Summary
The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled on January 7, 2015 that the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Environmental Rights Amendment in Robinson Township, which was backed by only three justices, is nonbinding. The court relied instead on a three-part test devised in 1973. This Alert highlights the four biggest takeaways from the recent decision.
A mere 13 months after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Robinson Township,[1] which overturned certain provisions of Pennsylvania’s 2012 Oil and Gas Act (Act 13) as unconstitutional under the Pennsylvania Constitution’s Environmental Rights Amendment, the Commonwealth Court ruled that the Supreme Court’s analysis of the Amendment, which was backed by only three justices, is nonbinding. Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation v. Commonwealth, Docket No. 228 M.D. 2012, 2015 WL 79773 (Pa. Cmwlth. Jan. 7, 2015) (available here).
In a case decided on January 7, 2015, a unanimous en banc panel of the Commonwealth Court ruled that a three-part test devised forty years ago by that Court remains the controlling law when reviewing challenges to state action brought under Article I, Section 27 of the Constitution, the Environmental Rights Amendment. A plurality of three Supreme Court justices in Robinson Township had criticized that test, set forth in Payne v. Kassab, [2] stating that its use should be limited to the “narrowest of cases,” rendering it virtually meaningless. The plurality set out a new balancing test to be used by courts when reviewing state actions impacting the environment. In this week’s ruling, Commonwealth Court disagreed, stating that the legal reasoning and conclusions contained in the plurality opinion are “not binding precedent on this Court,” since they are not consistent with other binding precedent from the Commonwealth Court and Supreme Court on the same subject.
The Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation challenged the Commonwealth’s budget decisions with respect to the Commonwealth’s leasing of state lands for oil and gas development. The group argued that the Commonwealth’s actions violated the Environmental Rights Amendment. The Commonwealth Court disagreed, finding that the budgetary decisions were not inconsistent with the Commonwealth’s trustee obligations under the Environmental Rights Amendment.
What was remarkable about the Supreme Court’s Robinson Township decision was that it fundamentally altered how the Environmental Rights Amendment should be interpreted, reinvigorating the moribund Amendment, effectively overruling or limiting over forty years of case law. What is remarkable about the Commonwealth Court’s PEDF decision is that the lower Court reinstates the applicability of some of that 40-year-old case law.
Here are the initial takeaways:
- The Payne test is resuscitated. Virtually every...
