Lawsuit’s dismissal could spare passenger rail service | News, Sports, Jobs

A trucking industry group is appealing the Thursday ruling by U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane, which said it’s legally acceptable for the Turnpike Commission to pump toll money into other state transportation projects. That ruling goes a long way toward preserving other transit work, including efforts to preserve and expand the once-daily train service that connects eastern and western Pennsylvania.

State officials had sounded alarms that the lawsuit, if successful, would deprive PennDOT of hundreds of millions of dollars. Trucking companies opposed the money transfers, arguing that their drivers paid inflated tolls to fund roads railways they would never use.

If the turnpike toll money dried up, PennDOT officials warned, expanded rail service would be at risk. State agencies have studied a potential second daily route between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, where current stops include Johnstown, Altoona, Tyrone and Huntingdon.

A threat to PennDOT’s turnpike money would not only kill that added route, officials and rail advocates said — it could kill the state subsidy that keeps even the existing Amtrak service running.

Kane’s ruling puts at least a temporary stop to the lawsuit. But the head of the trucking organization that filed it said he is set to appeal, and it’s possible funds could again be held up as the filers await another ruling.

Either way, the funding stream — with ever-increasing turnpike tolls used to cover transportation cash gaps — isn’t sustainable, PennDOT spokeswoman Erin Waters-Trasatt told the Post-Gazette in a written statement last week.

“The decision issued (Thursday) does not change the fact that there are still significant challenges facing Pennsylvania’s transportation network,” she said.

CWD draws attention

A group of central Pennsylvania and Texas lawmakers banded together last week to seek millions of dollars in funding to find a cure or vaccine for chronic wasting disease, the fatal illness that has thinned deer and elk herds across the country.

In a joint statement, Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-15th District, and Rep. John Joyce, R-13th District, announced a new House bill with two Texas colleagues that would put $15 million into disease research. The money would be doled out in grants to states, research agencies and universities.

“The legislation being introduced today will ensure Congress allocates sufficient and timely funding that will incentivize the innovation necessary to cure this terrible disease amongst our region’s deer,” Joyce said in the bill’s announcement.

The disease began in the West before moving toward Pennsylvania, where it was first detected among local wild deer in 2013. While states have had varying success in stopping the disease, it has continued its spread from state to state in recent years.

Chronic wasting disease has drawn more federal attention this year, with several bills and resolutions calling for research and funding to find a cure — or at least a vaccine to prevent its spread.

The disease is always fatal in animals it affects, although there is no conclusive evidence it can be transmitted to humans. Scientists have worked in recent years to determine whether chronic wasting disease could make its way to human brains, as so-called mad cow disease has.

A resolution calling for more research by the National Academy of Sciences has drawn 20 cosponsors so far, including Thompson and Joyce.

“We cannot just let (chronic wasting disease) continue to expand its footprint in our region without addressing it,” Joyce said when that bill first appeared earlier this session.

Senators seek fentanyl crackdown

With the synthetic drug fentanyl rising to the top of the nation’s opioid crisis and killing more users each year, congressional leaders are turning to China in a bid to stop the drug’s flow into the U.S.

Last week — just as Chinese leaders announced that fentanyl would be listed as a controlled drug and more heavily regulated there — senators including Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., rolled out a plan to crack down on imports.

The potent drug, which has seen a 12-fold increase in overdose deaths in just three years, is largely imported through the mail from Chinese manufacturers. The drug’s production has been a sticking point between the two countries amid ongoing trade negotiations.

Pennsylvania’s opioid overdose death rates surged past national averages in 2016, according to federal statistics, with synthetic opioids overtaking heroin and prescription pills. Fentanyl deaths have increased with particular speed in black and Hispanic communities, according to nationwide research.

A new bill introduced Thursday by Toomey and Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., among others, would aim sanctions at international fentanyl manufacturers and pump more money into federal agencies carrying out the nation’s decades-long drug war.

The bill would require sanctions on illicit manufacturers that may still churn out the drug, even as the Chinese government cracks down on the industry. Senators backing the bill expressed skepticism that the ban will stop the drug’s flow to the U.S.

“Congressional attention coupled with pressure from the Trump administration recently led to China finally subjecting all fentanyl-like chemicals to its drug laws,” Toomey said in a written statement. “This bipartisan measure provides Congress with another tool to fight the heroin and fentanyl epidemic.”