It indeed is an interesting legal and public policy question: Is a June 20 Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling — that the state Constitution requires the state to use revenues generated from natural gas rights on commonwealth forest lands be spent only on protecting natural resources — applicable to local jurisdictions?
If so, those jurisdictions, which already have spent rights-generated fees on non-conservation projects, could see their plans turned on their heads.
The environmental group PennFuture posed just that question to Allegheny County officials this month. County officials tell the Post-Gazette the group’s claim and the high court ruling remain under review.
Allegheny County has reaped hundreds of millions of dollars for myriad purposes by selling gas rights on “public” lands. Think Pittsburgh International Airport. Think Deer Lakes Park.
But the success of the environmental group’s claim could rest on nomenclature. As the P-G raises the point, “what, exactly, counts as public natural resources?” Additionally, what encompasses the constitutionally described (and rather expansive) “environmental public trust.”
While it would seem that Deer Lakes Park might fall under such criteria, would, as the P-G asks, the generally developed tract of the Findlay airport?
Then again, Pittsburghers know all too well the semantics that can be played when debating nomenclature. Think of professional football and baseball stadiums being designated as “regional assets,” allowing the use of Regional Asset District tax dollars to finance stadium construction.
Once wrote Aristotle, “It is best that laws should be so constructed as to leave as little as possible to the decision of those who judge.”
PennFuture likely will argue that the law, as proffered in the Constitution and in the court’s June ruling, is clear. But just as likely it is that those facing the specter losing millions of dollars that have been used or have been earmarked for use outside of preserving natural resources will seek legal clarification.
The outcome, of course, could have profound implications for Allegheny County’s fiscal behavior.
Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) is under the gun from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education to show, in effect and in part, that it can prove that its 43,000-plus students are actually learning something.
Some will portray the accreditation agency’s warning as pro forma – simply making sure that CCAC’s student achievement assessment regimen is meeting all the ins and outs of the rules. And CCAC was in this same position a decade ago, one news outlet reports, and ultimately passed snuff.
Still, the specter of an accreditation agency questioning whether an institution’s students are learning anything is not the best optics.
A correspondent proposes a novel suggestion to make some sections of the Mon-Fayette Expressway more utilized – a higher speed limit.
The writer says making the speed limit on the toll road’s stretch from, say, Pennsylvania 51 to Interstate 70 unlimited or perhaps 85 miles per hour (from the current 70 mph along much of the stretch) would “increase usage and create a real shortcut.”
“I’m amazed they station state troopers to catch speeders on this barren road,” he says, adding that most of the expressway’s exits “are hard to access by a large population.”
While Allegheny Institute President Jake Haulk says speed limits are debatable – “I don’t know about unlimited (but) out west, 75 mph is typical and (in) some places 80 mph” is common – he likes the fact that the correspondent “is thinking.”
But, the Ph.D. economist reminds, “The problem is the demand simply is not there.” And that’s especially for commercial trucks whose higher toll fares would pay a big share of expressway revenues.
Caveat alert: Haulk reminds that more trucks would lead to faster deterioration of the highway.
Still, “The lack of truck usage should be a strong warning about the eventual impact on the economy of the region served,” he says.
Build it and they will come? Not necessarily. And as the Mon-Fayette Expressway has shown, not practically.
Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
