“Pennsylvania has fallen woefully behind in clean energy development to the detriment of our air, water, and climate. The introduction of PRESS is such an important step that will begin to put Pennsylvania back on track to meeting our climate and clean energy goals and is a critical complement to a robust cap and invest program for climate pollution from the power sector. This package isn’t perfect and still includes some dirtier energy sources, but we can’t wait for perfection.” — Tom Schuster, chapter director of Sierra Club Pennsylvania
From StateImpact: Instead of RGGI, Governor Shapiro says he wants to create a Pennsylvania-specific program to cap carbon emissions and make power plants pay to pollute, called the Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction (PACER) Initiative.
The governor also has proposed a Pennsylvania Reliable Energy Sustainability Standard (PRESS) that increases the share of clean energy to 35% by 2035 and restructures the classes of incentivized energy into three tiers:
Tier I sources are solar, wind, low-impact hydropower, geothermal, small modular nuclear reactors, nuclear fusion technology, and fugitive emissions from coal mines and landfills. These would make up the 35% clean energy goal.
Tier II includes large-scale hydropower, natural gas or coal co-fired with 80% clean hydrogen, fuel cells, and biomass energy. This tier would start at 6% and rise to 10% by 2033.
The new Tier III includes waste coal, natural gas or coal co-fired with 20% clean hydrogen, and municipal solid waste. This tier starts at 3.8% and grows to 5% by 2032 under the plan.