frustrated lawmakers and the environmental groups that bankroll them will inevitably challenge Youngkin’s executive order in the courts.

The Southern Environmental Law Center even had the audacity to tell Forbes that the state’s RGGI participation “cannot be undone by a simple pen stroke” since only the General Assembly “gets to decide laws in Virginia.”  

It’s strange how their counterparts a few hundred miles north claim the exact opposite – the state’s Air Pollution Control Act somehow gives our governor unilateral power to enact a tax on the power sector without considering any legislative input.

This is not how the other RGGI states decided to join either.

The administration will dance around this fact, like it did during DEP’s budget hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee earlier this month.

But the truth still remains – 162 out of 253 elected officials in Pennsylvania oppose joining RGGI because it will raise electricity bills, send thousands of jobs out of state and do nothing to improve air quality.

Unexpected Republican victories in Virginia means lawmakers there could codify the RGGI exit through statute.

Pennsylvania won’t be that lucky.

Our divided government means only a veto override – or a successful legal challenge – can prevent us from barreling head-first into this disastrous carbon tax scheme.

(Reprinted from Sen. Yaw’s website.)

NewsClips:

-- Inquirer: Andrew Maykuth: Pennsylvania Oil Refineries Use Significant Amount Of Russian Crude Oil 

-- The Atlantic: America’s Energy Security Is Falling Apart - No Matter How Much Oil/Gas The U.S. Drills, We Are Dangerously Dependent On International Market Whims

            “Today, America is the world’s largest oil and gas producer, but instead of winning us energy independence, this distinction has made the country dangerously dependent on market whim.

“No matter how much oil the U.S. drills, crude prices are still set on the international market—so when Russia invaded Ukraine, oil prices in America soared.

“This point alone invalidated the central principle of energy independence, that suburban F-150 drivers should not have to pay more at the pump because someone else started a war.”

Related Articles - This Week:

-- 6th Oil/Gas Shock: Listen To What Europe Says They Need - Not What The U.S. Oil/Gas Industry Wants

-- Guest Essay: PA Republican Suggestions To Make Us More Dependent On Fossil Fuels Will Not Secure Our Energy Future - By  Rep. Nancy Guenst (D-Montgomery), U.S. Army Veteran & Rep. Joseph G. Webster (D-Montgomery), U.S. Air Force Colonel, Retired

-- PA League Of Women Voters: Let's Have A Cleaner, Healthier Energy Future For Pennsylvania

-- Vesper Energy Developing 200 MW Solar Energy Project In Lawrence County

-- Community College Of Allegheny County Flipped The Switch On Completed Solar Energy Installation

-- University Of Pittsburgh Announces Climate Action Plan To Go Carbon Neutral By 2037 

-- Senate Resolution Offers Hope Lawmakers May Finally Be Taking The Economic And Environmental Benefits Of Developing A Rare Earth Minerals Industry Seriously In PA

Related Articles:

-- New European Commission REPowerEU Plan Does Not Justify Dramatic Increase In Drilling, Gas Infrastructure Build Out PA Natural Gas Politicians Are Calling For

-- Guest Essay: Our Addiction To Fossil Fuels Fuel War: ‘Only Truly Addicted People Chase After Their Next Hit With Singular Focus As The Consequences Of Their Addiction Pile Up Around Them’ - By Rev. Mitchell C. Hescox, Evangelical Environmental Network

-- PA Natural Gas Politicians Want To ‘Unleash’ PA’s Gas Industry - What We Need First Is For Industry To Divert LNG To Europe; Take Up The Slack; Oil & Gas 2.0; True Energy Independence  

-- Oil & Gas Industry And Their Politicians Are Pushing Hard To Hook Us To Volatile Foreign Energy Markets Where There Is No Limit On What They Can Charge You

-- 2 Republican Senators Lay Out Agenda For Deregulating Oil & Gas Industry, Power Plants In PA

-- Republican Senators Propose Gas Drilling On At Least 22,000 More Acres Of State Forest, Mining 920 Acres Of Coal Under A State Park To Pay For DCNR Infrastructure Backlog 

-- DEP Budget Hearing: Unconventional Natural Gas Industry Didn’t Drill 40% Of The Wells It Had DEP Permits For

-- Conventional Oil & Gas Drillers Pay Only $46,100 Of The $10,600,000 It Costs DEP To Regulate That Industry; Taxpayers May Be Asked To Pay The Difference

-- Senate Budget Hearings: PA’s Experience With New Pipeline Construction Shows State Laws Not Strong Enough To Prevent Environmental Damage, Protect Public Safety

[Posted: March 19, 2022]


3/21/2022

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