HARRISBURG (TNS) — The Wolf administration’s plan to begin requiring coal and natural gas power plants to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions has cleared a major hurdle with the Senate falling short in its attempt to block the rule from taking effect.

The Senate voted 32-17 on Monday — just shy of the two-thirds margin needed to override Gov. Tom Wolf’s veto of the resolution the Senate passed in October to void the carbon-cutting rule.

The state bureau responsible for publishing regulations had declined to print the rule until the Legislature’s time for attempting an override had run out.

Still, the rule’s fate is likely to be determined by the courts.

In Commonwealth Court, the Department of Environmental Protection is pushing for the rule to be published immediately while Senate Republicans are arguing that it should be blocked from taking effect both temporarily and permanently.

The court has scheduled a May 4 hearing on a Senate GOP petition to prohibit the rule from being published while courts are considering the case.

The regulation would make Pennsylvania the 12th state and the first major fossil fuel energy producer in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which sets a declining cap on carbon emissions from power plants, with the goal of cutting them 30% by 2030.

Pennsylvania’s power sector releases more carbon dioxide than some entire countries, like Greece, according to DEP.

The vote came on the same day as a major report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which found that “without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors,” the international goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be “beyond reach.”

To meet the goal — beyond which severe and destabilizing climate impacts multiply — global greenhouse gas emissions will have to be reduced by 43% by 2030 and reach net-zero in the early 2050s, according to the report.