Philadelphia’s rav-enous pensionfund will be thenext mayor’sgreatest finan-

cial challenge. It eats an in-creasing portion of the citybudget, leaving less moneyfor police, parks, libraries,and other services.

The troubled pensionfund is expected to con-sume 15.5 percent of thebudget this year. The gov-ernment’s contribution hasgrown more than 160 per-cent since 2004, accordingto the city’s financial plan,even as the share of obliga-tions covered has droppedbelow 50 percent.

Mayor Nutter offered apartial solution when heproposed selling the Phila-delphia Gas Works, whichwould have yielded a sub-stantial infusion of cashand significantly reducedthe burden of contribu-tions. But Council killedthe deal, making the nextmayor’s job even harder.

The bottom line is thatthe city and workers haveto dedicate more money tothe fund. Cutting futurebenefits and, to a lesser ex-tent, more efficient man-agement could also help.

Former City CouncilmanJim Kenney notes the piv-otal reality that getting em-ployees to contribute moreto the fund or alter bene-fits must be accomplishedthrough negotiations. Criti-cized on the campaigntrail for being too close toorganized labor — and hispush to distribute morepension benefits despitethe fund’s ill health — Ken-ney argues that his rela-tionships with unionscould help him solve thepension problem. His fullanswer to an EditorialBoard questionnaire,along with those of the oth-er candidates (except forMilton Street, who did notparticipate), is featured ontoday’s op-ed page.

Kenney also proposesdedicating revenues thatexceed projections to thepension fund, but signifi-cant surpluses seem un-

likely in the next fouryears unless the city low-balls projections, creatingother financial issues.

State Sen. Anthony Will-iams proposes a “dedicat-ed revenue stream” forthe fund, but not from tax-es, the usual source of rev-enue streams. Rather, hesupports public-privatepartnerships involvingcity assets such as PGWand the airport. The ideais vague but could beworth considering as longas any deals are transpar-ent and beneficial to thecity.

More straightforwardly,Former District AttorneyLynne Abraham says shewould consider sellingcity assets such as PGWand parking facilities. Shealso proposes eliminatingthe mandatory pension bo-nuses supported by Ken-ney, a burden the fundcan’t afford.

Melissa Murray Bailey,the only Republican in therace, would add city-owned land to the mix ofassets to be considered forsale.

Former PGW executiveDoug Oliver notes that hesupported a sale of the util-ity, though his promise toconsider “all available op-tions for funding the pen-sion plan” is less helpful.

Former Judge NelsonDiaz, along with Williamsand Kenney, promises toreevaluate pension fundmanagement — a less dis-cussed facet of the issuepartly because it promisesmore marginal gains.

Making real progress onthe city’s pension problemwill take major shifts in rev-enue, spending, and assets.Who in the race has the po-litical skill and fortitude tomake that happen is thequestion facing voters.

H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest PUBLISHER

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It was another one of those ral-lies on Capitol Hill where law-makers line up to take shotsat the Obama administration.But this time the lawmakers

were all Democrats.A quartet of senators and a dozen

members of the House took the stagein a park across from the Capitol mid-day Wednesday to join hundreds ofsteelworkers, union faithful, and envi-ronmentalists in denouncing Presi-dent Obama’s bid for fast-track ap-proval of the Trans-Pacific Partner-ship trade deal.

“I’ve never seen a tradeagreement that is more se-cretive than this one,”Sen. Sherrod Brown ofOhio told the crowd.“What are they hiding?What they’re hiding is ahuge shift from democrati-cally elected governmentsto corporations all overthe world, and that’s whywe’re fighting.”

“The administration is engaged innew transparency with this agree-ment — transparency — so Ibrought a copy,” Rep. Peter De-Fazio of Oregon said, holding up —nothing. “Oh. It’s transparent. Youcan’t see it.”

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauroprotested that “we are headed forthe madhouse with this agreement.”Poking the air with her index finger,she added, “I did not come to Con-gress to give up my constitutionalauthority to any administration,Democrat or Republican.”

There were cheers in the decided-ly Democratic crowd.

Rep. Alan Grayson, the firebrandFlorida Democrat, said that “we’vehad, I hate to say this, a selloutgovernment,” and that it doesn’tmuch matter “who’s in charge, Dem-ocrats or Republicans.”

Grayson told me after the eventthat the speakers would have beenharsher in their words about theDemocratic president — they re-frained from criticizing Obama byname — but that would have caused“cognitive dissonance” in the Demo-

cratic crowd. One of the UnitedSteelworkers officials describedObama as a “shadow” over theevent, and he accused Obama of“splitting the Democrats.”

But Obama hasn’t really split theDemocrats. They are almost unani-mously opposed to him on trade.The upcoming battle over fast-track-ing and the Trans-Pacific Partner-ship shows how dramatically thecenter of gravity in the DemocraticParty has shifted.

Twenty years ago, half of SenateDemocrats and 40 percentof House Democrats vot-ed for the North Ameri-can Free Trade Agree-ment. This time, even ifSen. Ron Wyden of Ore-gon, the top Democrat onthe Senate Finance Com-mittee, signs off on a fast-track deal, proponentssay a best-case scenariohas them winning only 10of the 46 Democrats —

and an even smaller percentage ofHouse Democrats, despite aggres-sive lobbying by the usually passiveWhite House.

Part of the change reflects the lossof moderates in Congress, and partis because of empirical experiencewith NAFTA. But the shift also is anindication of the ascendancy of thepopulist wing of the party in num-bers and, particularly, energy. Oba-ma, not up for reelection, can affordto defy the populists, but futureDemocratic leaders, including Hill-ary Clinton, don’t have that luxury.

The populist muscle was on dis-play Wednesday at the rally, hostedby United Steelworkers presidentLeo Gerard, who sprinkled foul lan-guage in his introductions of thevarious speakers. Privately, lawmak-ers expressed doubts that theycould block passage, but publicly,they were full of fight.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massa-chusetts, the Democrats’ populiststar, pumped her fist and shoutedinto the microphone: “No more se-cret trade deals! Are you ready tofight? No more special deals for

multinational corporations! Are youready to fight?”

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermontindependent who is planning a sym-bolic challenge to Clinton for theDemocratic presidential nomina-tion, warned of a Congress “totallyowned by billionaires and their lob-byists.” American Federation ofGovernment Employees chief J.David Cox proposed they “open upone gigantic can of whoop-ass” onlegislators who support the deal.

Cox didn’t propose using whoop-ass on Obama, if only because it’s “alost battle” with him. But it stung thata Democratic president was sidingwith Republicans on trade andagainst the Democratic base. FredRolando, head of the letter carriers’union, addressed U.S. Trade Repre-sentative Michael Froman “and therest of you at USTR and in the WhiteHouse: We don’t trust you on this.”

And Grayson demanded they“take back our government” from“the political acrobats and the cor-porate aristocrats.”

Grayson, after the rally, called Oba-ma’s position “unfortunate” and de-moralizing. “We’ve done this experi-ment where we try to drift over to theother side and see whether we canwin Republican votes,” he said.“We’ve done that experiment just likewe’ve done the NAFTA experiment,and both of them have failed.”

Dana Milbank is a Washington Postcolumnist. "@Milbank

EDITORIAL BOARDHarold JacksonEDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

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Trudy RubinCOLUMNIST

By Cherie Eichholzand Teresa Méndez-Quigley

F orty-five years ago, largelyin response to a massiveoil spill in Santa Barbara,

Calif., 20 million Americans unit-ed to call for protection of theenvironment and public healthon the first Earth Day.

Since then, we have observedEarth Day on April 22 as a re-minder of the importance of pro-tecting the environment in whichwe all live and thrive. But EarthDay is more than a call to protectour air, water, and land on oneday of the year. It is about abroad and sustained commit-ment to protect our environ-ment. Without clean air, water,and land, our bodies are compro-mised and health is put at risk.

In the Philadelphia region, theneed to protect our health fromenvironmental threats is no lessimportant than it was 45 yearsago. With the goal of making Phil-adelphia the “greenest city inAmerica,” Mayor Nutter estab-lished the Office of Sustainabilityduring his first year as mayor.Now, near the end of his secondterm, and on the eve of the prima-ry to select the next mayoralnominees, we face a proposed re-treat that seeks to turn Philadel-phia back to the 1950s, making ita city built around a fossil-fuels-

based manufacturing economy.The proposal to turn Philadel-

phia into an “energy hub,” withits attendant ventures, has beenhighly touted by industry and sev-eral City Council members. Theaim is to transform Philadelphiainto the Houston of the North-east, importing and exportingnatural gas and oil, ramping uppetrochemical manufacturing,and further poisoning what is al-ready some of the dirtiest air inthe country. Unfortunately, thesesame fossil fuels, with their con-tinuously increasing emission ofgreenhouse gases, are exacerbat-ing climate change as theychange habitats, pollute our envi-ronment, and ultimately threatenour health.

Until recently, many of the is-sues and challenges posed byPennsylvania’s alleged energyboom (including the discovery ofpetroleum; the mining, process-ing, and firing of coal; and nowthe drilling, extraction, and trans-portation of natural gas) have by-passed our community. Onlyfrom secondhand accounts dowe know what it’s like to sacrificeone’s home and property, live ina place without drinkable water,and jeopardize one’s health in ex-change for income from a frack-ing well.

However, with the proposeddevelopment of this energy hub,

we are seeing an increase in re-lated activities here in our com-munity: New pipelines are beingbuilt from Pittsburgh and north-eastern Pennsylvania to South-west Philly and Marcus Hook;liquefied natural gas export facil-ities are being considered toship Marcellus Shale gas to oth-er countries; and the develop-ment of fossil-fuel-based refiner-ies is being marketed to interna-tional investors.

Already, trains are transportingoil through the region in decayingrailroad cars, risking derailmentsand explosions in communitiesthroughout the suburbs and city.To date, two derailments have oc-curred near the Schuylkill, endan-gering tens of thousands of Phila-delphia residents and workers, in-cluding the staffs and patients ofChildren’s Hospital of Philadel-phia, the University of Pennsylva-

nia Medical Center, and two ma-jor universities.

Explosions in West Virginia,Québec (in which 47 people died),and very recently in Northern Illi-nois remind us of the grave dan-ger a train derailment poses, in-cluding not only the immediatethreat of an explosion itself, butalso the prolonged threat of expo-sure to harmful chemicals, airand water pollution, and contami-nation of land.

Our region is lauded becauseof its incredible natural beauty,tremendous academic potential,and sustainable opportunitiesthat come with vibrant citiesand a world-class populace. Nut-ter’s extraordinary promise tomake Philadelphia the greenestcity in the United States de-mands that our leaders — espe-cially on Council — cease bow-ing to the baseless promises of

the oil and gas industry. Themayor’s pledge necessitates thatmayoral and Council candidatesconsider first and foremost thehealth and well-being of resi-dents and the environment asthey consider ventures like thefossil-fuel energy hub.

As health professionals, we re-member the catastrophe thatprompted the creation of thefirst Earth Day, and while it’s agood time to remind ourselves ofthe fact that we want a healthierand more sustainable environ-ment, the rubber meets the roadon the other 364 days of the year.

Lest Earth Day — and all itembodies — become an exercisein futility, it is time for this cityand region to decide what kindof future we will forge. Together,we can make Philadelphia amodel of clean air, water, andland, and a region filled withhealthy people and productiveworkers. But it’s up to voters, aswell as the next Council andmayor, to lead this charge.

Cherie Eichholz is executive directorof Physicians for Social Responsibilityin Philadelphia (www.psrphila.org).+cherie@psrphila.orgTeresa Méndez-Quigley is PSR’senvironmental health programdirector. +teresa@psrphila.orgThis piece originally appeared atwww.philly.com/thinktank.

COMMENTARY

DANAMILBANK"@Milbank

SIGNE WILKINSON | signe@signetoons.com

Inquirer.com/opinion"@PhillyInquirer

Pensionpuzzle

Earth Day challenge: Green city or energy hub?

The PGW plant in Port Richmond, where liquified natural gas is stored.CLEM MURRAY / Staff Photographer

The fight against ‘free trade’

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) AP

| EDITORIALThe next mayor will have toeffect major shifts inrevenue, spending, andassets to solve it.

A18 | THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER | WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 2015 C | PHILLY.COM