Legal bills top $4.2M in fight over key climate change program Pennsylvania lawmakers have spent more than $4.2 million on legal bills as they fight over the commonwealth’s participation in a multistate effort to combat climate change, records obtained by Spotlight PA show.
The battle over the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) began in 2019 when former Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf issued an executive order that directed the commonwealth to join the cap-and-trade program.
Under RGGI, roughly a dozen states agree to limit the total carbon emissions that energy producers within their borders can generate yearly. To emit carbon, most power plants in participating states have to purchase allowances at quarterly auctions, at prices that the states set.
States can use the revenue from those sales for climate mitigation efforts, electricity cost reductions for consumers, or other ventures; because of the way Wolf justified Pennsylvania’s entry into RGGI, the state would be required to put allowance revenue into the Clean Air Fund, which supports pollution reduction efforts.
Currently, two active lawsuits seek to invalidate the state’s entry into RGGI: one filed by energy companies and labor unions, and the other by legislative Republicans. Both parties scored victories last November when Commonwealth Court struck down the state’s participation. The Shapiro administration has appealed both decisions to the state Supreme Court.
Between October 2019 — when Wolf issued his executive order — and June of this year, state Senate Republicans paid McNees Wallace & Nurick $1.2 million to argue that Wolf exceeded his executive authority when he joined RGGI.
State House Republicans spent just under $370,000 on legal fees to Post & Schell, P.C. during the same period. Records show that their counsel collaborated with the state Senate on the RGGI lawsuit regarding executive authority.
Meanwhile, the governor’s office has paid over $2.7 million to Ballard Spahr for work on RGGI lawsuits during that same period. Wolf supported RGGI, but Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has walked a fine line on the program — defending a governor’s right to make executive decisions while pitching his own RGGI alternative.
A spokesperson for Shapiro did not return a request for comment.
In a statement, state Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana) blamed both Wolf and Shapiro for forcing the legislature to continue funding legal battles between the two branches of government and to “spend taxpayer dollars” on the court case.
At the heart of both cases is whether the regulations imposed by RGGI constitute a tax or a licensing fee. Opponents of the program say that an emission limit on energy companies is tantamount to a tax, which would make Wolf’s unilateral move to join the group unconstitutional, as only the legislature has the power to levy taxes.
Supporters of the program argue the federal Clean Air Act gave Wolf the right to join RGGI and say that imposing an emission limit on energy companies qualifies as a fee, which the governor can implement without the legislature’s consent. —Kate Huangpu, Spotlight PA | 
