Our View: No eminent domain for Sunoco
“he Environmental Rights Amendment to the Pennsylvania constitution guarantees, among other things, “preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment.”
Citing those guarantees, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court earlier this year told Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration it wouldn’t reconsider its December 2013 decision on Act 13, which found the statute’s attempts to restrict the power of local zoning authorities on oil and gas development in the state as unconstitutional.
The court said sections of the law which would have mandated that local governments permit such development, regardless of existing zoning regulations, violated the state constitution’s Environmental Rights Amendment,
If you thought that the debate regarding those values was settled for the time being, consider the plans of the gas-distribution company Sunoco Logistics. The company wants to upgrade its existing 300-mile Mariner East pipeline — running through portions of Cumberland County — to transport liquid natural gas and propane from western Pennsylvania to a Delaware County shipping point.”
The Sentinel 30 April 2014.