Expand environmental rights, author says

"We're setting protective precedent"

Kirk Boxleitner | Dec 16, 20210

Hed: ‘Green Amendment’ proponent recaps history of environmental movement

Word count: 964.

By Kirk Boxleitner

The League of Women Voters of Mason County’s Climate Change Committee meeting on Zoom opened the floor to Maya K. van Rossum, author of “The Green Amendment; Securing Our Right to a Healthy Environment.”

Van Rossum opened her remarks Nov. 18 by saying permitting is essential to environmental protections, because “environmental pollution and degradation are presumed rights of industry and developers.” She advocates preventing environmental harms rather than mitigating them.

Van Rossum said environmental regulations have too many gaps, and that poor implementation and rollbacks of those regulations are obstacles to protecting the environment.

Van Rossum identified “environmental racism” as targeting “communities of color,” as well as “indigenous, immigrant and low-income communities,” for what she deemed “highly polluting and environmentally degrading actions and activities, so they get disproportionately impacted.”

Van Rossum warned that what this adds up to, in Washington and the rest of the United States, is “people drinking contaminated water, breathing polluted air” and “living next to contaminated sites,” even before the impacts on nature and wildlife are mentioned.

“Something is missing from this current system of laws,” van Rossum said. “We do not recognize and protect the rights to clean water, clean air, a stable climate and health environments in the same powerful way we recognize and protect the other fundamental rights we hold dear.”

Van Rossum said neither Washington nor the United States Constitution includes such environmental rights. However, Pennsylvania’s constitution had such language added to its Bill of Rights in 1971, but Pennsylvania courts kept it from becoming legally binding until more than four decades later when the environmental damage caused by shale gas extraction became undebatable.

“It was really easy for industry to overwhelm the Pennsylvania communities,” said van Rossum, who noted oil industry leaders cleared the way for themselves through legislation waiving environmental protections, exempting them from contamination notifications, giving them eminent domain for gas storage and allowing widespread drilling, including near homes, schools and parks.

Van Rossum said options to challenging a law already passed by a legislature and signed by a governor include protesting to influence legislators to amend or repeal a law or electing other legislators who will. However, in all such cases, “the damage already would have been done.”

Pennsylvania environmental activists were able to invoke the long-dormant environmental rights article of their state’s constitution to challenge the oil industry-promoted legislation as unconstitutional.

“There was more in this victory than just for the people of Pennsylvania,” van Rossum said. “There was a message for all people, and all communities, across our nation, that our rights to clean water, clean air, a stable climate and healthy environment are worthy of Bill of Rights recognition and protection.”

Van Rossum has called upon the public, in each state and nationwide, to push for their own green amendments to their constitutions, to match those in Pennsylvania, Montana and most recently, New York.

While most states’ constitutions include language addressing environmental concerns, van Rossum emphasized that any truly effective green amendment must be in the Bill of Rights section of the constitution and must explicitly state that these environmental rights are being protected for all people, including generations to come.

In addition to specifying the protected rights of water, air, climate and environment, van Rossum said the language of such an amendment must be “self-executing,” meaning that “it has legal, enforceable strength in its own right,” so that “you don’t have to wait for the passage of other laws to figure it out,” and it must apply throughout all levels of government, including the most local municipalities and regulatory agencies.

Van Rossum said Washington “has a lot of language in its Constitution concerning the environment, but she said it falls short of green amendment standards. She said Washington is one of 12 states in which green amendment proposals are advancing.

“Washington is very much viewed as among the leaders in those 12 states, because of the quality of its legislative leadership, (its) language (and) the grass-roots partnership and activism that is really starting to coalesce and come together,” van Rossum said.

By placing environmental rights on par with the freedoms of speech and religion, van Rossum aims to refocus government decision-making on the prevention of harm “from day one (and) throughout every day” of its processes, from legislation and regulation through funding and permitting.

Van Rossum said a green amendment would ensure “every individual, regardless of race, ethnicity or socioeconomics, has the same constitutional (environmental) rights,” by requiring all government officials to “treat all people equitably,” including their environmental rights.

“You can’t have environmental sacrifice zones anymore,” van Rossum said, adding that a “Green amendment would both bolster new environmental legislation and strengthen existing environmental law, and when there are gaps in the law, a Green Amendment can help fill those gaps. The goal of the green amendment is to get better decisions in the first place.”

Van Rossum said she anticipates green amendments will facilitate access to the courts when elected officials fail to honor such constitutional obligations and could even improve the public’s views of environmental protections, and their would-be protectors.

“We’re setting protective precedent,” van Rossum said. “Something more, something better, is needed, and it’s truly available to us.”

A green amendment was put forward in the most recent legislative session. Proponents plan to reintroduce state House Joint Resolution 4205 during the upcoming Washington session. Van Rossum referred people to WAGreenAmendment.org for more information.