Tom Schuster: RGGI can help communities throughout Pa.

It was recently announced that one of the few remaining coal-fired power plants in Pennsylvania, Indiana County’s Homer City Coal Generation Station, will be shutting down. This will be a blow to the workers at the plant and the surrounding community. State and local leaders must commit to helping Homer City and its people bounce back as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, news of the plant’s failure is being used to further a misinformation campaign to halt steps to boost Pennsylvania’s competitiveness in a rapidly changing energy landscape here and abroad.

This misinformation campaign is attempting to link the plant’s closing to a market-based pollution reduction and clean energy investment program that is not yet even operating in Pennsylvania. And, importantly, the campaign ignores recent history, energy market realities and the needs of local communities in the face of economic setbacks.

Here are some crucial facts, some of which are acknowledged in Homer City’s own closing announcement: 60 other coal units across Pennsylvania have closed or been converted to gas over the past two decades as coal-powered electricity has lost market share to more efficient generation technologies. Coal is more expensive. A recent report found that it is cheaper today to replace all but one of the countries’ existing coal-fired power plants with new wind or solar in the same region.

Homer City had already struggled to survive through two bankruptcies to this point. News coverage after its second bankruptcy filing in 2017 noted that falling revenues at the plant were “a function of the market, which hasn’t been kind to Homer City.” It tied the plants decline to “competition from cheap fracked gas, falling demand and warmer winters.”

Under these market conditions, the only surprise was how long Homer City held on — it was the last of the state’s conventional coal plants to announce it would stop burning coal. By 2028, the only coal burned for electricity in Pennsylvania will be coal refuse from abandoned mines in heavily subsidized specialty plants.

The factors causing Homer City’s closure, and the scores of others since Marcellus Shale fracking began here early in the 2000s, were locked in well before the state even began considering participating in a multistate program called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Nevertheless, this has not stopped the program’s opponents from making that leap.

RGGI, which has been successful in 11 other states at reducing pollution and creating jobs, will cut carbon pollution from power plants in Pennsylvania and generate revenues that can be used to create jobs and make our economy cleaner and stronger.

The governor’s proposed budget estimates that RGGI would generate more than $670 million in the first year alone. A significant portion of those funds could be directed to Homer City and other communities that have suffered plant closures in the last several years and to prepare the remaining coal plant communities for their planned shutdowns. Research from the Ohio River Valley Institute (ORVI) showed how other RGGI states have directed funding to coal plant communities for job training and reemployment programs, new economic development projects, revitalizing coal plant sites for other uses, or preserving the local tax base.

That presents a regrettable irony. A local business official in Indiana County noted that local officials had believed that they would “have more time to prepare for a closure so people could transition to new jobs.” That is despite the power plant’s two prior bankruptcies and years of struggling to compete. The plant operated at less than 20% capacity last year and has operated below 50% since 2015. But instead of embracing RGGI and moving to direct some of its proceeds to coal plant communities and their own constituents, many legislators are focused only on doing everything in their power, even lawsuits, to stop RGGI from taking effect.

Gov. Josh Shapiro is taking the right approach. He has convened a RGGI working group that brings together diverse stakeholders with different perspectives to find common ground. Unfortunately, his reasonable, commonsense approach has not stopped the misinformation campaign or the attacks on him for not immediately killing this program that promises jobs, cleaner air and help for communities like Homer City. It’s time to stop the posturing and politicizing about these energy challenges, let this working group do its job and position Pennsylvania communities for a more competitive future with major new resources that can be generated through RGGI.

Tom Schuster is director of the Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter.