The Governor Who Cried Emissions

Gov. Josh Shapiro claims to be an “all-of-the-above” energy governor, so long as “all-of-the-above” includes energy taxes, energy taxes, and—you guessed it—energy taxes.

Since taking office, Shapiro has relentlessly pushed for Green New Deal-style mandates that restrict Pennsylvania’s energy capabilities and push more taxes onto ratepayers.

The most infamous of these was the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon tax that threatened to raise electricity bills by over 30 percent.

Pennsylvania entered RGGI in 2019, under executive overreach by former Gov. Tom Wolf. However, the Commonwealth Court ruled Wolf’s executive action unconstitutional. Shapiro appealed the decision, doubling down on RGGI’s carbon tax. This legal limbo lasted over six years until last November, when the state legislature forced the governor to drop his litigation and freed the commonwealth from the threat of RGGI.

A new report from the Commonwealth Foundation analyzed the damage left in RGGI’s wake: More than $5 billion dollars of lost investment in our energy sector, with 91 percent of projects never coming online or leaving for more investment-ready states, such as Ohio (coincidentally, a non-RGGI state). For comparison, before RGGI, Pennsylvania’s energy projects had a failure rate of only 17 percent.

Unfortunately, RGGI’s failure-to-launch hasn’t deterred the governor’s continued push for radical green energy policies in Pennsylvania. Shapiro’s Lightning Plan, a self-described “RGGI alternative,” would cost the commonwealth more than $157.2 billion and more than double residential electricity bills.

These policies are carbon taxes in sheep’s clothing, claiming to “cut emissions” while blocking access to energy sources like liquified natural gas (LNG)—a proven source for clean, affordable, reliable energy.

If you only listened to the governor’s rhetoric, you’d think Pennsylvania was having an emissions crisis. What Shapiro fails to mention is that Pennsylvania is already a national leader in carbon emissions reductions—all without RGGI.

In 2023, the commonwealth’s Independent Fiscal Office found that carbon emissions plummeted by nearly 11 percent, the most significant year-over-year drop in decades. At the same time, the commonwealth’s energy generation—despite the investment drought caused by RGGI—increased (in large part to LNG), making it one of the few states on its regional grid to cut emissions and boost output.

Governor Shapiro can cry emissions all he wants. It doesn’t erase the fact that Pennsylvania energy can be affordable, reliable, and clean without his heavy-handed mandates.

Let Pennsylvania’s RGGI detour serve as a cautionary tale to not let the green scheme fool you: Mandates will never serve an energy-rich state like Pennsylvania as well as free-market policies.