Regulatory Reform

Left behind in last week’s approval of the state budget are needed reforms to the business tax and regulatory structure that would help Pennsylvania take full advantage of an unrelenting surge in the nation’s economy. America just broke the record of 120 months of sustained growth thanks to the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, and massive regulatory reform by the Trump Administration. Pennsylvania is missing out on opportunities, however, as businesses rush back into the country to invest in the substantially improved business climate.

The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is cashing in on a permissive regulatory environment in Harrisburg. Late-2017 DEP fee increase approvals are on pace to cost businesses and consumers $50 million, with more increases on the way.

Governor Wolf recently joined a regional compact of eight other states and Washington D.C. to reduce carbon from motor vehicle emissions. The newly formed “Transportation and Climate Initiative” has a hopeful government promo line: cap-and-invest. But if this latest top-down market meddling follows the same path as the program it’s modeled on, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) that targets power plants - and nothing suggests it won’t - it should be more aptly tagged tax-and-impoverish.

Last week Governor Tom Wolf vetoed SB 1172, saying that the proposed changes to Pennsylvania’s Price Gouging Act would undermine consumer protections during a declared emergency, when the law kicks in automatically. Taking the governor’s veto message in its literal sense would mean that 235 of 253 lawmakers who voted for the bill (including nearly all of his Democratic colleagues) were guilty of one of two egregious governance sins when they sent the bill to his desk: they either didn’t know what was in the bill or didn’t care whether it would unfairly burden consumers.

Political obstructionism in the energy marketplace in Massachusetts led to predictable results during a cold snap earlier this winter: the cost of generating electricity increased so much that heat and power almost disappeared.