Democrats Beat a Climate Retreat

 Is energy reality mugging Democrats? Maybe so. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul this month approved a natural gas pipeline opposed by the climate lobby, and last week Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro bailed out of a cap-and-tax program. Al Gore, call your office.

Mr. Shapiro showed his pragmatic streak when he used a budget deal with Republican legislators as an excuse to pull out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. A dozen or so states in the Northeast have joined this climate suicide pact, which involves taxing the CO2 emissions of fossil-fuel power plants. States can then spend the revenue on green climate boondoggles.

The goal is to raise costs on fossil-fuel plants and make them less competitive in wholesale markets against wind and solar power. Fossil-fuel plants might then have to shut down. Climate activists will cheer, but the result will be a less reliable electric grid and higher rates for consumers. Blackouts and soaring utility bills in his state won’t help Mr. Shapiro if he runs for President in 2028.

Pennsylvania and other Northeastern states came close to suffering widespread power outages during a 2022 Arctic blast. PJM Interconnection, which oversees the Mid-Atlantic grid, responded to the close-run catastrophe by increasing payments to fossil-fuel generators to keep them running.

These payments are contributing to rising electric rates, and the cap-and-tax program would have raised them even more. Residential electric rates have risen by 50% in Pennsylvania over the last five years, compared to 29% on average nationwide. By some estimates, cap-and-tax would have increased Pennsylvanians’ electricity bills by 24% to 36% by 2030.

Mr. Shapiro’s predecessor Tom Wolf joined the climate pact in 2019 without approval from the GOP Legislature. Mr. Shapiro used the budget deal to save himself and his constituents from what could be a costly mistake. He can blame Republicans to deflect criticism from his leftwing base.

Meanwhile, Ms. Hochul has approved a pipeline to carry natural gas fracked in Pennsylvania to New York City and Long Island. Her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, blocked the pipeline. Now the state desperately needs more natural gas to keep the lights and heat on.

The state’s grid operator has warned blackouts could happen as soon as next summer as a result of nuclear and gas plant retirements. Limited pipeline capacity also means higher prices, which increases utility bills. Gas plants sometimes have to run on oil during heat waves or frigid weather, but this is expensive and can violate state emissions standards.

Ms. Hochul may fear an even bigger catastrophe. A gas shortage during the 2022 Christmas freeze nearly caused the city’s pipes to lose pressure. Had that happened, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission warned that the entire gas system would have shut down, perhaps for months, “leaving natural gas customers without heat in the middle of winter.”

New York’s environmental regulators who previously rejected the pipeline said in September it is needed to maintain a reliable gas system. “We need to govern in reality,” Ms. Hochul said after approving the pipeline, while advocating “an all-of-the-above approach” to “ensure grid reliability and affordability.”

It wasn’t long ago that an “all of the above” approach to energy was a standard Democratic stump pitch. Nowadays, you more often hear it from Republicans.