Pennsylvania court permanently blocks effort to make power plants pay for greenhouse gas emissions
A court says Pennsylvania can't enforce a regulation to make power plant owners pay for their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania cannot enforce a regulation to make power plant owners pay for their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, a state court ruled Wednesday, dealing another setback to the centerpiece of former Gov. Tom Wolf's plan to fight global warming.
The Commonwealth Court last year temporarily blocked Pennsylvania from becoming the first major fossil fuel-producing state to adopt a carbon-pricing program, and the new ruling makes that decision permanent.
The ruling is a victory for Republican lawmakers and coal-related interests that argued that the carbon-pricing plan amounted to a tax, and therefore would have required legislative approval. They also argued that Wolf, a Democrat, had sought to get around legislative opposition by unconstitutionally imposing the requirement through a regulation.
The court agreed in a 4-1 decision.
It would be up to Wolf's successor, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, to decide whether to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. Shapiro's administration had no immediate comment on the ruling, and Shapiro hasn't said publicly if he would follow through on it.
Republican lawmakers hailed the decision and urged Shapiro not to appeal it. Critics had said the pricing plan would raise electricity bills, hurt in-state energy producers and drive new power generation to other states while doing little to fight climate change.
Opponents also included natural gas-related interests in the nation's No. 2 gas state, industrial and commercial power users and labor unions whose members work on pipelines and at power plants and refineries.
The
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