An environmental advocacy group has failed in its constitutional challenge to the state government's use of funds from leasing state land for oil and gas development. However, a split en banc Commonwealth Court panel ultimately determined that, going forward, the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and not the governor, should have direct authority to execute those leases.

In an opinion issued Wednesday in Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the panel determined that budget measures passed between 2009 and 2015 allocating funds from the leasing of state land for use by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) and the state general fund did not violate the Environmental Rights Amendment of the state constitution. The panel, however, split 6-1 on whether the DCNR should have the ultimate authority regarding future leasing of public lands.

Although Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer, who wrote the concurring and dissenting opinion, said the issue was premature, the majority, led by Judge P. Kevin Brobson, said the dispute was not only clearly before the court, but is likely to come up again.