Northeast Partnership to Reduce Climate Emissions Loses Dirtiest Member
December 4, 2025
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Last month, some 360 miles from the Statehouse in Providence, the governor of Pennsylvania and the state Legislature reached a budget deal that will impact Rhode Island and the rest of southern New England.
The deal ended Pennsylvania’s passive participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a multi-state program that sets a cap on planet-warming emissions and requires power plants in the 10 participating states to buy allowances to release carbon dioxide. Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut are RGGI members.
Pennsylvania’s exit from RGGI will cost that state a projected $20 billion in foregone revenue over the next 12 years, according to the Acadia Center, removing the state’s most promising, cost-effective policy lever to reduce harmful emissions from the power sector and leaving it without any meaningful climate and energy affordability policy.
“Instead of allowing the state Supreme Court to rule on RGGI’s legality, Pennsylvania’s elected officials have chosen to abandon the program outright at a time when the program’s benefits are most urgently needed,” according to Paola Moncado Tamayo, the Acadia Center’s senior policy and data analyst. “This is a grave setback for Pennsylvania’s energy, climate, and affordability policies, and it leaves literal billions of dollars in revenues on the table that could have been invested to improve household affordability, reduce energy consumption, improve public health in polluted communities, and insulate everyday families from rising energy costs driven by data center development in Pennsylvania.”
In 2019, then-Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, issued an order seeking to join RGGI. The order was challenged in court and has been the subject of an ongoing legal battle since. As is the modus operandi of Democrats everywhere when it comes to standing up against our corporate overlords, Pennsylvania’s timid cluster folded, paving the way for other Ds in the remaining RGGI states to do the same.
I fear monkey see, monkey do.
Unsurprisingly, Pennsylvania Republicans are thrilled the state abandoned an initiative designed to mitigate the climate crisis. A press released issued by the state’s Senate Republicans regurgitated the same old talking points that environmental protections stymie economic growth and punish taxpayers.
To this day, this Reagan-era drivel is also spewed here. It’s tiresome. It’s ignorant. It’s damaging. And it’s not true. An unrelenting stream of pollution for profit for the few makes the planet increasingly unlivable for the many. Environmental breakdown, not protections, is what will halt economic growth and kill taxpayers.
David Masur, executive director of the advocacy group PennEnvironment, told Inside Climate News the vote was one of the most far-reaching environmental rollbacks in recent Pennsylvania history and is a “huge blow” to climate action — there and here.
Active membership in RGGI would have reduced Pennsylvania’s electricity-sector emissions by 84% from 2020 levels by 2030, according to a 2023 analysis by the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. The state also would have raised $100 million to $148 million in the auction of emissions allowances in 2030.
Jamie Dickerson, senior director of climate and clean energy programs at the Acadia Center, noted the value of the RGGI program for both consumers and the environment has been proven year after year, yielding more than twice as many energy bill savings ($20.2 billion) versus program revenues ($9.7 billion) since its Jan. 1, 2009 inception.
Pennsylvania’s RGGI withdrawal carries consequences beyond its borders. As the largest electricity producer in the Northeast and a major exporter of power, the state’s exit weakens the region’s collective ability to mitigate the climate crisis and tackle rising energy costs in a coordinated manner.
My colleague, Rob Smith, reported last year that greenhouse gas emissions from Rhode Island’s methane-fired power plants were on the rise. He reported that emissions from the state’s major power plants increased by more than a million short tons — a unit of weight equal to 2,000 pounds — in 2023.
Four out of the five facilities that reported data saw emission increases between 52% and 72%. In 2023, these fossil fuel power plants produced about 4 million short tons, up from about 3 million short tons the year before.
The Ocean State remains off course when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions as mandated by the Act on Climate law. A 41-page report recently released by the Department of Environmental Management notes that the 9.52 million metric tons (10.5 million tons) of carbon dioxide produced from buildings, travel, and other human activity throughout Rhode Island in 2023 marks a 1.4% increase over 2022 level climate emissions. It also represents about 3 million metric tons (3.3 million tons) above the Act on Climate’s 2030 mandate.
We’re going backward, and these increases in climate-changing emissions likely would have been far greater had Rhode Island not been a RGGI member. All 50 states should be members of such a program, not leaving one.
Related note: The Mad King announced Dec. 3 that he is repealing the Biden-era federal fuel economy standards, which will significantly weaken fuel-efficiency requirements for tens of millions of new gasoline-powered cars and light trucks.
Frank Carini can be reached at [email protected]. His opinions don’t reflect those of ecoRI News.
why do you not discuss China’s one third responsibility for all global climate emissions? Massachusetts’ emissions are less than one percent of global emissions. Less than one percent. I am guessing that Rhode Island’s emissions are less than 0.5 percent of global emissions. your opinion is laughable.
Frank, the set-backs on both the electricity and transportation sectors that you noted seem serious, but outside of the few dedicated to climate action it seems to me that few care. Even the opposition to the “mad king” seems to largely ignore his many assaults on the environment, focusing primarily on combatting has assaults on immigrants. Perhaps you should explore why the climate fight is failing in the US, and what if any anything can realistically be done about it. (and I note the rising “populist” parties in Europe and elsewhere also seek to undermine climate rules – if the US won’t participate, why should they bother)
Until we get climate under control the economy will fail. You may disagree, but it is a simple fact. contact me and I can show you the data.
Barry’s comment that it seems “few care” is, I think, accurate from “Our” point of view—the mainline readership of this publication. But I think as well that if explore the political terrain outside of our bubble, we can discover productive political alliances with a wider public who cherish the wild just as much we do yet have other political views we disagree upon. I would urge curious readers to go back to the comments addendum of Frank’s piece, “Illegal Off-Roading Tears Up Rhode Island Wildlife Management Areas,” and re-read the comments of “Roland” and “David.” Their’s are step-one’s down a path toward effective political action.
…And from the sky-high philosophical and literary point of view, there’s no telling what would have happened if Thoreau, one snowy morning, had found Evil Knievel at his cabin door, empty gas tank in hand.
the commenter who thought that China should be headlined as an emitter rather than MA or RI should note per-capita emissions in China are 2691 units while the US per-capita emissions are about 2 1/2 times greater at 6506, this we do much more per person to cause the problem than a Chinese resident. For context, per person emissions: Niger 162, India 712, Mexico 1420, Denmark 2629, France 3102, Saudi Arabia 7530 (source Wikipedia)