Court Opinion

ID: 9387973
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-19 15:08:06.361013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:16.701919
License: Public Domain

[J-55-2022] [MO:Donohue, J.]
                    IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA
                                  MIDDLE DISTRICT

 THE MARCELLUS SHALE COALITION,                  :   No. 69 MAP 2021
                                                 :
                      Appellee                   :   Appeal from the Order of the
                                                 :   Commonwealth Court at No. 573
                                                 :   MD 2016 dated August 12, 2021.
               v.                                :
                                                 :   ARGUED: September 15, 2022
                                                 :
 DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL                     :
 PROTECTION OF THE                               :
 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA                    :
 AND ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY BOARD                 :
 OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF                          :
 PENNSYLVANIA,                                   :
                                                 :
                      Appellants                 :

                     CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION

JUSTICE DOUGHERTY                                              DECIDED: April 19, 2023

      I join Parts I-V as well as Part VI(C)(2) of the Opinion of the Court. I agree that the

Agencies did not exceed their rulemaking powers by enacting 25 Pa. Code §78a.1, which

defines “[o]ther critical communities.” Like Justice Wecht, however, I would assess the

rulemaking authority of the Agencies “through ordinary principles of statutory

construction[,]” including use of an ejusdem generis analysis. Concurring and Dissenting

Opinion at 2 (Wecht, J.). As such, I concur only in the result as to this issue. An ejusdem

generis analysis also leads me to agree with Justice Mundy that the Agencies exceeded

their rulemaking power by enacting 25 Pa. Code §78a.15(f)(1)(vi), which includes

“common areas on a school’s property or a playground” as public resources because

“they ‘do not share the same attributes as the other public resources identified in [58
Pa.C.S. §3215(c).]’” Dissenting Opinion at 5-6 (Mundy, J.), quoting Marcellus Shale

Coalition v. Dep’t of Environmental Protection, 193 A.3d 447, 481 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2018).

By extension, I would also hold the Agencies exceeded their rulemaking authority by

including private owners of such areas in the definition of “[p]ublic resource agency”

codified at 25 Pa. Code §78a.1. For these reasons, I concur in part and dissent in part.

                           [J-55-2022] [MO: Donohue, J.] - 2