Pennsylvania lawmakers look to end budget stalemate, sealed with concession by Democrats on climate

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Billions of dollars for Pennsylvania’s public schools and social services could soon start flowing after months of delay, as lawmakers on Wednesday took up a roughly $50 billion spending plan to break the state’s budget impasse.

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro was expected to sign key budget bills by the end of the day.

A key concession to help seal a deal meant Democrats agreeing to Republican demands to back off any effort to make Pennsylvania the only major fossil fuel-producing state to force power plant owners to pay for their planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

Democrats won’t get the amount of money that Shapiro originally sought in his initial budget proposal, but the deal — after weeks of closed-door negotiations — is expected to deliver substantial new sums to public schools and an earned income tax credit for lower earners, as Democrats had sought.

It will also bring relief that the stalemate is over.

“The win is that we’re going to, hopefully before the end of the day, have a funding plan for the commonwealth and that’s a win for everybody who’s been waiting on state resources,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia, told reporters in a Capitol hallway Wednesday morning.

The advancing votes in the politically divided Legislature arrive weeks after counties, school districts and social service agencies are warning of mounting layoffs, borrowing costs and growing damage to the state’s safety net.

School districts, rape crisis agencies and county-run social services have gone without state aid since July 1, when the state lost some of its spending authority without a signed state budget in force.

The agreement to back off the carbon dioxide cap-and-trade program on power plants comes six years after then-Gov. Tom Wolf made joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative the centerpiece of his plan to fight climate change.

The plan made Pennsylvania — the nation’s second-largest natural gas producer — the only major fossil fuel-producing state to undertake a carbon cap-and-trade program. It has been held up in court and never went into effect.

It was popular with environmental groups and renewable energy advocates, but it was opposed by Republicans, fossil fuel interests and the labor unions that work on pipelines, refineries and power plants.

Under the $50.1 billion budget deal, new authorized spending would rise by about $2.5 billion, or 5%.

Practically all of the overall spending increase would go toward Medicaid and public schools. Billions in surplus cash will be required for the plan to balance, the second straight year that Pennsylvania is running a multibillion-dollar budget deficit.

___

Follow Marc Levy at http://twitter.com/timelywriter.