Nearly a year has passed since Gov. Josh Shapiro first announced a “new era” of leadership in energy with a program he claimed would create 15,000 jobs, save energy customers $664 million and generate $11.4 billion in investments in “clean, reliable energy resources.”
He’s traveled the state making promises of lowering utility costs while touting questionable agreements and feel-good programs that are nothing more than a Band-Aid for a broken bone.
Time and time again, the governor fails to address, or recognize, the root cause of the price increases all Pennsylvanians are facing — the lingering threat of his Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative electricity tax and the premature, misguided shuttering of thermal baseload generation facilities without a plan for adequate replacement. It is as simple as supply and demand and, when supply does not meet the anticipated demand, prices increase.
In the next 10 years, under the most conservative estimates, our electric grid is facing a shortfall of 80,000 megawatts of electricity. Again, conservatively, Pennsylvania operations generate 25% of the electric power flowing into the grid. Simple math says we need to build at least 20 generation plants of 1,000-megawatt capacity if we are to maintain our position in the grid as a supplier of electricity. We have none under construction and none are planned.
In fact, since RGGI was proposed, there have been no new investments at all in baseload electric generation in Pennsylvania. The governor is right, doing nothing is not an option. However, doing the wrong thing over and over again increases the magnitude of the problem. Until he disavows RGGI and abandons his efforts to impose a carbon tax, it is difficult to take seriously any statement claiming he wants to help ease the burden of rising utility costs and combat the power deficit we face in the coming years.
Pennsylvania needs real solutions that focus on attracting energy development, investing in modern grid infrastructure and streamlining permitting and the regulatory process to ensure enough power is available to meet demand.
The state Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee has prioritized responsible energy development and protecting the reliability of the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection (PJM) electric grid through common sense policy measures and collaboration with our friends in energy-generating states. Last session, along with legislators from Ohio, we convened for a series of hearings to discuss challenges related to PJM.
We’ve advanced several measures aimed at addressing grid reliability, including legislation to establish an Independent Energy Office in Pennsylvania, legislation to protect the power grid from purposeful damage and legislation to place decisions regarding energy restrictions within the purview of the legislature. Unfortunately, these measures were only supported by Republicans on the committee.
Recently, I announced plans to introduce a bill to address electric generation shortfall by establishing the Grid Stabilization and Security Act. Plans to reintroduce a bill from last session establishing a Pennsylvania Baseload Energy Development Fund are underway.
Saying we must diversify our energy sources and create clean, reliable and affordable energy is doing nothing but rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Wind, solar, batteries and other unproven, unreliable sources do not answer this one question: where does my electricity come from at 3 a.m. on a cold winter night?
We are racing towards the iceberg and have no plan to slow down, let alone stop, before we get there. We must encourage and implement construction of thermal baseload electric generation capacity now. I hope the governor joins us in this effort.
(State Sen. Gene Yaw represents the 23rd Senatorial District consisting of Bradford, Lycoming, Sullivan, Tioga and Union counties. He serves as chairman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee.)
