Environmental lawyer asks state Supreme Court to back up its order to Commonwealth Court

• Scott Blanchard/WITF
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  As director of journalism, I work on things like newsroom strategy, culture, ethics, and training; I work with reporters (mainly climate reporter Rachel McDevitt) on stories; and I'm deeply involved with our community engagement efforts and collaborations with other news organizations.
  
  My roots in journalism go back to growing up outside Washington, D.C., reading Woodward and Bernstein in my hometown paper, and being drawn to the ideals of freedom of the press and holding the powerful to account. I also idolized the Post’s sports columnists, and in fact was a sports reporter/editor before I moved to news.
  
  I followed journalism’s call to the University of Missouri, then to jobs in Virginia and Maryland before landing in Pennsylvania, and I’ve lived near Gettysburg for more than two decades. Living in rural Pa. helps inform my work as a journalist and my belief that listening is one of the most important things we can do.
  
  If I’m not doing journalism stuff, I may be traveling, bird-watching, or both.

Marie Cusick/ StateImpact Pennsylvania

The Pine Creek Gorge in Tioga County.

Scott Detrow / StateImpact Pennsylvania

A drilling rig in Tioga State Forest. The Supreme Court ruled in June that all proceeds from oil and gas drilling on state land needs to be spent on environmental conservation. The court based its ruling on the state’s Environmental Rights Amendment.

An environmental lawyer wants the state Supreme Court to direct Commonwealth Court to follow its order in a case centered on whether Pennsylvania must use oil and gas lease proceeds from drilling on state forest land only for environmental conservation.

John E. Childe of Camp Hill made that claim in a lawsuit against the state, but Commonwealth Court had ruled against the Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation. Childe says in a new filing that when the Supreme Court on June 20 decided that the state was a trustee for public resources, it vacated the Commonwealth Court’s decision and sent the case back for “further proceedings consistent with this Opinion.”

Childe’s filing claims nothing has happened, and he is asking the Supreme Court to step in.

Here is his complete filing:

PETITION FOR EXTRAORDINARY JURISDICTION OF THE PENNSYLVANIA SUPREME COURT; IN THE ALTERNATIVE, APPLICATION FOR ENFORCEMENT OF REMAND ORDER (Text)

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StateImpact Pennsylvania is a collaboration among WITF, WHYY, and the Allegheny Front. Reporters Reid Frazier, Rachel McDevitt and Susan Phillips cover the commonwealth’s energy economy. Read their reports on this site, and hear them on public radio stations across Pennsylvania.

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