DUNCANNON, Pa., – Rohrer Bus Sales proudly announces the appointment of Nicholas Cole as Executive Vice President & General Manager. Nick will be bringing over three decades of executive experience in the automotive, transportation, and mobility industries to Rohrer Bus. In this role, Nick will report directly to Skip Rohrer, President of Rohrer Bus Sales.
As Executive Vice President & General Manager, Nick will be responsible for integrating the Service and Parts Departments into the dealership, and working alongside Skip developing sales strategies to continue the growth of our dealership.
Nick is a seasoned leader known for transforming businesses and leading innovations across global organizations. His distinguished career includes leadership roles with Daimler AG, Avis Budget Group, Local Motors, and United Road. Most recently, Nick served as Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing at United Road, where he led the OEM and remarketing sales teams.
Nick previously held the role of Senior Vice President of Sales & Deployment at Local Motors, a start-up manufacturer that introduced the first 3D-manufactured, electric, autonomous, commercial shuttle bus. As President of Zipcar International, he was responsible for global operations across Europe, and launching innovative B2B mobility as a service (MaaS) solutions. As CEO of Car2go North America, a Daimler AG subsidiary, he built and scaled the first point-to-point car-sharing service in the U.S. and Canada, transforming it from a start-up, to a viable enterprise with 14 markets across the U.S. and Canada.
Nick holds a B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Nick and his wife, Heather, have two adult children. Although Nick currently resides in Plymouth, Michigan, he and Heather will be relocating to the Harrisburg area.
Please join us in welcoming Nick and Heather to the Rohrer Bus family.
Rohrer Bus is a full-service bus sales and transportation company offering a wide selection of new and pre-owned buses, vans, and transportation services. We have a long-standing reputation as a leading commercial vehicle dealer and school bus company, and we have been providing safe and reliable passenger transportation solutions dating back to the early 1900’s. Our inventory of sales vehicles consists of hundreds of different new and preowned vehicles at our 30,000-square-foot headquarters located in Duncannon, Pennsylvania, as well as our other locations in Maryland, DC, New Jersey, Virginia, West Virginia, and Delaware.
The School District of Philadelphia is gearing up for its annual “Ring the Bell” bus tour ahead of the upcoming academic year.
The “Ring the Bell” bus tour consists of a colorful school bus that visits multiple locations across Philadelphia during the summer, typically late July through mid‑August.
During each stop, families can pick up free backpacks and school supplies while supplies last, access on‑site registration for PreK–12th grade, sign up for the Parent Portal to access student information online, participate in interactive educational activities, games, and raffles, enjoy snacks and frozen treats, and receive immunizations and school physicals (at select sites).
According to the district’s website, all bus tours are from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., starting July 28 through Aug. 15. Locations can be found here.
The aim of the tour, which is built around a “festival-like” community experience, is to eliminate barriers for busy families by bringing services directly to neighborhoods, so parents don’t have to hunt for information.
The festive atmosphere often includes raffles, prizes, and fun for kids and families.
A trailblazing regional greenhouse gas partnership on the East Coast is considering possible changes or expansion that would allow it to keep building on its success — and the stakes grew higher last month with the reelection of Donald Trump.
The 11-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, established in 2005, is the country’s first regional cap-and-invest system for reducing carbon emissions from power generation. Since 2021, administrators have been conducting a program review, analyzing its performance since the last review in 2017 and weighing potential adjustments to make sure it continues to deliver benefits to member states.
The role of such programs is more crucial as Trump’s pledges to roll back federal climate action leaves it up to cities, states, and the private sector to maintain the country’s momentum on clean energy over the next four years. In RGGI, as the regional initiative is known, states have a potential model for scaling their impact through collaboration.
“RGGI has not only been an effective climate policy, it’s been an extraordinary example of how states can work together on common goals,” said Daniel Sosland, president of climate and energy nonprofit Acadia Center. “It is a major vehicle for climate policy now in the states, more than it might have seemed before the election.”
How RGGI works
RGGI sets a cap for total power plant carbon emissions among member states. Individual generators must then buy allowances from the state, up to the total cap, for each ton of carbon dioxide they produce in a year. The cap lowers over time, forcing power plants to either reduce emissions or pay more to buy allowances from a shrinking pool.
States then reinvest the proceeds from these auctions into programs that further reduce emissions and help energy customers, including energy efficiency initiatives, direct bill assistance, and renewable energy projects. Since 2008, RGGI has generated $8.3 billion for participating states, and carbon dioxide emissions from power generation in the nine states that have consistently participated fell by about half between 2008 and 2021, a considerably faster rate than the rest of the country.
“It has really thrived and been really effective across multiple administrations,” said Jackson Morris, state power sector director with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “RGGI is a winning model. It’s not theoretical — we’ve got numbers.”
Currently, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont are part of the program. Virginia joined RGGI in 2021, but in 2023 Gov. Glenn Youngkin repealed the state’s participation, a move immediately challenged in court; a judge ruled last month that the governor lacked the authority to withdraw the state from initiative, though a spokesman for the governor has declared the state’s intention to appeal.
There is widespread agreement that RGGI will endure despite likely federal hostility to climate measures. There was no attempt to take direct action against it during Trump’s first term, nor has there been any concerted industry opposition, said Conservation Law Foundation president Bradley Campbell, who was involved in the founding of RGGI when he was commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
Supporters also note that the program has historically had broad bipartisan support: Participating states have been led through the years by both Republican and Democratic governors and legislatures.
Politics has had some influence over the years, though only at the margins. New Jersey, a founding member of RGGI, left in 2011 when Chris Christie was governor, but returned in 2020 following an executive order from his successor. Pennsylvania joined in 2022 through an executive order from the governor, but its participation is now being challenged in court.
Still, RGGI’s foundations are solid and will remain so, experts said.
“The basic infrastructure has weathered the political winds over the decades,” Campbell said.
Looking forward
Nonetheless, RGGI will need to make some carefully thought-out program design decisions during its current review to make an impact in the face of falling federal support for decarbonization.
One question under consideration is whether to maintain the existing trajectory for the overall emissions cap for the program — a reduction of 30% between 2020 and 2030, then holding steady thereafter — or to continue lowering the limit after 2030.
The RGGI states are also contemplating a possible change to the compliance schedule that would require power generators to acquire allowances worth 100% of their carbon emissions each year, and certify compliance annually. The current system calls for certification every three years, and only mandates allowances equivalent to half of carbon emissions for the first two years of each period.
The program is looking for ways to appeal to potential new participant states that have less aggressive decarbonization goals than current member states without watering down the program’s overall impact on decarbonization, said Acadia Center policy analyst Paola Tamayo. Acadia suggested possible program mechanisms such as giving proportionately more allowances to states with more stringent emissions targets to incentivize tighter limits.
“At this point it is critical for states to maintain a high level of ambition when it comes to programs like RGGI,” Tamayo said. “There are different mechanisms that they can implement to accommodate other states.”
The program review is expected to yield a model rule some time over the winter, though updates may be made into the spring as the RGGI states receive and consider feedback on how to accommodate potential new participants.
States will also need to maintain and strengthen their own climate policies to magnify the impact of RGGI, Campbell said. He pointed to Massachusetts, where Gov. Maura Healey needs to show “bolder leadership,” he said, and Maine and Vermont, where the Conservation Law Foundation has filed lawsuits in an attempt to compel the states to meet their own carbon reduction deadlines.
“It’s especially important that the states that have strong emissions reduction mandates speed up the implementation of their climate laws,” he said. “State leadership on these issues is going to be more important than ever.”
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