Dive Brief:

• PennFuture, a Pennsylvania watchdog group, is criticizing the state government's refusal to support even a debate on a plan to raise the state's Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard, which calls for utilities to get 8% of their power from renewable sources by 2021. The group took the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to task for opposing consideration of a higher standard by the state's Climate Change Advisory Committee (CCAC).
• The DEP earlier this year had put before the CCAC a plan to increase the 8% goal to 10.5%. But the DEP later withdrew the plan and told the CCAC at a meeting Tuesday it would not reconsider it.
• Bills sponsored by Democrats to boost the renewables requirement to 15% by 2023 are pending in the Legislature. The state's utilities have raised concerns about the cost to consumers of raising the requirement.  

Dive Insight: 

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, who manages the DEP, is a conservative Republican who has called President Obama's plans to combat climate change a "war on coal." In a state where coal mining is still an important industry, Corbett can be counted on to oppose anything that might be labeled as addressing climate change.