CLIMATEWIRE | Pennsylvania has quit the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, leaving the fourth-highest-emitting state with no significant climate policy.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro said he was focused on “cutting costs" when he signed a budget deal Wednesday that exits the Northeast's cap-and-trade system. The deal became law just hours after lawmakers unveiled it and rushed it through the Democratic-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate.

Shapiro is now the first governor of any party to sign a law quitting RGGI, which covers power plant emissions from almost a dozen states. That fact landed like a thunderclap on the left, where Shapiro is viewed as an influential Democratic voice and a likely presidential contender.

Climate hawks reacted with disbelief and a sense of betrayal, noting that Shapiro is cutting against even the moderate Democrats who won the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey this month while supporting the cap-and-trade system.

“This was really our only shot at addressing climate change,” Democratic state Rep. Greg Vitali, the chair of the House Environmental and Natural Resource Protection Committee and an opponent of the deal, said in an interview.

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