Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Tom Wolf, in His Official Capacity as Governor of Pennsylvania

Summary

This concurring opinion addresses whether Pennsylvania statutes authorizing appropriations from the Oil and Gas Lease Fund are facially unconstitutional under Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. The opinion concludes that the statutes are not facially unconstitutional because the fund may contain non-trust assets and some appropriations may support legitimate trust administration. It emphasizes, however, that the Commonwealth must maintain detailed accounts of oil-and-gas-related trust revenues and expenditures, allowing for future as-applied challenges.

Holdings

1. The facial challenge to Sections 104(P) and 1601 fails because the Oil and Gas Lease Fund may contain non-trust assets and the appropriations may include expenses legitimately allocable to trust administration; any unconstitutional use of trust assets must be established through an as-applied challenge.
2. The Commonwealth must maintain detailed accounts of all revenue generated from oil-and-gas leasing activity and track how trust and non-trust proceeds are spent in administering the public natural-resources trust.
3. The court could not declare that all of the Commonwealth's current uses of the Oil and Gas Lease Fund were wholly consistent with its trustee responsibilities without an as-applied analysis and a developed factual record.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Sections 104(P) and 1601 of the 2017 and 2018 General Appropriations Acts were facially unconstitutional because they permitted Oil and Gas Lease Fund monies to finance DCNR operations.
2. Whether the Commonwealth, as trustee of Pennsylvania's public natural resources, was required to maintain detailed accounts identifying oil-and-gas lease trust monies and tracking their expenditures.
3. Whether the record supported a declaration that all current uses of the Oil and Gas Lease Fund were consistent with the Commonwealth's fiduciary duties.

Disposition

affirmed