Robert McKinstry, an attorney who formed the environmental law practice at Ballard Spahr and continues to litigate environmental and climate change law, said the case has had a large impact on subsequent decisions by the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board and the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. He pointed to a 2023 decision by the Commonwealth Court, which cited the Environmental Rights Amendment when it overturned the PUC’s decision to greenlight a PECO natural gas facility in a residential area of Marple Township without conducting an environmental review.
“So for most of my career, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was dreadful,” McKinstry said. “It was basically legally incompetent.”
He said that began to change when former Chief Justice Ron Castille, a Republican, joined the court in 1994.
“The current three judges have really elevated the Supreme Court from what was a dreadful legal analysis to, I think, one of the leading courts, particularly on state constitutional adjudication,” McKinstry said. “The first was giving the Pennsylvania Environmental Rights Amendment a new life.”
Clean Air Council Executive Director Alex Bomstein said the ruling gave “a roadmap” for environmental cases going forward.
“There are cases that go different ways,” Bomstein said. “It’s not all in any one direction, and once you start getting into the details of different cases, you’re going to get a lot of different results, of course,” Bomstein said.
He called the current seven-member court “traditional” in that it follows the rule of law rather than partisan ideology.
Maya van Rossum, who founded the organization Green Amendments for the Generations, has documented about a dozen instances where the Environmental Rights Amendment, also known as Article 1, section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, has led to rulings favorable to environmental protection or the rights of local municipalities.
“We do see at the federal level, just basic environmental protections being stripped away,” Van Rossum said. “Article 1, section 27 is one way that the state can provide a greater level of protection.”
