PA Environment Digest Blog: 15 Western PA Environmental Organizations Call On Gov. Shapiro To Implement RGGI

On August 24, a coalition of fifteen organizations based in Western Pennsylvania has sent a letter to the Shapiro administration denouncing the formation of a secret committee, whose members and meeting minutes are not known to the public, in an apparent attempt to scuttle Pennsylvania’s entrance into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

The letter, spearheaded by Protect PT, has been signed by Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania, FracTracker Alliance, Group Against Smog & Pollution, the Breathe Project, Allegheny County Clean Air Now, and Sunrise Movement Pittsburgh, among others.

RGGI is a cap-and-invest program that would regulate carbon emissions from power plants. In the states in which it has been implemented, it has saved lives by reducing air pollution.

An estimate from ABT Associates, a global issues think tank, estimated that RGGI is responsible for “300 to 830 lives saved, more than 8,200 asthma attacks avoided, 39,000 lost work days averted, and $5.7 billion in health savings and other benefits.”

RGGI states are also “on track to achieve reductions of GHG emissions of 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2020”, according to the study.

Against this backdrop, the Shapiro administration has formed what the group’s said waste a secret working group to decide whether to participate in RGGI, according to a bombshell Right to Know request filed by Inside Climate News.

The Shapiro working group is comprised largely of fossil fuel industry executives and lobbyists who are likely to push to kill the program, at the expense of the public.

The group’s said this hands the fossil fuel industry a second chance to kill RGGI, which it is also trying to do in court.

The letter begins by stating, “We are shocked and appalled by the report from Inside Climate News that exposes the way your administration has placed the fate of RGGI into the hands of a secret committee, whose members, agendas, and minutes are not made public, and whose members do not share the interests of the public. While the Shapiro administration should be focusing on defending RGGI in court, it is instead offering the corporations who would be regulated by RGGI an additional chance to kill the program.”

Though many of the group’s members remain secret, some of those identified were:

-- Hilary Mercer, a senior vice president at Shell

-- Lael Campbell, a vice president at Constellation Energy

-- Zachery Smith, director of government relations at CNX Resources

-- Sean Lane, an executive vice president at Olympus Power

-- And a lobbyist for the Pennsylvania Grade Crude Oil Coalition

“Because the group is secret, it’s not clear where to even send a letter objecting to its conduct,” said Tom Pike, an Environmental Policy Advocate with Protect PT. “It’s a catch-22. We are trying to give public comment about the fact that the secret group does not allow public comment. We’ve sent this letter to officials in the DEP, Department of Health, and the Shapiro administration, but to ensure the letter actually gets read by the people who are making these decisions behind closed doors, we’ve had to take it to the press instead.”

“So to anyone in the Shapiro administration reading this: tell your boss that this isn’t okay. Public policy decisions should be made in the view of the public,” Pike said.

“Our elected officials are supposed to serve us,” said Gillian Graber, Executive Director of Protect PT. “We’re tired of them making decisions behind our backs, without our input.”

The letter concludes, “History books will record that, during the warmest year in history, in the warmest month in history, while Pennsylvanian skies went red with the remains of burned corpses of trees, the Shapiro administration orchestrated secret meetings where it was debated whether to do too little, or to do nothing at all.

“Enough.

“Governor Shapiro: disband the secret group, release their minutes, implement RGGI, and get serious.”

Click Here for a copy of the letter.

Implementation of RGGI is currently stayed by a state court as they consider a legal challenge to the program.

Visit DEP’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative webpage for more information on this program.

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