Pennsylvania would quit the Northeast’s cap-and-trade program under a budget deal unveiled Wednesday between Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and the Republican-controlled state Senate.
The deal to withdraw from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which covers power plant emissions for about a dozen Northeastern states, would help end a legislative showdown that left Pennsylvania without a budget for four months. (Unlike the federal government shutdown, Pennsylvania agencies continued operations.) The deal received initial bipartisan agreement in committee Wednesday morning as it moved toward expected passage.
The Shapiro administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The agreement could leave Pennsylvania — the fourth-largest emitting state in the U.S. — without major policies to cut emissions. The Shapiro administration’s industrial decarbonization program depended on Inflation Reduction Act funding that congressional Republicans repealed this year, and Pennsylvania’s two hydrogen hubs were included on a list of projects the Energy Department was considering canceling.
