PA Governor and Legislature Sign Budget Blocking RGGI and Leaving Transit Unfunded

PHILADELPHIA, PA (November 12, 2025) – On November 12 the Pennsylvania General Assembly ended a months-long impasse by finalizing a budget that blocks the Commonwealth from the only strong climate policy we had and leaves transit in a funding crisis. The new budget prevents Pennsylvania from joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an effective, life-saving initiative that lowers the harmful emissions that are baking our planet and hurting our health, and generates billions of dollars in revenue for the state.  

In 2018, Clean Air Council, alongside several environmental attorneys and professors, filed a petition with the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board asking the Commonwealth to adopt a regulation setting up a cap-and-trade program similar to RGGI but more expansive. The benefits of this program had widespread support and the Council resubmitted the petition in early 2019 in order to include the hundreds of businesses, faith groups, organizations, and individuals who wanted to join it. Then-Gov. Wolf signed an executive order kicking off the process for Pennsylvania to join RGGI in 2019. Since then, fossil fuel interests have kept RGGI tied up in the courts, preventing us all from reaping the benefits it promises. Now, thanks to state leadership, the region will lose out once again.

In an effort to double down on disastrous climate policy, the state’s leaders are once again leaving transit riders stranded, with a budget that does not solve the fiscal crisis transit agencies are facing in all 67 counties. More than 32,000 people have called for the Governor and General Assembly to support transit funding, and their best solution has been for SEPTA to rob its capital funds to keep operations going, a move that instantly showed its short-sightedness when aging rail cars needed to be pulled out of service for emergency maintenance. Pennsylvanians deserve safe, reliable public transportation that gives them access to their jobs, education, healthcare, and opportunity – and once again their elected leaders have failed to deliver.

Alex Bomstein, Clean Air Council Executive Director, issued the following statement:

“This budget demonstrates a deep failure of leadership in Harrisburg. Transit remains in a fiscal crisis and Pennsylvania’s only major climate policy is now abandoned. The General Assembly and Gov. Shapiro have chosen to sacrifice tens of thousands of jobs, billions of dollars in revenue, and further billions in savings from avoided illness, in favor of the fossil fuel industry and politicians who simply want to punish cities.”