Final Fight for PA’s RGGI Rule: Environmental Groups Go Before Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Environmental Groups Ask Court to Overturn Injunction on PA DEP’s Carbon Budget and Trade Rule
Harrisburg, PA — Today, environmental organizations PennFuture, Clean Air Council, Sierra Club, and Environmental Defense Fund went before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in support of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) carbon budget and trading rule that allows Pennsylvania to participate in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI.
In 2023, the Commonwealth Court enjoined implementation of the RGGI Rule, thus preventing Pennsylvania from taking part in the RGGI allowance auction and depriving the Commonwealth of massive climate and health benefits for Pennsylvanians and the opportunity to invest billions of dollars in auction proceeds to further benefit the environment and public health. Governor Shapiro and the environmental groups appealed that injunction.
Today, the environmental organizations argued to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that the anticipated proceeds from the sale of RGGI allowances at auction are a fee, and not a tax as argued by the challengers. Because DEP has the authority to impose fees as part of its regulatory structure, and because the RGGI Rule is supported by both the Commonwealth’s Air Pollution Control Act (APCA) and the Environmental Rights Amendment (ERA), Article I, Section 27 of the Commonwealth Constitution, the rule must be allowed to go into effect.
PennFuture, Clean Air Council, Sierra Club, and Environmental Defense Fund issued the following joint statement following oral argument:
“Critically, our groups are arguing something that DEP has failed to: that the Environmental Rights Amendment supports this regulation and DEP’s right to protect Pennsylvanians from the massive financial, health, and environmental burdens of climate instability associated with the unchecked emission of greenhouse gases from electric power plants. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recognized the importance of the ERA to this case when it granted our intervention last year.
DEP’s RGGI Rule utilizes an appropriate and effective multifold approach to reduce and remediate the degradation to ERA public trust resources from greenhouse gas emissions. RGGI is a step towards fulfilling DEP's constitutional charge to protect public resources, like the air we breathe, against polluters who have had a free pass to profit for decades by degrading something that belongs to all Pennsylvanians. Attacks on it are attacks on the constitutional rights of everybody in the state.
We have lost critical years to address the threat of climate disruption while this case has made its way through the courts; and during that time we should have been investing to improve air quality and saving lives throughout the Commonwealth. We believe the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will look to the clear language of the APCA and the Environmental Rights Amendment and overrule the injunction imposed by the Commonwealth Court.”
Jessica O’Neill, PennFuture’s Managing Attorney for Litigation, argued this case on behalf of the environmental organizations, supported by PennFuture Staff Attorney Emma Bast.
Media Contact(s):
Leigh Martinez, martinez@pennfuture.org