As is by now familiar, the Pennsylvania Constitution includes an Environmental Rights Amendment, Article I, Section 27. Because neither the General Assembly nor any administrative agency can definitively say what rights a constitutional provision confers, we must await elucidation from the courts. Last month, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court decided another in a series of cases applying the Environmental Rights Amendment to municipal land use decisions involving the oil and gas industry. See Murrysville Watch Committee v. Municipality of Murrysville Zoning Hearing Board, No. 579 C.D. 2020 (Pa. Commw. Ct. Jan. 24, 2022). That opinion may reflect some lack of judicial clarity with implications for ordinary government processes and therefore business.

For orientation, the first sentence of the ERA creates a right against the government: “The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment.” The second and third sentences establish a public trust over the “public natural resources,” which is not the issue here. That first sentence has implications for government action, including the grant of permits and approvals. That is the part of ERA jurisprudence that Murrysville Watch Committee addresses.

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