Watro Wants Our Energy Industry to Reach its Full Potential

HARRISBURG - This week, Rep. Dane Watro (R-Luzerne/Schuylkill) joined with his House colleagues to help move Pennsylvania's energy industry forward. "Pennsylvania is home to an abundance of energy resources, but we need to get government out of the way of our energy industry to allow it to reach its full potential and ensure we have an affordable, reliable energy supply," said Watro, after signing on to a petition to bring legislation, Senate Bill 186, up for a vote in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to get the Commonwealth out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Several states - Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont - are part of the RGGI arrangement that imposes a tax on carbon dioxide emissions by power generators, such as, coal- or natural gas-fired plants that produce electricity. That tax burden is passed on to energy consumers. Even with Pennsylvania's RGGI regulation under a court injunction - meaning the RGGI taxes aren't currently being applied to Pennsylvania power generators - the uncertainty created by the regulation, and the possibility it could still be imposed, have caused utilities to raise electricity rates and power generating companies to look elsewhere to locate their projects. "Since 2019, when former Gov. Tom Wolf, without legislative authority, began the process to force Pennsylvania into RGGI, electricity rates have jumped - driving up all of our energy bills - and new energy projects in the Commonwealth have dried up, with no new natural gas plants proposed," said Watro. "The threat of RGGI has driven private investments in energy projects - along with the jobs that money creates - to other states that aren't part of RGGI, such as Ohio and West Virgina, which is costing our state billions of dollars and weakening our ability to meet ever-growing electricity needs." Senate Bill 186, which would repeal the RGGI regulation, was approved by the state Senate in early February with bipartisan support. It was then referred to the House Environmental and Natural Resource Protection Committee, where it has been ignored. Representative Dane Watro 116th Legislative District Pennsylvania House of Representatives Media Contact: Chris Comisac 717-772-9845 [email protected] RepWatro.com / Facebook.com/RepWatro

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