Education Reform–Coming For A Mall Near You

The rumor mill is flying hot and heavy these days with word of a "deal" between the Department of Environmental Protection and the developers wanting to put a mall on Brush Mountain near Altoona [http://www.rayproffitt.org/pu2003/02082003.htm  --   http://www.rayproffitt.org/pu2003/02072003.htm and others]. The usual suspects, our elected officials, have gotten involved, and are reportedly pressuring DEP to grant the permit, even without requiring the developer to address the deficiencies in the permit application. DEP sent a letter late last year outlining the holes in the application, and sent another one on March 27 that still has not been satisfactorily answered. We commented in February that we didn’t see how the application could be approved and obey the law, given the draining of wetlands and the fact that the downstream community of cool water fish was likely to be cooked from the hot, polluted water running off the parking lots.

DEP might be particularly susceptible to politico pressure at this time because Kathleen McGinty has not yet been confirmed as DEP Secretary. At a recent confirmation hearing she was grilled on how business-friendly she would be. At a more recent hearing about the DEP budget, the questions had less to do on dollars and more to do on policy. Senator Robert Jubelirer and state Rep. Richard Geist have received substantial campaign contributions from the permit applicant/developers of the proposed shopping mall/office park [www.followthemoney.org]. As President Pro Tempore of the Pennsylvania Senate, and a senior member, Jubelirer wields substantial power.

The usual suspects came out in favor of the Ridge-Rip Route for Interstate 99 through central Pennsylvania, even before Ed Rendell was inaugurated. [http://www.rayproffitt.org/pu2002/11252002.htm among others]. Rendell eventually came out in favor of the Ridge-Rip Route, even though he specifically ran against it in his campaign, because it would bisect State Game Lands. After the election, he gave the green light to the dozers, saying he didn’t think it was a good idea, but he didn’t want to slow the economic growth for the central part of the state (the road would have been built by now had PennDOT not been so insistent on the Ridge-Rip Route).

Senator Jubelirer is also in the majority, and opposite, party of McGinty’s boss, the same Ed Rendell. Rendell was elected on the basis of an ambitious agenda, and it had a lot to do with things like "property tax reduction" and "education reform," and evidently, not much to do with protecting habitat for fish and wildlife. This crew has hardly settled into office before they began granting special favors to the oil and gas industry and a mall developer. Who’s next?

So the politicians are back, now asking DEP to approve the permit to wreck Brush Mountain. You can talk about the empty shopping centers in Altoona all you like. We all know the talk about "brownfields" and "sustainability" is really meant for confirmation hearings and the DEP website, not for application in the real world on real projects. When campaign contributors of powerful Senators and state Representatives want to wreck a mountainside, well, one must be "pragmatic."

That’s the real disturbing thought: this has less to do with McGinty’s confirmation than it has to do with a "pragmatic" Governor and a General Assembly that has to be constantly appeased in order to get the ambitious agenda moving. Is DEP approval of permits now simply a commodity to be traded? Projects like Ridge Rip Route of I-99 and the Butchering of Brush Mountain are not judged on their merits (including whether the law will be obeyed), but strictly on their value in political horse-trading. Education reform traded for a mall near you (plus a road, plus a lot more to come in the next four years).

We aren’t so naive that we don’t expect horse trading in Harrisburg. But we don’t expect things to be so blatant that permits are approved by the DEP of Kathleen McGinty without the developer having to address the concerns raised by the DEP of David Hess.

And no matter who is Senator, Representative, or Secretary, we expect the law to be obeyed. Don’t politicians – and DEP Secretaries-- each take an oath that mentions that somewhere?

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