Court Opinion

ID: 9700373
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:25:01.504825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:08.274145
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION BY
Judge FRIEDMAN.
I respectfully dissent. I do not agree that the language of the Solid Waste Management Act (SWMA)1 or the Municipal Waste Planning, Recycling and Waste Reduction Act (Act 101)2 clearly and unambiguously confers on the Environmental Quality Board (EQB) the authority to promulgate a harms/benefits environmental assessment test which, under the guidelines published by the Department of En*585vironmental Protection (DEP), considers “establishing schools” and “charitable contributions” as possible “social and economic benefits” of a municipal or residual waste landfill.3
I. SWMA
The EQB has authority under section 105(a) of the SWMA to adopt regulations to accomplish the purposes of the SWMA. 35 P.S. § 6018.105(a). The purposes of the SWMA. include: (1) protection of the public from the dangers of solid waste; and (2) implementation of Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. See 35 P.S. § 6018.102(4), (10). I do not believe that either of these purposes is accomplished by the establishing of schools or the making of charitable contributions.
First, it is not clear to me that establishing schools and enriching charities protects the public from the dangers of solid waste. Second, it is not clear to me that implementing Article I, Section 27 means considering whether a landfill permit applicant has promised to establish a school or make a charitable contribution. Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution provides as follows:
The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the presérvation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.
Pa. Const., Art. I, § 27.
The majority correctly points out that determining whether the Commonwealth has violated its trust requires a court to examine whether the environmental harms resulting from the Commonwealth’s action “so clearly outweigh the benefits to be derived therefrom that to proceed further would be an abuse of discretion.” Payne v. Kassab, 11 Pa.Cmwlth. 14, 312 A.2d 86, 94 (1973), aff'd, 468 Pa. 226, 361 A.2d 263 (1976); (see majority op. at 581-82). As the majority indicates, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has enumerated twenty-three social, economic and environmental factors for courts to consider in performing an Article I, Section 27 balancing test. Payne v. Kassab, 468 Pa. 226, 361 A.2d 263 (1976); (see majority op. at 582). However, the majority fails to mention that our supreme court’s list does not include whether the Commonwealth considered a proposal to establish a school or make a charitable contribution. See id. Thus, Article I, Section 27 does not provide a legal basis for the DEP’s consideration of such factors as part of a harms/benefits environmental assessment test.
II. Act 101
The EQB has authority under section 302 of Act 101 to adopt regulations to accomplish the purposes of Act 101. 53 P.S. § 4000.302. One of the purposes of Act 101 is to “[establish a host municipality benefit fee for municipal waste landfills and resource recovery facilities that are permitted on or after the effective date of this act and to provide benefits to host municipalities for the presence of such facilities.”4 53 P.S. § 4000.102(b)(7).
Pursuant to this stated purpose of Act 101, section 1301 of Act 101 establishes the *586host municipality benefit fee. See 53 P.S. § 4000.1301. Other sections of Act 101 provide additional benefits for host municipalities because of the presence of waste facilities.5 However, because none of the additional benefits involves the establishing of schools or the making of charitable contributions, Act 101 contains no language that clearly and unambiguously authorizes the DEP to consider establishing schools or making charitable contributions in performing the harms/benefits environmental assessment test.
III. General Supervisory Power
The majority concludes that the EQB has authority to promulgate a harms/benefits environmental assessment test that considers whether a permit applicant has agreed to establish schools in the community and make charitable contributions. The majority rests this conclusion on a legislative intent to have the EQB “regulate in plenary fashion every aspect of waste disposal.” (Majority op. at 581) (citing National Solid Wastes Management Association v. Casey, 143 Pa.Cmwlth. 577, 600 A.2d 260 (1991), aff'd, 533 Pa. 97, 619 A.2d 1063 (1993)). As before, I see no connection between regulating waste “disposal” 6 and establishing schools or making charitable contributions.7
Accordingly, I would conclude that the harms/benefits environmental assessment test, utilized by the DEP to determine entitlement to a municipal or residual waste landfill permit, is invalid to the extent that it permits the DEP to consider establishing schools and charitable contributions as possible social and economic benefits of the municipal or residual waste landfill.8

. Act of July 7, 1980, P.L. 380, as amended, 35 P.S. §§ 6018.101-6018.1003.

. Act of July 28, 1988, P.L. 556, as amended, 53 P.S. §§ 4000.101-4000.1904.

. See 25 Pa.Code § 271.127(c) (relating to municipal waste landfills); 25 Pa.Code § 287.127(c) (relating to residual waste landfills); and the DEP policy statement entitled "Environmental Assessment Process, Phase I Review" at 7-8 (providing technical guidance for municipal and residual waste permit applications).

. Other purposes of Act 101 include the protection of the public from the dangers of *586municipal waste and the implementation of Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. See 53 P.S. § 4000.102(b)(3) and (13). These are similar to the purposes set forth in SWMA, which are discussed above.

. See, e.g., section 1101(a) of Act 101, 53 P.S. § 4000.1101(a) (requiring the DEP to provide host municipalities with facility inspection reports, notice of all enforcement actions and analyses of monitoring data); section 1102 of Act 101, 53 P.S. § 4000.1102 (requiring the DEP to train and certify host municipality inspectors and to perform its own inspection upon notice of a violation from a host municipality); section 1107(c) of Act 101, 53 P.S. § 4000.1107(c) (limiting the liability of a host municipality for bodily injury or property damage resulting from pollution occurrences); and section 1112(g) of Act 101, 53 P.S. § 4000.1112(g) (giving preference to waste generated within a host county).

. Section 103 of Act 101, 53 P.S. § 4000.103, defines the word "disposal” as follows:
The deposition, injection, dumping, spilling, leaking or placing of solid waste into or on the land or water in a manner that the solid waste or a constituent of the solid waste enters the environment, is emitted into the air or is discharged to the waters of this Commonwealth.
Section 103 of the SWMA, 35 P.S. § 6018.103, contains a similar definition:
The incineration, deposition, injection, dumping, spilling, leaking, or placing of solid waste into or on the land or water in a manner that the solid waste or a constituent of the solid waste enters the environment, is emitted into the air or is discharged to the waters of the Commonwealth.

. Moreover, although the DEP has special knowledge and expertise with respect to waste disposal, the harms/benefits environmental assessment test requires that the DEP have special knowledge and expertise with respect to schools and charitable endeavors in municipalities throughout the Commonwealth, which, I submit, they do not have.

. The petitioners in this case have suggested that "benefits” like the establishing of schools and the making of charitable contributions *587are akin to coerced contributions. (See majority at -, 818 A.2d at 583.) I agree. Indeed, it appears that an applicant who would not otherwise be entitled to a municipal or residual waste landfill permit based on the harms/benefits test could buy such a permit by agreeing to pay enough money that, according to the DEP’s calculations, benefits would outweigh harms.