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Hi —
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Anti-environment lawmakers aren’t taking the summer off, and neither can we.
Now is the time to tell legislative offices that we want the RGGI Investments Act — a bill that is the first step to ensure that proceeds from RGGI will get invested in environmental justice communities, in workers affected by energy transition, and in Pennsylvania’s growing clean energy and commercial and industrial sectors.
Tell your lawmakers to cosponsor the RGGI Investments Act.
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Pennsylvania’s Environmental Quality Board recently voted 15-4 to finalize a regulation that will allow our state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). This carbon reduction program requires fossil fuel power plants to pay for their pollution. Across the northeast, it’s reduced air pollution and generated revenue that’s been reinvested to benefit communities and workers — and it will do the same thing here in Pennsylvania.
This vote was a critical step, but now decisions need to get made to determine exactly how this money will be spent.
That’s where the RGGI Investments Act comes in. This bill is the first step to ensure that the proceeds from RGGI are invested in environmental justice communities, workers affected by energy transition, and Pennsylvania’s growing clean energy sector.
Unfortunately, there are opponents in the legislature who are still going full force to block PA from joining RGGI. If the RGGI Investments Act is ever going to get the traction it needs to become law, we need to get loud now and be prepared to be in this fight for the long haul.
Please tell your lawmakers to support helping communities and workers during the transition to clean energy by cosponsoring the RGGI Investments Act >>
Opponents of RGGI will say anything to stop it, and are even going so far as to claim that the program will cause coal plants throughout the state to close. The fact is that coal plants are already closing or transitioning to renewable energy sources in the next ten years as it’s become far less expensive to generate power from gas and renewables.1
The best way to help coal plant workers who are in danger of getting displaced isn’t by propping up the coal industry. It’s by re-training those workers for careers in the renewable energy sector — a strategy that will happen when we join RGGI and pass the RGGI Investments Act.
The RGGI Investments Act puts us on the path to address both the existential threat of climate change and to ensure that all Pennsylvanians — from communities that form the backbone of our traditional energy economy to those currently bearing the brunt of health and safety risks associated with pollution and climate change — aren’t left behind in the transition.
Right now, extreme weather and massive fires are flooding our towns, polluting our water, and making our air unsafe — and it’s only going to get worse. RGGI is our best shot at addressing climate change, helping workers, and creating resilient communities. Urge your lawmakers to give the RGGI Investments Act the traction it needs to become a reality by cosponsoring the bill >>
Thanks for all that you do.
Katie Blume
Political Director
Conservation Voters of PA
1 – "RGGI and Coal in PA: Separating Fact from Fiction," NRDC Blog, May 19, 2020.
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