Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
FReepmail me to be added to the list.
Posted on 12/21/2020 5:10:02 PM PST by lightman
Gov. Tom Wolf declined Monday to sign on to a multi-state program designed to impose a cap on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.
The Transportation & Climate Initiative aims to reduce emissions but also carried the likelihood of higher gas prices at the pump in participating states. Other governors also opted against signing onto the initiative. But Wolf’s move isn’t necessarily a permanent rejection of the concept.
“Governor Wolf is supportive of cap and invest programs as a cost-effective means to reduce pollution and recognizes transportation as the third highest category of CO2 emissions in Pennsylvania,” his office said in a statement released late Monday.
“Pennsylvania will continue to support the three TCI signatory states in this effort and evaluate Pennsylvania’s involvement in the future as part of a broader strategy to provide stable long-term funding of Pennsylvania’s transportation infrastructure.”
The statement also said Wolf will continue to focus on his ongoing crusade to place Pennsylvania into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, a separate 10-state consortium aimed at reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from the region’s power production plants.
From a Pennsylvania perspective, the administration’s decision on the so-called TCI plan seemed to be a recognition that it would be too difficult to open an expansive second front on climate change now, especially when that second front would likely carry higher prices at the gas pump for all Pennsylvanians.
More broadly, supporters and opponents of TCI have said it’s worth waiting to see what the federal government, under President-elect Joseph Biden, does on vehicle emissions going forward. Biden has said that he would like to revert to something close to higher vehicle fuel efficiency standards issued by the Obama Administration, but later rolled back by President Donald J. Trump.
Finally, some governors also probably got counsel that it would be wise to hold off on anything that could curtail the economy’s recovery from the pandemic-fueled recession.
Business leaders were relieved at Wolf’s decision on TCI, and even staunch environmentalists said it did not come as a shock, given the coming change in administrations in Washington and the policy changes that means, as well as other factors.
“We are glad to see the Wolf Administration take a step back with this,” said Kevin Sunday, director of government affairs for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry. “Unilaterally raising the gas tax... would be a pretty strong blow to our economy that’s reeling right now because of the pandemic and the shutdown orders.”
Pennsylvanians already pay the second-largest state tax on gasoline in the nation, Sunday noted. TCI’s own modeling this year suggested gas prices would increase up to 17 cents-per-gallon when the program is launched, and independent analyses suggested the cost to motorists could be even greater.
“I’m not upset by this. I saw it coming. I do not take it as a repudiation of TCI,” said Joseph Minott, executive director of the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council.
“I think everyone that everyone who believes in climate change realizes that we have to deal with the transportation sector and we have to deal with it quickly. But we also have to deal with it in a way that people will understand and accept. And I think we will get there.”
Initially touted as a plan that would commit state governments throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions to being active players in cutting pollution from the transportation sector, currently the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gases, TCI involved 12 candidate states at its inception last year.
The number of states singing on to Monday’s announced agreement was in flux to the very end, as negotiations over the emissions caps and other key details continued.
In the end, it was just Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, plus Washington D.C.
TCI officials were careful to say Monday that those who didn’t sign on now will still be able to join later on. The initial auctions for the transportation fuels’ carbon allowances is scheduled for 2022.
Kathleen Theoharides, secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and chair of the initiative, told The Boston Globe last week the agreement is vital for Massachusetts and other states to reach their goals of eliminating carbon emissions as much as possible by 2050.
“All of the states have ambitious climate goals, but none of us can hit those goals without reducing emissions from transportation,” she said.
The point of TCI is well-taken. In 2018, greenhouse gas emissions from America’s transportation sector accounted for about 28.2 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making it the largest single contributor. In Pennsylvania, however, transportation emissions still run third to electricity generation and manufacturing.
The initiative aims to require hundreds of fuel distributors in participating states to buy permits for the carbon dioxide produced by the gasoline and diesel fuel they sell. The number of permits available would decline over time, as in RGGI, with the goal of reducing tailpipe emissions by as much as 25 percent over the next decade.
The fees paid by the fuel distributors would raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the participating states for investments in a cleaner transportation sector and other measures to promote the transition away from fossil fuels.
But they would also be passed down the supply pipeline to lead to higher gas prices throughout the region, depending on the price of oil, and that’s where the focus of the most intense opposition to the plan has been in Pennsylvania.
According to the American Automobile Association, average retail gasoline costs in Pennsylvania are already more than 40 cents per gallon higher on average than in Ohio and West Virginia, two states that are not part of the TCI group.
The spread for diesel is even higher.
Add another layer of costs on top of that and it would kill the fueling industry in Pennsylvania, said Don Bowers, a fuel distributor in Pittsburgh.
“What trucker is going to buy fuel in Pennsylvania?” Bowers asked earlier this month. “They can fill up in other states and not have to touch Pennsylvania (for fuel purchases)... and these little guys, especially on the state line, can’t afford to stay in business. It’s a feel-good tax for the liberals. That’s all it is.”
Some lawmakers from southwestern Pennsylvania have added their perception that the new cost will land hardest on working class families, to subsidize higher-income drivers who are already into the more expensive electric cars.
Others have questioned whether the environmental benefit is worth the cost. By TCI’s own modeling, tailpipe emissions across the Northeast will drop 19 percent in the next 10 years under a “do-nothing” strategy as the vehicle fleet turns over to cleaner vehicles, assuming Obama-era fuel efficiency standards go forward.
With its most stringent caps, TCI would take the emissions down by 25 percent.
Supporters argued the regional transportation emissions pact would actually aid in recession recovery as the auction proceeds are plowed into major investments in public transit and other cleaner forms of transportation, while creating thousands of new jobs in those sectors.
“TCI in itself is expected to bring about $1 billion annually into Pennsylvania to help bridge some of the budget gap in transportation funding,” said Brianna Esteves, manager for state policy for Ceres, an environmental advocacy group focused on steering business and industry to sustainable growth models.
That money, Esteves said, could create new investments in public transit, enticing new riders through increased routes and expanded options; increase Internet access in underserved areas of the state to help promote working from home, where and when possible; and build out the sketchy infrastructure to support electric vehicles.
Wolf has spent most of his second term looking for funding for key infrastructure improvements as part of his Restore Pennsylvania plan.
Esteves also argued that if the broader market or new federal policies do bring about emissions reductions, then the regional cap-and-trade program will be able to reflect that with lower prices for the emissions credits, and thereby, a much smaller impact on gas pump prices.
If the federal government does or cannot act, she added, TCI is a good and necessary alternative to make progress on a regional level.
Proponents also point to a recent study by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston University, and other universities that estimated the initiative would provide health benefits worth more than $11 billion across the region over the next decade. Less pollution from cars and trucks would save lives, reduce childhood asthma, and reduce the health disparities of people of color, who on average breathe 66 percent more air pollution from vehicles than white residents, the study found.
Wolf, despite Monday’s move, has made climate change a higher priority for his administration in his second term.
In a state climate change action plan released last year, Wolf set out goals that would keep Pennsylvania on track to meet reductions goals established in the 2015 U.N. Paris Climate Agreement, which President Trump has abandoned on the federal level.
The targeted cuts - tied to 2005 emissions levels - are 26 percent by 2025, and 80 percent by 2050.
In the end, however, with a Biden Administration on the horizon, Wolf and many of his counterparts have apparently concluded that the bang for the TCI buck just doesn’t justify the fight right now.
Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
FReepmail me to be added to the list.
I know exactly where he lives...he used to be my neighbor.
Didn’t their gas tax just go up?
Driving through PA last Thanksgiving, stopped to get gas and was shocked at the price. Said something to the clerk and she said they just raised it.
I can still find it here in MD for $1.99.
and Pennsylvanians voted for fossil-fuel phase-out Joe!
PA has the second highest gas tax in the nation. 58.2 cents/gallon vs your 27 cents south of the Mason-Dixon.
http://www.pennsylvaniagasprices.com/Tax_Info.aspx
The boost was the undoing and unseating of Governor Tom Corbett (RINO) which of course gave us Tommie (the Commie) Wolf.
Dominion voted for Sloe Joe.
Honest Pennsylvania continued to be Trumpistan.
Or did they????
With all the interstate trucking that crosses the Keystone State there is no shot at making those emission targets. Pennsylvania motorists will end footing the bill for the truck emissions as others have pointed out the truckers aren’t paying if they can avoid it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.