Rachel McDevitt | StateImpact Pennsylvania

Two natural gas companies with operations in Pennsylvania say they plan to certify some of their gas as “responsibly sourced.”

The report estimates the state’s average temperature will continue to rise up to 5.9 degrees higher on average by midcentury. That’s half a degree hotter than expected in the 2015 report.

The move shocked some environmental and consumer protection groups, who say Republicans are holding the Public Utility Commission hostage over an unrelated policy decision.

Last term, state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler) equated climate change with seasonal weather, said predictions about the dangers of climate change are fiction, and implied carbon dioxide can’t be a pollutant because plants use it as food.