PIPE DREAMS IS A RESPONSIBLE ENERGY PLAN IN PENNSYLVANIA’S FUTURE?
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August 25, 2016
On Healthcare City & State PA begins its series of Networking Events and Symposiums with the introduction of the On Healthcare Symposium. Partners, government leaders and policy makers will convene to discuss healthcare issues ranging from Insurance Coverage for PA’s most vulnerable population to developments in biopharmaceutical medicine.
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City & State Pennsylvania
August 25, 2016
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EDITOR’S NOTE / Contents
Greg Salisbury Editor
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THE KANE CHRONOLOGY Mapping out the former attorney general’s fall from grace.
For the millions of Americans who spent their summer vacation in a car, it must have felt like, with apologies to Prince, they were gonna road trip like it’s 1999. And for good reason: Even with an expected seasonal increase at the pumps, gasoline prices never strayed too far from the $2 per-gallon benchmark that recalled those halcyon days of cheap fossil fuel. And while low prices have been a boon for drivers and the economy in general, the glut that they signify – particularly of natural gas – is emblematic of the energy policy issues facing Pennsylvania, as illustrated by Gov. Tom Wolf’s driller-friendly approach vs. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s focus on renewable energy. Nowhere is this divide more starkly visible than over the question of gas pipelines, viewed as a necessity by Wolf and as anathema by Cuomo. In a collaborative piece with City & State NY, we examine the governors’ differences on this critical issue from both sides of the border, and whether a resolution can be reached. We would love to know what you think and where you stand on pipelines vs. renewable energy, as well as your views on anything else that piques your interest in this issue, so please email me your letters to the editor at gsalisbury@cityandstatepa.com. (We reserve the right to edit for clarity and content.)
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FOOD FIGHT: PHILLY VS. NYC
City & State’s DNC event featured a delicious battle for culinary primacy.
BOILING POINTS
As temperatures rise, tempers shorten – and political upheaval usually isn’t far behind.
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PIPE DREAMS
New York and Pennsylvania’s governors are taking opposite tacks on energy policy.
CAN SOFTWARE BE RACIST?
Advocates are concerned about the potential for profiling in a bail risk assessment program.
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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT RIGHT TO KNOW
Commonwealth citizens have the ability to access government records, thanks to a dedicated nonpartisan office.
CENTER OF ATTENTION
The Pennsylvania Convention Center tries to buck the national trend of declining attendance.
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PERSPECTIVE
Sabrina Vourvoulias investigates what’s really behind conservative groups’ voter registration lawsuits.
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CityAndStatePA.com
August 25, 2016
11/6/12
1/15/13
3/17/14
Kathleen Granahan Kane, a 46-year-old Scranton native and former Lackawanna County assistant district attorney, beats David Freed in the election to be the 48th attorney general of Pennsylvania.
Kane becomes the first woman – and first Democrat – to hold the office of PA attorney general since it became an elected office in 1980.
The Philadelphia Inquirer runs an article about Kane shutting down a corruption investigation into Democratic politicians, claiming that “the undercover investigation was poorly managed and badly executed, and relied on an undercover operative whose credibility had been compromised.” Kane becomes convinced Frank Fina, lead prosecutor on the investigation, leaked the story.
1/21/15
2015
2012-2014
The Kane Chronology
Court documents are released revealing that the grand jury recommended Kane face charges of perjury and abusing the authority of her office.
9/21/15 The PA Supreme Court unanimously votes to suspend Kane’s license to practice law, meaning that she cannot appear in court on legal matters or sign legal pleadings, although she can continue to perform administrative functions.
8/16/16 A jury convicts Kane on all nine counts after deliberating for less than five hours.
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August 25, 2016
Despite a glass-ceiling-breaking election victory and many notable accomplishments, including on same-sex marriage and prosecuting Catholic Church sex abuse, the legacy of Kathleen Kane’s time as Pennsylvania attorney general, which ended with her Aug. 17 resignation, is a thorny one. It will only get more so as further information is released during the likely appeal of her Aug. 15 conviction on all nine counts of perjury and obstruction. Here is how Kane went from virtual shoo-in for higher office to facing up to seven years in prison.
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11/14
The email scandal uncovered by Kane as part of her investigation into her predecessor’s handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse case becomes public knowledge. In the ensuing months, the revelation that numerous state officials participated in circulating pornographic, racist and misogynistic emails among themselves using state computers and state email addresses would cost many their jobs, including two PA Supreme Court justices. Kane consistently maintained that the case against her was a result of her trying to bring down an “old boys’” network, but that line of defense was repeatedly disallowed by the presiding judge.
A grand jury is convened to determine whether two memos related to a 2009 investigation, led by Fina, of former NAACP Philadelphia chapter president J. Whyatt Mondesire that failed to find any wrongdoing were leaked by the attorney general’s office as possible reprisal for what Kane saw as Fina’s previous leak.
8/6/15
JESSICA GRIFFIN/THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER VIA AP, POOL
2016
Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman charges Kane with perjury, false swearing and six other counts. (A second count of perjury would be added in October.)
8/9/16
8/15/16
Kane’s trial begins in Montgomery County.
Kane announces she will step down from her post effective the next day.
8/17/16 Kane resigns, leaving Bruce Castor as acting AG.
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– Kane’s lawyer says an appeal is forthcoming
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CityAndStatePA.com
August 25, 2016
AS PHILADELPHIA’S PREMIER private club for power brokers of all political leanings, the Union League has been the site of many pitched ideological battles, but perhaps none as tasty as what took place there July 26 during the Democratic National Convention. At City & State’s “Cheesesteak vs. Cheesecake: A New York-Philly Food Fight,” sponsored by Airbnb, 150 members of the New York and Pennsylvania delegations watched a panel of judges eat their way through each city’s most iconic foodstuffs to determine bragging rights until the 2020 DNC. The idea for the event came from a friendly competition between Pennsylvania Congressman Brendan Boyle (center left photo) and New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (center right photo) as both Brooklyn and Philadelphia vied for the honor of hosting the 2016 DNC. “Brendan and I were competing against each other for the convention,” recalled Maloney. “I said to Brendan, ‘Let’s have a food fight when we have the convention.’ I thought we were just going to have the
PHOTOS BY WENDELL DOUGLAS
Philadelphia triumphs in culinary showdown with New York City at DNC
PHOTOS BY WENDELL DOUGLAS
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August 25, 2016
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cheesecake and cheesesteak, the symbols of our cities.” Ultimately, the event grew to include head-to-head competitions between such standbys as: • Katz’s pastrami on rye vs. DiNics’ roast pork with broccoli rabe and sharp provolone • Sarcone’s Italian hoagie vs. Russ and Daughters’ bagel and lox • Federal soft pretzel vs. Lombardi’s pizza • Termini’s cannoli vs. Greenberg’s black-and-white cookie • and Pat’s cheesesteak vs. Junior’s cheesecake. Although the crowd didn’t get to have what the judges were having, that didn’t stop people like Maria Luna from enjoying the spectacle. “The last time I came, the weather was better,” joked Luna, a delegate from Maloney’s district. “It’s nice to see this collaboration between the two cities – it’s such a unique event.” For the judges, it was also a grueling one, although filled with surprises for some, like restaurateur Kevin Sbraga, who had never tasted a black-andwhite cookie before. “I really liked it,” he enthused. “It was so much softer than I expected, and the icing was a nice touch.” The sense of novelty wasn’t enough for the New York culinary contingent, though, as Philadelphia foods took three out of five categories: Roast pork over pastrami, hoagie over bagel and cannoli over cookie. (New York won with pizza over pretzel and cheesecake over cheesesteak.) After joking that it’s always nice to beat New York – although the NYC contingent had a better turnout than the hometown delegation – Boyle grew serious as he noted that the collaborative spirit of the event is something that has been lacking for far too long in the halls of Congress. “Believe it or not, I think more events like this should take place in Washington, DC.,” Boyle said. “People talk about a previous era in Congress, they lament the fact that these sorts of events don’t happen anymore. As a result, these sorts of close relationships,” which once occurred across the aisle as a matter of course, “don’t form. It’s really hard to bash the other side and dehumanize them if you were out with them the night before.”
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CityAndStatePA.com
August 25, 2016
Boiling points When temperatures rise, so do the chances By NATALIE POMPILIO of violence and civil unrest
“LIBERTY LEADING THE PEOPLE” BY EUGÈNE DELACROIX COMMEMORATES THE FRANCE’S JULY REVOLUTION IN 1830.
It’s not the heat, it’s the insurgency
It’s no coincidence that so many violently epochal events occur when the mercury is topping out. Higher temperatures frequently translate into shorter tempers. What might have been tolerated at 70 degrees becomes insuperable at 80 degrees, as evidenced by the timeline at right:
IT’S NOT JUST YOU: More bad things do happen during the summer. The heat makes us cranky, and studies show that there’s an increase in crime and a decrease in tolerance of others when temperatures top 74 degrees Fahrenheit. And it’s not just in the United States. The British deal with higher incidences of what they term “antisocial behavior” when it’s hot, too. In June, the Greater Manchester police warned its citizenry to be on the alert, as longer days can bring more examples of “aggressive and destructive activity,” including more “yobbish” (vulgar) behavior and “fly-tipping rubbish” (illegal dumping). That’s the downside of summer. The upside? The frustration that escapes from our pores with our sweat can sometimes lead to positive long-term change or, at the very least, trigger an event that highlights the need for it. Tiananmen Square is also known as the June Fourth Incident of 1989. Soweto youth revolted in June 1976. France still celebrates the anniversary of its 1830 break with the monarchy each July. Nat Turner led a slave rebellion in August 1831. And here we are in 2016. High emotions related to police shootings, shootings of police officers and a presidential election campaign like no other have combined with higher-
July 1830 July Revolution (France) Also known as the Second French Revolution, it saw the overthrow of Charles X and the installation of Louis-Philippe, who was himself overthrown in 1848. August 1831 Nat Turner’s Rebellion (Virginia) This slave rebellion in Southampton County presaged the Civil War by 30 years, and resulted in hundreds of deaths on both sides.
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than-average temperatures to create what truly seems to be – to turn Shakespeare and Steinbeck on their heads – the summer of our discontent. There was a time when really bad news – like a mass shooting, or a terrorist attack, or a shocking revelation that the good guys weren’t always so good after all – was such an anomaly that it was possible to measure the passage of time by them. There was before and after Rodney King’s beating by police was recorded in 1991; before and after Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed 12 fellow students and a teacher at Columbine High School in 1999; before and after Sept. 11, 2001. This summer, there’s been barely a pause between violent tragedies in places like Orlando, Baghdad, Somalia and France. Is the heat somehow to blame? To a certain degree, yes. Craig Anderson, a psychology professor at Iowa State University, calls it the “heat hypothesis.” In 2010, Anderson, who is also director of Iowa State’s Center for the Study of Violence, collaborated on new research showing how global climate change impacts aggression and violence, estimated that an 8-degree rise in the country’s annual average temperature will increase the murder and assault rate by 34 more incidents per 100,000 people. This would be a 14.4 percent increase over 2014 levels, according to FBI data. “This is a summer with a heat wave, and significant heat problems can influence people physically,” said Frank Farley, a Temple University professor and former president of the American Psychological Association. “Some people get agitated by it or they don’t feel comfortable doing things, like putting on sunscreen, just because of the weather. So it’s a background factor.” Srinivasan Sitaraman, a professor of political science at Clark University, said we cannot attribute warm weather as a causal August 1965 Watts Rebellion (Los Angeles) The first of the urban conflagrations of the 1960s included six days of rioting against police brutality and racism in Los Angeles.
factor to protests or an increase in violence, but we can argue that summer facilitates large group organization and mass protests. “It’s easier to organize when you can come out with shorts and a T-shirt and a bottle of water,” he said. Combining more organized resistance with a presidential election year could mean even more trouble, Farley said. Negative emotions like anger and aggression are more common when people are uneasy about the potential shift in power or the heated (in a metaphorical sense) rhetoric of the campaigns. “Elections, especially a big one that will define our society and our foreign and domestic activities for years to come, get people stirred up,” he explained. Heat also has an effect on our tolerance of others. In a recent research paper, James S. Krueger of the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh and Alexander H. Cohen of Ashford University in California found that average daily temperatures above 74 degrees are associated with preferences for a stricter immigration policy and against permissive affirmative action policies. Those are two issues that tend to be popular with minority groups and those who aren’t at the top of the income scale. They can feel that pushback, add it to their existing belief that they’re being treated unfairly and conclude that “a confluence of factors have come together at a crucial junction,” Sitaraman said. “There’s real anger and everyone’s feeling repressed and it’s all coming to a boiling point.” And literally becoming overheated can be a class factor as well. Those who can’t afford climate controls in their homes – “a beautiful, air-conditioned life,” as Farley put it – are more prone to fall victim to the weather than others. Frustration over social standing, income – or, really, anything – can lead to aggressive behavior, he said.
“I’m glad we haven’t had mass rioting behavior,” Farley acknowledged. So is there a way to ensure safety during times of elevated temperatures and tempers? According to Sitaraman, probably not. “When a fool, a lone wolf, goes on a killing rampage, you really can’t anticipate that,” Sitaraman said. “The number of shootings by people angry at the system has become epidemic.” After the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, Sitaraman said he doesn’t “actively seek out crowded places.” But in a free society, it’s difficult and challenging to do much in terms of preventative measures. Look at events of the last few years. Should one avoid movie theaters? Patriotic fireworks displays? Firstgrade classrooms? Farley also warns of the dangers of catastrophizing terrorist incidents. “Any time there is a loss of life, that’s terrible, but keep it in perspective … Terrorist attacks aren’t nearly close to the top of the list of things that have a chance of hurting you,” he said. “It’s your interpretation of events that’s so important.” There’s also allowing “emotional contagion” to set in, meaning you’ll refuse to go out at night or fly on an airplane. “Fear can have an incredibly constricting effect because you don’t live your life,” Farley said. “That ain’t the American story, historically. We tilt towards being risk-takers, pushing the envelope, being change agents. … We don’t want fear of terror or violence to choke that innovation and creativity.” In light of the uncertainty of the times, Srinivasan and his family have developed a new practice before parting ways. “Let’s say goodbye to each other, because we don’t know what’s going to happen today,” he said. “Let’s all be thankful when we come back in the evening.”
June 1989 Tiananmen Square protests (Beijing) The most recognizable event of the 1989 democracy movement in China that ultimately spread to more than 400 cities in the country before being brutally put down by the government. June 1976 Soweto Uprising (South Africa) Hundreds of Soweto residents were killed by police during protests by high school students against being taught Afrikaans in school.
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CityAndStatePA.com
August 25, 2016
Pipe dreams
Bridging the energy policy differences between New York and Pennsylvania’s governors is proving to be a tall order By RYAN BRIGGS and JUSTIN SONDEL
“MAKE NO MISTAKE: (CLIMATE CHANGE) IS A VERY REAL THREAT THAT CONTINUES TO GROW BY THE DAY, AND I URGE ALL OTHER STATES TO JOIN US IN THIS FIGHT FOR OUR VERY FUTURE.” -New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ON MAY 20, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s handpicked secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection, John Quigley, resigned amid accusations that he’d gotten too friendly with environmentalists. The timing of his ouster meant that he wasn’t around in an official capacity to see his former boss gut years’ worth of the department’s efforts to enact new drilling regulations for certain natural gas companies. Insiders whispered that it was a concession to pass a timely state budget. A few weeks earlier and a state away, on Earth Day no less, environmentalists cheered as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Department of Environmental Conservation – which banned hydraulic fracturing in the state in 2014 – denied a crucial permit for the $750 million Constitution natural gas pipeline. The ambitious project – designed to bring the spoils of gas
“IT’S SO RESTRICTIVE IN NEW YORK THAT WE CAN’T EVEN PIPE OUR GAS ACROSS ITS BORDERS TO NEW ENGLAND, WHICH REALLY NEEDS A CLEAN SOURCE OF ENERGY.” -Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf
wells in Pennsylvania to lucrative markets in New York, New England and beyond – died, some speculate, because it had sought to cut a path between two states headed in opposite directions on energy policy. “They’re a lot more restrictive,” Wolf griped at a July event, when asked about Cuomo’s policies. “It’s so restrictive in New York that we can’t even pipe our gas across its borders to New England, which really needs a clean source of energy.” This unlikely rift had been growing between New York and Pennsylvania for years. The two states are in many ways very similar, not least in that they both have Democratic governors who describe themselves as environmentalists. But the states are handling the issue of what to do with the bounty of natural gas buried deep beneath their soil – and how that resource impacts current and future energy policy –
in radically different ways. There are clear structural issues behind the division: Wolf is bound to powerful rural legislators from the Marcellus shale region, and both Democrats and Republicans are desperate to fuel Pennsylvania’s flagging economy with gas industry jobs. At the same time, his New York counterpart has sailed along on a tide of opposition, centered in the politically dominant New York City metro area, to gas drillers. And Cuomo’s agencies have acted independently – on the Constitution pipeline decision, a ban on high-volume hydraulic fracturing, subsidies to nuclear power plants, as well as solar and other renewable industry players – without the need for legislative approval. But some grumble about deeper, more cynical motivations and promises that will never be fulfilled. Cuomo’s environmental
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gains are coming at the expense of other states, they say, underwritten by cheap gas from Pennsylvania, which New York City is consuming at record levels, all while tying much of his energy policy’s future to the costly subsidization of the state’s ailing nuclear sector. Some observers have speculated that he may be more interested in the presidency than realizing his own promises of a carbon-free New York, though he again denied any higher ambitions when asked recently at the Democratic National Convention. “I have no interest in serving in a Clinton cabinet; I just have an interest in serving as governor of New York,” Cuomo told a gaggle of reporters. Meanwhile, after a bruising budget battle last year, Wolf may be more concerned with securing his own re-election through compromise than fulfilling a rose-tinted vision of a state that is both environmentally responsible and accommodating to the gas industry. “For the first 15 months in office, Wolf fought like a tiger to transform Pennsylvania, and, frankly, he didn’t get anywhere,” said John Hanger, who served as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection from 2008 to 2011. “For the last six months, he’s chosen to take whatever piece of the loaf he (can) get.” But it’s a promise that can seem farfetched, based on gas industry domination of Harrisburg combined with a downward economic trajectory – with supportive pols forever chasing the promise of that unshackled industry creating a gusher of new jobs. As Wolf and Cuomo go farther down their chosen paths, the division has created public friction between environmentalists, the gas industry in both states – and even between the two governors. CUOMO’S SIGNATURE MOVE in the war between a booming Northeastern hydrofracking industry and environmental groups was a 2014 announcement that, after six years of study, New York would officially ban fracking. Since then, he has continued to shift away from natural gas. In August, Cuomo’s Public Service Commission voted to adopt the Clean Energy Standard, formalizing his previously stated goals by requiring that energy providers in the state comply with the objective of deriving 50 percent of all energy from renewables by 2030. The new standard also set aside more than $1 billion in subsidies to keep existing nuclear power plants operational.
Even Cuomo’s economic development policies have frustrated the gas industry, including huge investments in nuclear energy and aggressive efforts to develop renewable energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions. At a cost of more than three-quarters of a billion dollars, New York is building North America’s largest solar panel factory in Buffalo, set to be run by SolarCity. The lead anchor tenant at a business hub in the rural Western New York town of Alabama, 1366 Technologies, is a manufacturer of solar equipment parts. And the state is putting $250 million toward a photonics center in Rochester, which will house a solar research and development facility. “Governor Cuomo has led the way in combating climate change – one of the single greatest challenges of our time,” said Abbey Fashouer, a Cuomo spokeswoman. “The governor is taking real, enforceable actions to preserve our planet through the Clean Energy Standard, including a firstin-the-nation 50 percent renewable energy mandate which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and grow the clean energy economy. New York will continue to lead the way forward with policies that create jobs, develop new industries, and protect our environment for future generations.” Many groups, including unions and environmentalists, have cheered the administration’s push toward developing clean energy jobs. “Governor Cuomo has shown his commitment to climate leadership by moving New York, and the nation, towards a renewable energy future, while at the same time creating thousands of jobs across the state, protecting ratepayers from volatile fossil fuel prices, and improving New Yorkers’ public health and environment,” Lisa Dix, New York senior representative for the Sierra Club, said in a statement after the adoption of the Clean Energy Standard. But, critics say, these economic and environmental policy moves amount to heavily subsidized job creation schemes that hurt taxpayers while benefitting industry leaders. Ken Girardin, a communications and marketing manager for the conservative think tank the Empire Center for Public Policy, argued that Cuomo’s decisions are designed to force people into buying “less reliable, more expensive solar energy. This entire clean energy standard is best viewed as a jobs program, funded on the backs of homeowners and businesses paying electrical bills.”
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The Cuomo administration did not directly answer City & State’s questions about Pennsylvania’s energy policies, but in a press release issued on the day of the adoption of the state’s Clean Energy Standard, the governor indicated that he hoped the policy would catalyze other states to move away from natural gas and other fossil fuels. “Make no mistake: This is a very real threat that continues to grow by the day,” Cuomo said of climate change, “and I urge all other states to join us in this fight for our very future." But if the plan was to lure states like Pennsylvania over to the green side, it hasn’t worked. Wolf has welcomed the continued drilling in his state, which issued some 2,500 drilling permits last year alone, and has supported a parallel strategy of investing big in urban natural gas processing hubs and other projects. He scoffed when asked if New York’s environmental policies should be regarded as a model. “New York’s policy is because they are concerned about how advanced the (drilling) techniques are in fracking to assure themselves that (they) have a good clean environment,” Wolf said. “But I don't know how you can assure yourself of that without actually doing it and regulating it and overseeing it and making sure you’re doing things right. So that’s the big distinction as I see it. Their policy is to not do it at all; mine is to do it, and do it right.” And make no mistake, Pennsylvania is doing it. It may not be as permissive as other gas-rich states, like West Virginia or South Dakota, but it’s the Wild West compared to New York. Wolf sealed a crucial budget deal this year in part by agreeing to scrap a big portion of a five-year deal to tighten drilling regulations after several disastrous gas leaks. The new state rules do apply to fracking enterprises, but politically influential conventional gas drillers, responsible for a disproportionate number of those leaks, were wholly exempted. Wolf also inaugurated the largest tax credit in state history in July: $1.3 billion to underwrite a gas processing hub, known as a cracker plant, near Pittsburgh. And the gas industry wants him to go further. “We have abundant cheap energy here,” said Andrew Levine, chairman of environmental and energy practices at Philadelphia law firm Stradley Ronon. “But at the outset, it has to be recognized that Pennsylvania starts at a disadvantage. It has the second-highest corporate tax rate in America.” Levine says that the state needs to sub-
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CityAndStatePA.com
sidize gas-consuming industries in order to stimulate an industry still reeling from cratering petroleum prices that have made natural gas products less competitive. “You have demonstrable pre-existing demand,” he said. “We have to start that engine with a well-reasoned manufacturing incentive program. European companies and Asian companies are used to some level of government involvement. … It’s not material to the funding of the project; it’s symbolic. We lost a billion-dollar project to Ohio over a state contribution of $30 million. It’s a question of feeling welcome.” Also on the Pennsylvania gas industry’s wish list: rolling back regulations in New York. Gas industry players like Levine suggested that the decision to deny the permit for Constitution might be part of a larger scheme to starve gas suppliers and reward the nuclear and renewable energy industries. “It’s New York acting in a predatory fashion, trying to cut off Pennsylvania’s revenue stream,” Levine told City & State. “The governor of New York has a decidedly anti-gas stance. And he is doing anything he can to destroy Pennsylvania’s ability to transport gas through his state.” But Empire State environmental groups couldn’t be happier about some of the recent moves in New York. Cuomo has set aggressive state energy standards – recognized by many as one of if not the most progressive in the nation – requiring that greenhouse gas emissions be cut by 40 percent from 1994 levels by 2030, and by 80 percent by 2050. Approving a project like the Constitution pipeline would have been a significant setback in reaching those goals. “If you don’t let them build any new pipelines, then you have to meet the increased need through renewables,” said Anne Marie Garti, an attorney and founding member of Stop the Pipeline, an environmental group, though she said she believes the decision to block the Constitution pipeline was unrelated to Cuomo’s broader energy policies. Jessica Azulay, a program director with the New York nonprofit Alliance for a Green Economy, agreed, saying the state can influence the way that infrastructure is built out and should be trying to push toward fewer emissions and systems that can deliver renewable energy sources. “The state has to be really careful where it’s investing money,” Azulay said. “In terms of investments into infrastructure and energy generation facilities, continuing to invest in natural gas, which does
August 25, 2016
contribute very significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, is going to hurt the state in terms of moving toward those goals. Their investments, at this point, should all be going into renewable energy build-out and not natural gas build-out.” PENNSYLVANIA’S ENVIRONMENTALISTS are considerably less cheery. They do not see Pennsylvania under Wolf’s leadership as laying out a grand energy strategy, but, instead, as carving out piecemeal victories for a struggling – but still influential – gas industry. Wolf’s inauguration in 2015 had brought the promise of change – for the environmental policy and a host of other issues – after four years under Republican Gov. Tom Corbett. But in May, Quigley, the head of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, fell on his sword. He had stood out from other DEP officeholders in that he was actually an environmentalist, having previously worked for the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. His predecessor, Mike Krancer, was a former energy company lawyer and a climate change skeptic. But just 11 months after he took the job, Quigley tendered his resignation, presumably under heavy pressure from Wolf. The governor’s office gave no official reason for the secretary’s sudden departure, but few doubted it was unrelated to a profanity-laced email Quigley had sent just a few days earlier to several activists protesting the move to gut new drilling regulations. “I’ve slept on this but can no longer hold back,” Quigley wrote in the email. “Where the fuck were you people yesterday? The House and Senate hold Russian show trials on vital environmental issues and there’s no pushback at all from the environmental community?” In the often stultifyingly staid world of government administration, there’s little doubt the email qualified as both explosive and unprofessional, with the coda that the person charged with protecting Pennsylvania’s environment had apparently just lost his job for getting a little too cozy with environmentalists. Today a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy, Quigley doesn’t like talking about the debacle surrounding his resignation and wouldn’t criticize his former boss. But he wasn’t afraid to characterize the bipartisan influence the gas industry has on Harrisburg, in spite of (and maybe, paradoxically, because of) its flagging fortunes.
“This state has always been the captive of extractive industries,” Quigley said. “It was coal, oil, timber industries and, now, gas. The history has always been that we privatize the profit and socialize the costs. These industries have always had tremendous sway in Harrisburg – and they continue to have tremendous sway in Harrisburg.” This may be the decisive difference between the two states on the issue. Hanger, another former DEP secretary who went on to work for a law firm with ties to the gas industry, doesn’t fault Wolf for his political stance. Hanger said he admired that the governor cut through the hyperbole that often dominates both the pro- and anti-gas sides of the debate, which he said were riddled with misinformation or self-righteousness. “It’s so polarized and politicized,” he said. “The industry denies it causes any problems. Anti-frackers deny it has any benefit. And the media plays up those roles. Wolf is right in the middle of the road, where all the dead armadillos are. He gets hit by both anti-frackers and industry.” But Hanger concurred with Quigley’s assessment of the state Legislature as utterly in thrall to the gas industry, although he said it was not solely because of the industry’s considerable lobbying efforts. He painted a picture of Wolf as a realist trapped by the geography of a polarized state. “This is the huge difference between Pennsylvania and New York. The entire General Assembly in Harrisburg is in the hands of right-wing Republicans with historically overwhelming numbers,” Hanger explained. “In New York, the political center of gravity is New York City or maybe Long Island and Westchester. That area is dominant in New York politics and it’s predominantly anti-drilling. In PA, Philly and its suburbs are anti-drilling and important, but they’re not dominant. It’s the difference of where the population centers are.” People in urban centers everywhere often mistakenly assume that because of high-profile protests, sometimes led by New York celebs like Yoko Ono and Lady Gaga, fracking is unpopular everywhere. But in much of Pennsylvania, particularly the more rural and economically depressed sections of the state, that’s simply not the case. Quigley pointed to the jubilation surrounding the announcement of the tax-incentivized gas processing plant near Pittsburgh as evidence that even Pennsyl-
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vania’s cities weren’t wholly on board with anti-gas messages. But he also said that full bans on fracking, like Cuomo’s, deprived rural areas of a rare economic opportunity. The difference between Wolf and Cuomo is that the New York governor could afford to ignore the depressed rural sections of New York state because of the dominance of urban centers. While jobs numbers are highly controversial for political reasons, the best estimate today pegs the size of Pennsylvania’s gas sector employment at around 90,000 – a not-insignificant number for smaller counties with few other prospects. “Those who also say the gas industry created no jobs or very few jobs sound like New York elitists. Don’t tell a high school graduate in Lycoming County that’s making $80,000 a year on a gas well that that job isn’t important,” Hanger said. “The hypocrisy in New York is that they oppose drilling, yet consume a lot of gas.”
the tax and on conventional drilling regulations (among other concessions) in exchange for support from powerful upstate Republican legislative leaders. As Hanger puts it, Republican Senate President Joe Scarnati “is in a district that’s one of the most rural, natural resource-dependent in the country. He could not be elected to that seat if he did not support the gas industry.” At least from a political point of view, this was probably a smart move – maybe one of Wolf’s only moves, Hanger said. In a state like Pennsylvania, most residents aren’t voting people out of office for being pro-gas – but they might vote out a governor for failing to pass the budget in a timely fashion two years in a row. “(Environmental policy) virtually never overcomes someone’s lifelong partisan commitments,” said Hanger. “It certainly doesn’t move enough voters to turn a district”
INDEED, REPORTS SHOW that New York had the largest number of homes added using natural gas as a heating source in the nation between 2005 and 2014, while air quality has improved around New York City as coal and oil plants have closed. Cuomo, ever the shrewd politician, with a lifetime of experience in the business, is likely not operating solely on moral grounds in his progressive energy posture. The governor surely saw the way the political winds were blowing when he decided to aggressively pursue these standards, several sources speaking on background told City & State. Tom West, an attorney who represents gas interests in New York, said that while he and many of his clients disagree with the governor on the role that natural gas should play in building out renewable energy infrastructure, no one is against adding renewables. Cuomo surely understands that dynamic, West said. “I think he’s trying to stake out his future as the governor who pushed the envelope on our energy policy,” he said. “I think he wants New York to be a model for the rest of the country, the rest of the world.” Wolf, a first-time politician, was headed toward being a lame-duck, one-term governor after a disastrous nine-month budget impasse last year that revolved in part around his efforts to introduce a gas extraction tax. The consensus among those who followed this year’s budget process – which, notably, was only days late – is that Wolf likely had to abandon his position on
PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW YORK do have one thing in common: their state executives have gone to great lengths to throw money behind what they view as a job-creating “bridge fuel” toward cleaner, greener fuels. Cuomo has pledged at least $1 billion – and some estimate that number could approach $8 billion by the end of the 12 years of planned state assistance – to prop up existing nuclear plants in the state as part of the Clean Energy Standard, a plan that his administration argues will ensure the state meets its greenhouse gas emission goals. In his first press event related to New York’s efforts to keep nuclear facilities open, held this month, Cuomo appeared at the FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant on the shores of Lake Ontario with the heads of two energy giants – Exelon, which is buying the plant, and Entergy, which is selling it – to announce a deal to keep the plant open, saving the jobs of 600 employees. While there is no official estimate, the state expects that the move to renewable infrastructure and the subsidies to nuclear plants and solar industry manufacturers will create thousands of jobs in the coming years. Coincidentally, the billion-dollar Pennsylvania gas cracker plant is expected to create 600 jobs, which Wolf touted on a recent trip to the region where it will be located. The state’s DEP promotes a Clean Power Plan plan that paints an almost utopian mixture of “clean” coal, natural gas and renewables – cutting carbon emis-
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sions by a third in 2030 while also growing extractive industries. Both governors frequently bring up jobs when justifying the expenses incurred as part of their respective energy policies. Both as an investment and a job creator, Pennsylvania politicians, including Wolf, argue in favor of natural gas production, given its abundance and relatively low emissions compared to other fossil fuel sources. It just has to be done right, Wolf says. “I’m a very strong environmentalist, but I believe with the right regulations, the right oversight and right enforcement that we can do (gas drilling),” Wolf told City & State last month. “Most people, I think, want to do it, but they want to do it right. And that’s where I come down.” In each case, both the industry advocates and the politicos argue that their respective solutions are cheaper and will create more jobs. But on the economic side, in Pennsylvania, the oil commodities crash is still ravaging the state’s gas industry and most of the commonwealth’s big drillers have laid off staff. Cabot Oil & Gas cut its capital budget by nearly 60 percent this year, while Atlas Resource Partners, which operates around 218 wells in Pennsylvania, filed for bankruptcy last month. A ballyhooed vision of transforming downstate refineries into an “energy hub” in Philadelphia seems to be faltering, with investors getting antsier as the era of cheap oil drags on. “The predatory, monopolistic practices of the Middle East have deliberately caused an oil glut – and now, prices are recovering,” said Levine, the gas industry lawyer. “We’re dealing with the inception of this new market. It shouldn't surprise us that there’s defibrillation going on. We’ll look back at this now as the start-up phase.” It could be true, but it’s a pretty long start-up phase. And environmentalists, suffice to say, hate Wolf’s plan. They don’t believe in “clean coal,” and there’s increasing evidence that fracking contributes far more to global warming than scientists once realized, primarily due to a growing number of previously undetected methane leaks. But state lawmakers, fearful of damaging a struggling industry, are already moving to scrap tighter state methane regulations that Wolf introduced in January. In the end, while Wolf and Cuomo may be taking very different paths, both governors are making some pretty bold promises – economic, environmental, or both – through energy policy. Now they just have to keep them.
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CAN SOF TWARE BE
s ? t Raci As Philadelphia develops a data-driven system for determining who should get bail, advocates fear the program could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
By RYAN BRIGGS
PHILADELPHIA MAYOR JIM KENNEY ran for office last year with the slogan that equality “should not be defined by ZIP code,” race or ethnic origin. Turns out that can be a tough promise to keep. Exhibit A: The city’s court system, which is developing a computer program designed to predict future criminality – and deciding whether those exact factors, race and ZIP code, should determine whether a person is locked up or released on bail. That system would generate a “risk score” for people arrested in Philadelphia based on a battery of data like arrest records, age, gender and employment history. The resulting score would help judges determine how high to set bail or whether to release defendants on their own recognizance, based on their predicted likelihood of reoffending or skipping court. University of Pennsylvania professor of criminology Richard Berk said he’s advised officials involved in a $6.5 million partnership with the MacArthur Foundation to reform Philadelphia’s First Judicial District that they should also include factors like race and home ZIP codes in the new pretrial program. Berk helped pioneer a similar program currently used by the city’s Adult Probation and Parole Department, which determines how intensively the city’s 45,000 probationers should be monitored based on predicted recidivism. Not surprisingly, his recommendations have been met with resistance. “The pretrial specifications (are) still being determined, but I am very confident that race will not be included, and probably not ZIP code,” Berk said. “The price, of course, is that there will be more forecasting errors. More folks will be mistakenly detained and more folks will be mistakenly released. That is not my decision; it is a political decision.” These computer programs, sometimes called “risk assessment algorithms,” have grown in popularity as a tactic for reducing overcrowded jails by separating out lessrisky suspects ahead of trial. Already in use in nearly a dozen states, Pennsylvania and Maryland are looking to implement similar computer programs that draw from Berk’s research. Advocates like Berk say that, ideally, the systems are more effective than relying solely on the individual biases of a bail magistrate. Even better, the algorithms underpinning these systems are built to teach themselves to become more effective through periodic accuracy tests that
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JOSEPH GIDJUNIS/CITY OF PHILADELPHIA
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City & State Pennsylvania
August 25, 2016
PHILADELPHIA MAYOR JIM KENNEY IS HELPING INFLUENCE A RISK ASSESSMENT PROGRAM’S PROTOCOLS.
compare outcomes against control groups. On paper, it can sound great. But as the use of “risk assessment” tools has expanded, so, too, has a debate over whether or not to include divisive factors like race to improve accuracy, and concerns that the computerized systems can develop their own complex forms of racism from biased data. “It is better than a judge making a splitsecond decision,” acknowledged David Robinson, a consultant with Team Upturn, a firm that specializes in data ethics. “But does that mean we should be happy?” His group is promoting a set of best practices recommendations for new riskscoring programs, created by the Arnold Foundation. The guidelines are fairly simple: They largely recommend excluding factors like race and home address – but also other potentially controversial factors, like gender, drug use history and employment status. Robinson said some information, like a subject’s ZIP code, can serve as “stand-ins” for race, given the highly segregated nature of many U.S. cities. And racially biased policing methods, like stop-and-frisk, can
taint other data, like the number of times a subject was previously arrested. “It’s important to ask exactly what it is we’re predicting the risk of. Often it’s rearrest,” he said. “Arrests are a proxy for bad behavior, but you’re using arrests in your model, and then you’re making more arrests based on that model.” In other words, arrests can sometimes be a false proxy for criminality. If there are more police making more arrests in highcrime neighborhoods, those populations will automatically score higher simply because of where they live. “You’re going to patrol more on certain blocks where people have been found with guns. You’re going to look for more guns – and you’ll find more. Pretty soon, you’re in an echo chamber,” Robinson said, in reference to the trouble with using ZIP codes as an indicator. Similarly, if Philadelphia police are predisposed to arrest minorities without good cause, as studies suggest they frequently are, a computer program could falsely interpret arbitrary arrests as a sign of increased criminality among minority groups.
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“You can end up in a feedback loop if someone is already at a high risk of rearrest,” said Robinson. “Then you impose more exacting conditions on that person, and they’re arrested even more. And the cycle repeats itself.” It’s already happened. A recent ProPublica investigation found that a riskassessment algorithm in Broward County, Fla., had developed a bias against black offenders using the “machine learning” process hailed by advocates. Low-level black offenders were routinely scored as “riskier” than hardened white criminals. ProPublica found that system, known as COMPAS, had only a 20 percent accuracy rate at predicting future offenses. And lower accuracy can actually be by design. Berk said all risk scoring systems are weighted in favor of higher risk scores, just to be safe. This is called establishing a “cost ratio” that pushes the system to favor higher bail, lockup or more intensive court surveillance even over releasing a potentially innocent person. In Berk’s initial system, built for the city’s probation department, the ratio was 20 to 1 in favor of tougher surveillance or detention. “In general, it is seen as more costly to falsely conclude someone is a good bet than to falsely conclude that someone is a bad bet,” he said. “Some mistakes are worse than others.” Berk has been publicly vocal about his point that concerns about discrimination in general are outweighed by other, deadlier risks. In a recent Inquirer editorial about the risk scoring system, he was quoted as pushing back against those criticisms. “People who stress that point forget about the victims,” Berk said in the editorial. “How many deaths are you willing to trade for something that’s race-neutral?” Not all of Berk’s colleagues in the field of statistics agreed with that assessment. “I found that comment quite jarring. If someone fails to appear in court, of course it’s bad, but that doesn’t always mean someone dies,” said Robinson. “Even if the question involves someone risking their life, the idea that the impact on fairness shouldn’t be considered is a troubling way to run a criminal justice system. We could eliminate the Bill of Rights and put a lot more potential criminals in prison. But we’re not going to do that.” City officials involved in Philadelphia’s reform process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that they were erring on the side of excluding the most controversial factors from the new algorithm
August 25, 2016
“WE COULD ELIMINATE THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND PUT A LOT MORE POTENTIAL CRIMINALS IN PRISON. BUT WE’RE NOT GOING TO DO THAT.” - DAVID ROBINSON, consultant with data ethics firm Team Upturn
– race and ZIP codes. However, the system is still under development; it hasn’t been determined how other aspects, like arrests or cost ratios favoring false positives, would be handled. Geoffrey Barnes, a Cambridge professor who conducted a technical analysis of Berk’s initial system prior to its implementation by the city’s probation department, said that risk assessment systems were accurate without racial data or ZIP codes. “In very basic terms, however, any predictor variable that is correlated with the outcome that is being forecasted can only benefit this kind of model,” said Barnes. “Just because a variable boosts forecasting accuracy, however, does not mean that it makes a huge or even a noticeable contribution. Some of these contributions can be rather small. When this happens, the variables are usually dropped from future versions of the model.”
Barnes has been involved with ongoing accuracy tests of the Philadelphia probation department’s scoring system. To his point, he said that ZIP codes had actually been eliminated as a risk factor in that system in May. But the probation department declined to release a complete list of risk factors or accuracy reports without a right-to-know request. In a previous report by City & State, probation officials said the risk factors in their system were too “complicated” to explain. This ambiguity speaks to the ultimate fear expressed by ethics advocates like Robinson, who worries that people will not be able or allowed to understand the complex forces shaping their treatment by judges or the larger criminal justice system. “The problem is that people who are not statisticians are not able to be critical consumers of the product,” he said.
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Wh at you n e ed to kn ow abou t R ight to K n ow LESS THAN A DECADE AFTE R A MUCH-NEEDED REVAMP, EVEN MORE GOVERN MENT RECORDS MAY BE REVEALED TO THE PUBLIC.
THOMAS JEFFERSON ONCE wrote that “an enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper func of a republic.” Pen nsylvan ians have tion ing clea rly taken those words to heart. For instance, last year, in a case inte rpreting Pen nsylvan ia’s Right to Know Law, the Com monwea lth Cou ordered the State Police to release rt dash cam footage. The issue of acce ss to these recordings in Pen nsylvan been closely watched by transpar ia has ency advocates, as these records are increasi ngly sought out in an video has redefined the debate over era where police use of force. Wh ile the ruli ng in Pen nsylvan ia State Police v. Grove has been appe aled to the state Supreme Cou rt, symboli zes the progress Pen nsylvan it ia has made in open ing government records to the public. Unti l 2008, Pen nsylvan ia overhau led its open when records statute, law enforcement in the state was not even arguably to disclose these records. requ ired including the inability Man to y of the obta in issu closes ed investigative records, can be trac Pen nsylvan ia’s original Righ ed to caution t to Know Law was enacted in 1957 duri ng a time of ferment government com mun ity, which soug in the open ht to increase access to governm ent records so the public could hold institutions accountable. its The Freedom of Information Com mittee of the American Society of Newspaper Editors was push ing stronger laws rega rding access to for government records, and in 1953 , Harold L. Cross published “The Right to Know: Lega l Access to People’s Public Records and Proceedi ngs, ” exposing the inadequacy of tran provisions across the country at the sparency time. In keeping with those nationw ide developments, state Rep. Stan ley G. Stroup described the state’s prop Right to Know Law as “legislation osed that strikes at the tap root s of the liberties of the people” duri ng a 1957 on the Pen nsylvan ia House floor. debate Echoing the argu ments of Cross and the Freedom of Information Com mitt ee, Stroup claimed that the Right Know Law was necessar y in an incr to easi ngly bureaucratic state “because certain agencies, depa rtments, bure and com missions have become little aus isolated mou ntai ns of power in thei r own right and are no longer resp to our people.” onsible Despite Stroup’s sweeping lang uage , the original Right to Know Law was quite limited. If an agency decl to release records, a requester coul ined d appeal to court, but the burden wou ld be on the requester to prov records requested were covered by e that the the law. This could prove chal lenging. Acc ordi ng to Erik Arneson, who help ed write the current Right to Kno as policy director for then-state Sen. w Law Dom inic Pileggi, “basically all that an agency was requ ired to release fina ncia l records.” were For instance, in 1999, the state Supr eme Cou rt ruled in North Hills New s Record v. Tow n of McCand less that 911 calls were not covered by the old law, noti ng that “the provision s of the Pen nsylvan ia Right to Kno establish a narrower framework … w Law than has been established by a num ber of other state legislatu res.”
City & State Pennsylvania
August 25, 2016
According to Arneson, the 2008 update to the Right to Know Law “flipped the presumptions” of the old statute, defining all agency records as presumably public and placing the entire burden of proof on the government. Many of the issues Many of the issues with the release of investigative records, including the inability to obtain closed investigative records, can be traced to caution
Those interviewed for this article also agreed on the importance of the second feature of the updated Right to Know Law: the creation of the state’s Office of Open Records (OOR), an independe nt agency that hears appeals from requesters who believe they have wrongfully been denied records, which Arneson now leads. Terry Mutchler is an attorney who represents and advocates for records requesters. She was also the first person appointed to head the OOR. According to Mutchler, Pennsylva nia is one of just three states that have a truly independent records agency. Having an independent agency can make a big difference in accessing government records. The OOR estimates that in 2015, half of requesters received some or all of the records sought as a direct result of filing an appeal, either because agencies released records after an appeal was filed or because the requester won the case. Contrast this to the experience requesters often have when filing appeals with the same agency that originally denied their request. Under the federal Freedom of Information Act, such appeals are required before a requester can go to court, but are commonly perceived as a rubber stamp for records denials. Case in point: In 2015, internal appeals filed with the Department of Justice directly resulted in the release of some or all requested records less than 15 percent of the time. The independent nature of the OOR was affirmed in 2015. Arneson was appointed to head the office by thenGov. Tom Corbett at the end of his term. Upon taking office, Gov. Tom Wolf fired Arneson, triggering a court battle. Last September, the state Supreme Court affirmed that the OOR is “a unique and sui generis independent body” and that its head can only be fired with good cause. According to Arneson, the increased availability of records and the ability to appeal to an independe nt tribunal “are powerful tools.” Mutchler agreed, stating that “eight years in, there are hundreds of thousands of records that were put in citizens’ hands because of the rewrites to the Right to Know Law.” The numbers bear Mutchler’s assertion out. In 2009, the first year of the OOR’s existence, the agency received 1,155 appeals. By 2015, that number had more than doubled to 2,926. While the press has used the new law to shine light on government operations, the vast majority of those who file appeals to the OOR are regular citizens seeking to better understand their government. As Mutchler told City & State PA, “I think it’s important to recognize that, while most people think this law is driven by the media, statistics say something completely (different). It is a citizen-driven law.” Pileggi, who is now a Delaware County Court of Common Pleas Judge, also praised the law for “eliminati ng what I saw as needless time and money spent fighting over what citizens should have access to and what was off limits.” Notwithstanding the unanimous praise for these key elements of the Right to Know Law, Pileggi, Arneson and Mutchler all agreed that there are changes still to be made. Many of the issues with the
Many of the issues One aspect consistent ly identified as needing improvement is the scope of public access to government investigation records. According to Pileggi, “one area that continues to be sensitive and continues to evolve is where law enforcement is involved.” The problem of access to government investigative records is multifaceted. Mutchler summed up the most prominent: “In most states, you can’t get information during an investigation, but once the investigation is closed, there is material that the public can see to judge the agency’s performance of its duties. However, in the commonwealth, investigative records are off the table forever.” Second, if a municipal or county agency claims that records are exempt because they relate to a criminal investigation, the Office of Open Records does not assess that claim – the correspon ding county’s district attorney hears the appeal, potentially using procedures that are substanda rd compared to those of the OOR. According to Arneson, this was the result of pressure from the Pennsylva nia District Attorneys Association, which was concerned that “local police investigations could be impacted” by an untested OOR. Finally, even if the criminal investigation exemption were to be amended and appeals could be heard by the OOR, a final barrier stands in the way: Pennsylva nia’s Criminal History Record Informatio n Act. Arneson explained that the act “says that law enforcement records can only be shared with other law enforcement
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s to requesters. agencies,” banni ng release of criminal investigation record s, includ ing the inability to obtain them, can be record gative investi of release the with Many of the issues ally changing the state’s transparency law. drastic to traced to caution exercised by legislators initial ly averse a says he believes that “now that we’re closing in on Arneson described the overhaul as a “sea change,” but investigation records.” decade of experience, it’s time to take another look at for a lack of aggression on the part of legislators involved tive correc a be to seem ts vemen impro sed Other discus with passing the 2008 revamp. ed to post more records online for easy public access. Pileggi, for instance, said that agencies should be requir ed available digital ly,” he said, “but some agencies govern “We didn’t really compel agencies to make information n utilization uneve an there’s now and le, availab ation inform by the law have chosen to use technology to make of that technology.” agencies, requesters and courts struggled to figure out Arneson also described a natura l period of confusion as e. the meani ng of the act in the years follow ing its passag tous black boxes coveri ng sections of govern ment Take the issue of redaction. Highl ighted by those ubiqui . ve information to make a record releasable to the public documents, redaction is a process for obscuring sensiti Court lth onwea Comm the Law, Know to Right d However, in an early court decision interpreting the update that agencies could only be required to redact a small ruled in 2010 that a quirk in the law’s language meant access to the remainder. percentage of documents for public release, limiting public familiar with the law, they have embraced a wider Nevertheless, Arneson said, as courts have grown more summer, in Pennsylvania State Police v. Grove, the Last one. role for redaction – a role he views as the correct t dash cam videos in question must be redacted to permi Commonwea lth Court ruled that exempt portions of the the release of the remainder. the thousa nds of opinions issued annua lly by his agency Arneson said he is also comm itted to making sure that ters. To facilitate consistency, he said, “We have a system are consistent in their application of the law to all reques by our chief counsel and, if particularly notable, are in place where all final determ inations go through review also reviewed by the deputy director and I.” s, includ ing the inability Many of the issues with the release of investigative record to standa rdize the process of obtain ing govern ment While the overhauled Right to Know Law has helped e exception: the state court system, which goes largely documents across Pennsylvania, there is one notabl unmentioned in the open records law. greatly from county to county. As an example, David Currently, the availability of court records can vary ylvania Court s, cited divorce records. “There are some Price, an attorney for the Admin istrative Office of Penns to divorce filings. There are other counties that post all counties,” he said, “where the courts do not allow access of their divorce records online.” The Public Access Worki ng Group of the AOPC has This state of affairs may be changing soon, however. le nic case information, such as the information availab already created uniform policies on access to electro . judges t distric erial magist of s record through the state’s online docket service, and to the court to standa rdize access to records of appellate courts, the The working group recent ly proposed a statew ide policy Municipal Court. county Court s of Common Pleas and the Philadelphia , officia l adoption of this policy by the state Supreme Court the for date set no is there while According to Price, ” court. the before ely definit is policy ed which sets rules regulating all state courts, “the propos policy, potential changes to the Right to Know Law As the Supreme Court weighs the proposed public access by praised Senate Bill 411, which was introduced in 2015 are also on the horizon. Both Arneson and Mutch ler 2008. in d update was it since time first the for law the then-Sen. Pileggi and which would substa ntially revise the Right to Know Law applies to certain independent Among other changes, SB 411 would make clear that authorities, and to the police depart ments of state-related govern ment authorities, such as econom ic development universities like Temple. s to exami ne disputed records direct ly and authorize It would also codify the right of the Office of Open Record it to defend its decisions in court if necessary. time” for reform ing some of the larger issues with the Arneson doesn’t believe that “this year is quite the right for carefu l study of the problem and solutions. It’s need law, such as the investigative exemption, because of the officia ls and advocates alike going forward. clear, however, that these changes are on the minds of
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CENTER OF ATTENTION
As attendance declines nationwide, is the Pennsylvania Convention Center living up to expectations? By JAKE BLUMGART THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL Convention has come and gone. Pope Francis passed through, trailing the World Meeting of Families in his wake. While much of the central action of these events took place away from the Pennsylvania Convention Center, in both instances the space was packed to bursting with forums, conclaves and various other types of gatherings. Miracle of miracles – or, in the case of Pope-apalooza, a typical occurrence – everything went off without a hitch. There have been no complaints, thus far, of overcharging or labor strife. This blissful state of affairs is a far cry from three years ago, when City & State PA columnist Tom Ferrick called the Pennsylvania Convention Center “a dud. With a capital D-U-D.” At that time, two years after the completion of a $780 million publicly funded expansion project that effectively doubled the size of the facility, the city’s ability to attract meaningful convention business seemed in peril. When the expansion was proposed, it
was projected to grow the business by about a third. But as Ferrick reported in 2013, major conventioneers were instead abandoning the city. The poor performance of the Pennsylvania Convention Center was blamed squarely on the building trades members who set up, take down and maintain the ever-shifting programming within the center’s 679,000 square feet of exhibition space. At the time, there were six unions working within the institution, but it was the Carpenters – whose then-president, Ed Coryell Sr., sat on the board of the Pennsylvania Convention Center – who took the heat for being difficult to work with and expensive to hire. In the years following, the Carpenters were definitively booted from the center, with much of their work taken over by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE). Then, three weeks before the DNC, which would make extensive use of the site, City & State PA discovered that top IATSE executives were in-
volved in an overbilling scheme. The labor coalition that staffs the convention center moved quickly to punish those responsible – no one wanted anything remotely similar to 2013 again. “No matter how minor or how severe, we’re definitely committed to policing ourselves to the max,” John Dougherty, business agent of IBEW Local 98, said three weeks before the DNC. “We’re guaranteeing the transparency and cost effectiveness, and none of the past nonsense. We worked real hard to make this the No. 1 hospitality destination in America. We’re killing it production-wise at the DNC.” Dougherty’s opinion was echoed by John J. McNichol, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Convention Center. “We have great labor harmony now,” says McNichol. “The place is really firing on all cylinders.” But the Pennsylvania Convention Center still doesn’t seem to be living up to what was promised when the public was convinced
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Exhibition space at the Pennsylvania Convention Center:
679,000 square feet
In addition to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the Keystone State has: the David Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh
313,000 square feet NYC Javits Center’s convention and trade show attendees in 2000:
the Bayfront Convention Center in Erie
NYC Javits Center’s convention and trade show attendees in 2015:
the Lancaster County Convention Center
145,000 square feet
1.25 million
90,000 square feet
672,300
Convention space in the U.S. in 2000:
52.1 million square feet
Average Pennsylvania Convention Center attendance in 2000-2002:
976,000
Convention space in the U.S. in 2016:
71.2 million square feet
Estimated attendance after expansion:
1.49 million
297,792 Actual attendance in 2015:
to spend hundreds of millions of dollars expanding it. For Heywood Sanders, a nationally recognized expert on convention centers, the problem was never just the Carpenters or high labor costs more broadly. The bigger issue is a bit like what Atlantic City’s casinos are facing today: There’s too much competition elsewhere. In 2000 there was 52.1 million square feet of convention space in the United States; today, that number is 71.2 million square feet. There simply aren’t enough shows to go around. “Almost every time questions have arisen
about the performance of the Philadelphia center, the argument is made that unions are the problem,” says Sanders, the author of “Convention Center Follies: Politics, Power, and Public Investment in American Cities,” and a professor of public administration at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “The overall nature of the market right now is that convention center space in this country is seriously overbuilt. The result is that every seriously sized center is seeing performance issues. The idea that the problems are because of unions, in light of that larger market context, just doesn’t wash for me.”
To illustrate the extent of the exhibition space glut, consider that in Pennsylvania alone there is the David Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh (313,000 square feet), the Bayfront Convention Center in Erie (145,000 square feet) and the Lancaster County Convention Center in Lancaster (90,000 square feet). However, the Pennsylvania Convention Center, which features more exhibition space than the previous three combined, is more likely to be classed with other behemoths like the Jacob K. Javits Center in Manhattan, the Las Vegas Convention Center, or McCormick Place in Chicago.
City & State Pennsylvania
August 25, 2016
But as convention center saturation sets in, all of these heavy hitters have suffered, whether they experienced labor strife akin to Philadelphia (like McCormick Place) or not. In 2000, the Javits Center saw 1.25 million convention and trade show attendees. By 2015, that number dropped to 672,300, despite an expansion and renovation. Meanwhile, room nights, which are the most reliable metric for convention center success, fell as well – from 668,000 in 2003 to 478,000 in 2014. In Las Vegas, the king of convention cities, similar pressures are being felt. In 2002, the Las Vegas Convention Center underwent an immense expansion, doubling in size to 3.2 million square feet. This huge project did nothing to expand the number of out-of-town visitors, though. In 2001, the convention hall saw 1.29 million visitors, already a slight dip from 1999. Last year, despite the center’s increase in size, its attendance was still under 1.3 million. The Pennsylvania Convention Center can be grouped with these other big-league institutions in terms of size, the ability to lure big shows – and disappointing attendance numbers. In 2003, when the expansion project was under consideration, the consultant group Conventions, Sports & Leisure International projected that when completed, the super-sized convention center would attract 1.49 million non-local attendees a year. The group estimated the pre-expansion attendance levels at an average of 976,000 between 2000 and 2002. Both those figures were probably inflated, but nonetheless the numbers in the last few post-expansion years are vastly smaller. According to the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau (PCVB), in 2015, when the pope visited, the center hosted only 297,792 attendees. But that year was arguably still in the shadow of the labor troubles. By the end of 2016, the number of attendees is expected to grow to 377,268. The convention center isn’t living up to expectations in room nights either. The 2003 report estimated that the expansion would generate 786,000 room nights for the local hotel industry. It also showed a yearly average of 503,000 room nights between 2000 and 2002. But in 2015, there were only 312,563 room nights that the PCVB directly tied to the convention center, although that number is expected to grow to as much as 390,000 in 2016. In both cases – attendance and room nights – not only are the best-case scenario 2016 projections lower than the projections of the boosterish consultants hyping the $780 million expansion, they’re also
lower than the attendance rates and room nights that Conventions, Sports & Leisure International reported before the convention center was expanded. A 2013 report on the local hotel industry by PCVB and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation confirms this, showing declining convention-related room nights since 2002. Convention-related hotel nights haven’t surpassed 500,000 since that year. Indeed, the rosiest projection for this year – 390,000 room nights generated – is still less than the number for 2014, the year of peak labor troubles, when 397,051 room nights were generated. From the perspective of Julie Coker Graham, president and CEO of PCVB, the reasons for these numbers are manifold. In particular, she notes that the numbers of hotel rooms weren’t up to the task of accommodating traffic from the expanded convention center. But the competition is certainly a factor, too. “The increased inventory across the nation is definitely going to have an impact on your performance,” says Graham. “You are also handicapped with a union perception and reputation so when you add that kind of inventory, everyone has to be on their game everything has to be operating on all cylinders including the amount of inventory hotels.” Graham expects to reach the goals of the early 2000s. “Barring any unforeseen issues, we look very strong after 2019,” she says. “After 2019, we have the ability to generate over 700,000 PCC-related room nights.” There can be no doubt that the Carpenters union was a thorn in the side of conventioneers, management and their counterparts in the labor movement. As the Inquirer and Ferrick noted at the time, there were specific big conventioneers – like the American Academy of Neurology – that were actively avoiding the city as a result of their experiences.
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Now many of these conventioneers are on their way back. Immediately after the DNC, the American Association for Clinical Chemistry started setting up shop for a five-day conference. The latest infraction on the part of a couple IATSE executives seems like small beer in comparison with the endemic labor troubles of earlier years. But it appears that these are all micro-level problems and that the Pennsylvania Convention Center is haunted by a macro-level problem that affects the whole industry. The Pennsylvania Convention Center is clearly a priority for Pennsylvania’s elites. The board of the institution includes some of the most powerful people in the state, from Democratic attorney general candidate Josh Shapiro to the head of the Philadelphia Laborers union Ryan Boyer to Drew Crompton, the right-hand man of Republican state senate president Joseph Scarnati. Everyone City & State PA talked with seemed happy with the way the center is trending, although they acknowledge that the industry is tougher than ever these days. “From what it sounds like from the stats, there’s more cities competing for conventions,” said Crompton. “It takes a lot of work to be on the list of competitors. It’s not as fierce as being the host city of the Olympics, but it’s incredibly competitive. Some states subsidize more so than we do. It’s like the film tax credit in Pennsylvania. Other states have it, too.” Like the film tax credit, convention centers have become an arms race of state-sponsored incentives that are bringing in diminishing returns. But even though that oversaturation is a problem, it’s still a huge repository of work where union members can make decent wages and get benefit contributions. In an economy where such boons are increasingly hard to get, that’s nothing to sneeze at. The question is whether the public money expended during the expansion was worth it.
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“THE INCREASED INVENTORY ACROSS THE NATION IS DEFINITELY GOING TO HAVE AN IMPACT ON YOUR PERFORMANCE.” – JULIE COKER GRAHAM, PCVB
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CityAndStatePA.com
August 25, 2016
PERSPECTIVES
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Conservative groups try to turn Philly into a voter suppression battleground By SABRINA VOURVOULIAS ONE OF THIS SUMMER’S more interesting legal developments has been a series of rulings on Republican-backed legislation that federal judges have found to be designed to disenfranchise black and Latino voters. In July, a federal court in Richmond struck down North Carolina’s voter ID law, finding that its primary purpose wasn’t, as its proponents averred, to prevent voter fraud but rather to disenfranchise voters. Enacted by a Republican-led legislature and Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, the law was found to, according to the court, “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.” Last month, in Wisconsin, federal judges eased restrictions on voter ID requirements signed into law by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, saying that the law’s “preoccupation with mostly phantom election fraud leads to real incidents of disenfranchisement.” (A U.S. appeals court suspended the ruling earlier this month, although in another federal case, a judge struck down voting restrictions enacted by the state’s Republican-led legislature for disenfranchising minority voters.)
In June, a Reuters investigation revealed that Ohio had removed tens of thousands of voters from registration lists because they hadn’t voted on a regular basis (since 2008). “Voters have been struck from the rolls in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods at roughly twice the rate as in Republican neighborhoods,” Reuters reported. “In the three biggest counties, at least 144,000 voters have been removed.” This is in addition to a federal judge’s June ruling that the state’s laws on absentee and provisional ballots were unconstitutional. While the Reuters analysis specifies that the Ohio effort “doesn’t appear to be driven by one specific party,” an effort to purge voter rolls in Philadelphia has been undertaken by the Public Interest Legal Foundation on behalf of the American Civil Rights Union (ACRU), and a scan of both organizations’ boards of directors reveals that the majority of those involved have Republican and/or conservative bona fides. On April 4, the ACRU filed a complaint against the Philadelphia City Commissioners, who oversee voting rolls, claiming they had not allowed the ACRU to inspect voting records for fraud. Two weeks later, the city filed a
City & State Pennsylvania
August 25, 2016
motion to dismiss the lawsuit for lack of jurisdiction and other procedural reasons, according to Mary Catherine Roper, the deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Pennsylvania. “The judge never got around to making a decision on the motion to dismiss the original complaint,” Roper explained. On July 11, “ACRU files a motion saying the city won’t meet to plan discovery (exchange of documents and testimony),” and on July 20, the “ACRU files a motion to file an amended complaint that includes the original claim about inspecting records and adds the claim that Philly isn’t purging felons from the voter rolls.” That same day, the ACRU also ”files a motion asking for a preliminary injunction to force the commissioners to purge the voter rolls of felons immediately. A preliminary injunction is a way of getting the goal of your lawsuit at the beginning.” Then, on July 21, federal judge C. Darnell Jones II “issues order allowing ACRU to file the amended complaint,” Roper said. “He denies as moot the motions that were already pending on the original complaint (an amended complaint starts the lawsuit all over again, in effect). As for the motion for a preliminary injunction, the judge suggests that it is frivolous and directs ACRU to tell him, by Aug. 4, why he should not deny the motion for preliminary injunction and sanction ACRU for filing a frivolous motion.” But things have gone the ACRU’s way since then. The group handed in an affidavit from an election specialist attesting that reassessing the voter rolls and removing people who do not qualify, specifically incarcerated felons, is a reasonable interpretation of the National Voter Registration Act, and the judge gave the city and the ACRU until Sept. 9 to submit formal briefs explaining their sides. Christian Adams, president of the Indiana-based Public Interest Legal Foundation, said the amended complaint was filed because “Philadelphia has been doing nothing in response to felony convictions for those who are ineligible to vote.” “The city is undertaking no effort whatsoever to remove ineligible felons,” Adams added. “Felon voting is a problem nationwide. Some elections have had ineligible felons make the difference in the election.” Since the lawsuit is ongoing, Andrew Richman – the chief of staff of City Solicitor Sozi Pedro Tulante – said the city could not comment on any aspect of the pending litigation. But according to Roper, the ACLU’s latest information is that “Philly is complying with its obligations under the National Voter Registration Act.” Moreover, Roper added, “I can say that I don’t understand the point of ACRU’s claim. In Pennsylvania, incarcerated felons cannot vote but those who have been paroled can vote. So it would make no sense to purge felons as soon as they are convicted – they could be paroled before the next election. And if they aren’t, well, then they won’t be able to get to the polling place anyway. I have never heard of anyone trying to vote absentee from a state prison. It seems ACRU is trying to make a fuss over a non-issue. The only thing that purging those names would accomplish is to keep them from voting when they are released – when they are entitled to vote.”
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“WHY PHILADELPHIA? SIMPLY PUT, BECAUSE IT IS A DEMOCRATIC STRONGHOLD, AND ALSO A MAJORITY MINORITY CITY.”
The ACRU’s actions seem to be setting the stage for the organizations to contest the vote in Philadelphia on Nov. 9 – the day after the election – à la Florida during the 2000 presidential election. Why Philadelphia? Simply put, because it is a Democratic stronghold, and also a majority minority city. The sad truth about our criminal justice system is that it disproportionately targets and incarcerates people of color – mostly African-Americans and Latinos – and purging so-called “felons” without regard for whether parole or re-entry makes their vote legitimate would certainly disenfranchise the same demographic as the Ohio purges and voter ID laws in North Carolina and Wisconsin did. Philadelphia isn’t the only city where the Public Interest Legal Foundation and the ACRU are filing this kind of lawsuit. Adams said they have filed claims in “lots of other places.” South Florida’s Broward County is one of them. Like Pennsylvania, Florida is expected to be a swing state in the election, and Broward County, which includes Fort Lauderdale, is its second-most populous county, accounting for 9.2 percent of the state’s population. And, according to the 2010 census, 25.7 percent of the total population of the county is black; another 26.1 percent is Latino; and 50 percent of the population is registered Democratic – making it a strongly Democratic, majority minority county. Broward County was also one of three counties where votes were still being manually counted when Florida’s Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris “certified” George W. Bush the winner in Florida in the contested 2000 presidential election against Al Gore. “What’s past is prologue,” Shakespeare wrote in “The Tempest.” And with the confluence of elements in place, it is impossible to dismiss that idea. It does seem the ACRU is hoping – and doing everything in its power – to make sure that come Nov. 9, we are embroiled in a political tempest that is the culmination of a long game, methodically played.
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CityAndStatePA.com
August 25, 2016
Publisher David Alpher dalpher@cityandstatepa.com Editor Greg Salisbury gsalisbury@cityandstatepa.com Staff Reporter Ryan Briggs rbriggs@cityandstatepa.com
Editorial Director Michael Johnson mjohnson@cityandstatepa.com Managing Editor Ryan Somers rsomers@cityandstatepa.com Creative Director Guillaume Federighi gfederighi@cityandstatepa.com Associate Copy Editor Sam Edsill Digital Manager Chanelle Grannum cgrannum@cityandstatepa.com
LOSERS
President/CEO Tom Allon tallon@cityandstatepa.com
JOHN RAFFERTY – What pumps up a Republican attorney general candidate’s electoral prospects more than a Democratic AG catching a felony conviction?
Copyright ©2016, City and State PA, LLC
Vol. 1 Issue 5 - August 25, 2016
PIPE DREAMS IS A RESPONSIBLE ENERGY PLAN IN PENNSYLVANIA’S FUTURE?
CIT YANDSTATEPA .COM
@CIT YANDSTATEPA
Cover GUILLAUME FEDERIGHI
August 25, 2016
OUR PICK
Chairman Steve Farbman
WINNERS
Finance and Office Manager Allison Murphy amurphy@cityandstatepa.com
Remember when the beginning of August signified the slow season for news, a time when you could go on vacation, secure in the knowledge that nothing of any real import would happen, since everyone else would either be on vacation as well or too engulfed in temperature torpor to do anything of note? Yeah, neither do we. From shrinking coattails to gobsmacking gifts, top cops to obligatory resignations, this has been a month to remember – or forget.
OUR PICK
Director of New Business Development Annette Schnur aschnur@cityandstatepa.com
SETH WILLIAMS – Philly’s district attorney delayed as long as possible reporting $160,000 in gifts he received – some from judges and lawyers he dealt with on the job – until the FBI started sniffing around. TL; DR: It’s been one hell of a month for law enforcement in the state.
THE BEST OF THE REST
THE REST OF THE WORST
KATIE MCGINTY - Trump’s imploding
KATHLEEN KANE - convicted,
presidential campaign appears to be
resigned, with possible impeachment
taking Toomey’s re-election to the
proceedings still to come
Senate down as well
JOHN “JOHNNY DOC” DOUGHERTY -
BRUCE CASTOR - Gov. Wolf has
experienced the worst kind of wake-up
already nominated a new interim AG,
call when the FBI conducted early-
but he’s making the most of his moment
morning raids of his home and office
FERNANDO GALLARD - leaving the
MICHAEL NUTTER - the former
SRC to start his own consulting firm
Philadelphia mayor and his inner circle
RICHARD ROSS - the Philly Police
operated a discretionary account like a
Commissioner’s policies and officers
slush fund for trips, shoes and more
were a big reason why the DNC was
JOHN WOZNIAK AND KEVIN
such a success
SCHREIBER - leaving their posts for different reasons, leaving state Dems even more in the lurch
Coming in September The business of medical marijuana:
Now that it has been legalized in Pennsylvania, what does the future hold for those who want to grow it, those who want to use it, those who want to become part of the supply chain, and those who will enforce it?
Coming to America – or not: No fewer than three immigration bills made it to the floor of
the Pennsylvania House this legislative session. In an era of immigration debate not seen in generations, we unpack the fate of these bills – and the people they would affect – during a hotly contested election year.
Standardized testing:
In the face of swelling opposition from parents, education professionals and advocates, how are PA schools responding to the pushback? And, just as important: What are the alternatives?
Spotlight: Introducing our first in-depth special section, which will focus on the health care industry and the far-reaching impact it has on the state, including an examination of how the Affordable Care Act has changed the landscape for providers and patients.
Also:
Opinion columns from Tom Ferrick and Sabrina Vourvoulias, Winners and Losers, and much, much more! To advertise in this special issue, contact Annette Schnur aschnur@cityandstatepa.com or call 215-490-9314 ext. 3004
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