The Pennsylvania Supreme Court [official website] ruled Tuesday that the state government must act as the trustee for public natural resources under the Environmental Rights Amendment. The court ruled [opinion, PDF] that royalties gathered from oil and gas leases on state lands cannot be used for budgetary matters and must be dedicated to conserving the Commonwealth’s natural resources. The Environmental Rights Amendment was incorporated into Pennsylvania’s constitution as Article I, Section 27 and states:

The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation 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.

According to the court, the amendment creates a trust where the Commonwealth is the trustee, the people of the Commonwealth the beneficiaries, and the natural resources the assets held in trust. The Supreme Court went on to note that according to Pennsylvania’s law in effect at the time the amendment was passed, proceeds from the sale of trust assets must be returned to the body of the trust, which, in this scenario, would mean the proceeds must be used to further preserve Pennsylvania’s natural resources.

Fracking [JURIST backgrounder], or hydraulic fracturing, is a controversial method of tapping natural gas deposits with highly pressurized fluids. The method, commonly used in Marcellus Shale deposits, has raised environmental and public health concerns. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation banned [JURIST report] fracking in the state in 2015. In March of that year the Maryland House of Delegates passed a bill [JURIST report] to place a three-year moratorium on fracking in the state. In January 2015 Scotland announced [JURIST report] a moratorium on the granting of permits for unconventional oil and gas extraction, including fracking amid environmental and health concerns.