On 13 July 2021, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Environmental Quality Board (EQB) approved the final CO₂ Budget Trading Program.

The final regulation to establish an ETS covering CO₂ emissions from the power sector and to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) was released along with updated modeling results for the implementation of the ETS on 4 May 2021. It would allow for RGGI participation starting 2022 barring litigation or action from the state legislature.

The final regulation is largely based on the September 2020 draft regulation and is consistent with design features of the RGGI Model Rule, which serves as the basis for state-level legislation and regulations. The updated modeling results reaffirm the draft regulation’s emissions cap of 78 MtCO₂ for 2022, decreasing annually by 3% to 58.1 MtCO₂ in 2030. Pennsylvania’s allocation would be added to the RGGI cap and, due to the size of the state’s power sector emissions (accounting for 29% of the state’s total GHG emissions in 2017), increase the RGGI cap substantially to 194.3 MtCO₂ in 2022. Pennsylvania’s share of emissions in the 2022 RGGI cap would amount to 40.2%.

Guest post from ICAP