Support for environmental rights amendments continues to gain momentum across the country as many states pursue constitutional amendments ensuring the right to a clean and healthy environment. States vary on where in the constitution the amendments are proposed. Many states are following the lead of Montana and Pennsylvania by placing the language in the Bill of Rights. These amendments, also called Green Amendments, liken rights of religious expression and speech to the right to clean air, and water. They serve to emphasize environmental health and safety as being part of basic civil liberties. After lawyer and environmentalist Maya van Rossum helped land a legal victory against fracking around the Delaware River watershed, the Green Amendment movement was born, capitalizing on this long-ignored section in Pennsylvania’s Bill of Rights.
Green Amendments establish a constitutional mandate recognizing a healthy environment as an inherent, indefeasible, generational legal right of all citizens.
Passing a Green Amendment in every state across the nation can serve as an invaluable tool for communities facing disproportionate environmental burdens.
Green Amendments provide a backstop that can be used by community, public, government and even business interests to provide a check on government authority that overreaches and fails to protect environmental rights.
