environment gets green light

If VTI succeed with the highway project, then a part of this fund should 'drain' our way...:) Here is the link to the post below:
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/11672145.htm

Posted on Wed, May. 18, 2005

Environment bonds get green light

By Peter Jackson

The Associated Press


PHILADELPHIA -- Pennsylvania voters Tuesday overwhelmingly approved $625 million in state borrowing for environmental protection and land preservation.

With 76 percent of precincts reporting, 484,716 votes, or 61 percent, were cast in support of the bond issue and 308,614, or 39 percent, against.

"This initiative is broadly popular across the state," declared John Hanger, president of PennFuture, one of the environmentalist groups that campaigned for the proposal.

Voters in Centre County favored the measure by an almost 2-to-1 margin. A total of 10,568 votes were cast in favor of the Growing Greener bond issue, compared with 5,336 opposing the measure, according to unofficial results.

Even as ballots were being cast, however, it remained unclear how the money would be spent.

The referendum question cited certain uses -- watershed protection, open-space and farmland preservation, abandoned mine reclamation and the remediation of acid-mine drainage -- but the details were left to be decided through further negotiations at the Capitol.

Another supporter, PennEnvironment director David Masur, said he believed the wording of the question would protect the money from any serious political mischief as lawmakers and the administration wrangle over what to spend it on.

"Pennsylvanians, like most Americans, have faith in their elected officials to do the right thing," he said.

Paying off the bond issue and interest would take more than 20 years, with some annual payments rising as high as $50 million.

The state's general obligation debt service is expected to cost $759 million in the fiscal year that starts July 1, according to the governor's budget. Only a small fraction of that total includes the environmental bond because the bulk of the money wouldn't be borrowed until later.

Gov. Ed Rendell in his 2004 budget address first proposed borrowing $800 million to fund the bond issue, labeled "Growing Greener II."

Leaders of the Republican majority in the Legislature went along only after the Democratic governor agreed to reduce the total and abandoned his plan to pay off the bonds by imposing higher fees on trash haulers. They approved the referendum in April, just in time to put it on Tuesday's ballot, where it was the only item on which every Pennsylvania voter could cast a ballot.

Environmentalists scrambled to campaign for the proposal, urging a "yes" vote to protect land, water and wildlife "before they are gone forever." The conservative Commonwealth Foundation opposed it, saying the plan lacked details and the borrowing was unnecessary.

CDT staff writer Adam Smeltz contributed to this report.