SCRANTON, Pa. – Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro unveiled a plan Wednesday to fight climate change, saying he will back legislation to make power plant owners in the nation’s third-biggest energy-producing state pay for their greenhouse gas emissions and require utilities to buy more electricity from renewable sources.
Such legislation would make Pennsylvania the first major fossil fuel-producing state to adopt a carbon-pricing program. But it is drawing fierce opposition from business interests wary of paying more for power and will face long odds in a Legislature protective of the state’s natural gas industry.
Shapiro’s proposal comes as environmentalists are pressuring him to do more to fight climate change in the nation’s No. 2 gas-producing state and as the state’s highest court considers a challenge to his predecessor’s plan to adopt a carbon-pricing program. It also comes after many of the state’s biggest power polluters, coal-fired plants, have shut down or converted to gas.
At a …