Washington, D.C. – America’s Power president and CEO Michelle Bloodworth issued the following statement regarding Pennsylvania’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a mandatory cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the electric power sector in Pennsylvania and 11 other states:
“It is unfortunate that Pennsylvania is joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative,” said Michelle Bloodworth, president and CEO of America’s Power. “Joining RGGI is a bad idea because it will increase electricity prices, even though higher energy prices are already contributing to inflation; it will cause the premature retirement of coal-fired power plants at the same time electricity grid operators are concerned that more coal retirements could cause electric reliability problems; and it will have no effect on climate change because other countries, especially China, continue to build more coal-fired power plants and increase their use of coal. The U.S. needs to use coal wisely, rather than eliminate it, because coal provides energy security and affordable and reliable electricity.”
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America’s Power is a partnership of industries involved in producing electricity from coal.