Pennsylvania State Capitol building in Harrisburg. Photo: Shutterstock

Following is a listing of executive and legislative action from the week of April 22. Both houses of the General Assembly were in recess at press time. The Pennsylvania Senate and state House of Representatives were scheduled to return to session Monday.

Infrastructure Decay

More than $4 billion has been diverted from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation that could have been used to repair the state's roads and bridges, according to an audit released by Auditor General Eugene DePasquale on April 25.

The diversion, DePasquale said, was the result the $4.25 billion dollars transferred from PennDOT's Motor Vehicle License Fund to the Pennsylvania State Police since fiscal year 2012-13.

“More than 2,800 state-maintained bridges across Pennsylvania are structurally deficient and our bridges average over 50 years in age—beyond what they were designed to last,”

DePasquale said. “That $4.25 billion could have cut that list in half and if PennDOT could use all of the gas tax money for roads and bridges we could get that number to zero in about five years.”

Under the Pennsylvania Constitution, proceeds from the Motor Vehicle License Fund are to be used solely for the construction, reconstruction, maintenance and repair of and safety on public highways and bridges.

But governors of both parties for decades have used the License Fund as a way to fund the state police, according to a report on Philly.com.

The General Assembly has acted to cap the transfers, DePasquale said, but the diversions prevent necessary steps to maintain infrastructure.

Regulatory Process

Pennsylvania Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill, R-York, and state Rep. Kate Klunk, R-York, appeared at York College on April 24 to outline bicameral efforts to streamline and reform the state's regulatory process.

Framing their effort as a bid to cut “government red tape,” the lawmakers outlined six major reform measures, including bills that would require greater oversight of regulations that cost state taxpayers in excess of $1 million, provide for the removal of two regulations for each new regulation added, as well as improve permitting transparency in Pennsylvania.

The next day, however, state Rep. Frank Dermody, D-Allegheny, the minority leader in the state House of Representatives, derided five of the bills as “proposals to let corporate special interests have almost anything they want even when public safety is put at risk.”

One bill would create a new Independent Office of the Repealer as a way to objectively reform and remove unnecessary and onerous regulations, Klunk said.

In addition, state Rep. Dawn Keefer, R-York, outlined legislation she has sponsored that would require an enhanced review process for major regulations that impose a significant cost burden on state or local governments, which she has called the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny, or REINS Act.

Dermody wrote in a press release that “despite what the Republican sponsors of these bills want you to believe, this isn't about cutting red tape or taking away obsolete regulations. It's about preventing state agencies from doing their job to guard the health and safety of all people.”

The minority leader called the Office of the Repealer a “'repealer general' appointed by the Republican majority to decide what state rules and regulations should be eliminated when corporations ask.”

Consent Education

State Sen. Andy Dinniman, D-Chester, announced April 23 that he is introducing legislation to require school curricula to include the concept of consent.

Dinniman, who serves as minority chair of the Senate Education Committee, said in a statement that the curriculum would include the definition of consent, the importance of receiving consent in daily interactions, and the consequences to individuals for acting without receiving consent from others involved.

Dinniman also emphasized that the importance and value of consent should be imparted to students broader and early on—as a life skill—rather than strictly through curriculum or conversations on health or sexuality.

“All too often, any discussion of consent in our schools comes too little, too late,” he said.

“Meanwhile, consent is a skill young people need to successfully navigate adulthood. Beginning in elementary school, we should lay the foundation that consent is a fundamental value in human relationships through age-appropriate instruction.”

Dinniman said under his bill, each school district would decide how and through what part of curriculum consent should be taught.

“We ask for things every day and don't realize it, but very few states require schools to address consent at all,” he said

State Amphibian

Gov. Tom Wolf on April 23 signed into law a bill designating the Eastern hellbender as Pennsylvania's state amphibian.

According to a statement from the Wolf administration, the measure was championed for two years by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Student Leadership Council to generate greater awareness of the importance of clean waterways.

“Today's ceremony is about more than a declaration of an official state amphibian. It's about reaffirming our commitment to protecting our waters in Pennsylvania,” Wolf said. “Clean water is critical for the hellbender and we need to continue to do our part to improve water quality in the commonwealth so that the state first amphibian can thrive.”

The Eastern hellbender is a nocturnal salamander that can grow more than two feet long, according to the Wolf administration statement. They can be found in cold, clear, swift-running rivers and streams of the Susquehanna watershed. They prefer rocky streambeds with crevices, which they use for protection and for nesting sites. But the loss of forested buffers along these waterways is resulting in warmer waters and silted streambeds, degrading their habitat and decimating their numbers in streams where they were plentiful as recently as 1990.

The measure, Senate Bill 9, sponsored by state Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Lycoming, is now enrolled as Act 3 of 2019. •