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In 2021, the people of New York voted overwhelmingly to pass the New York Green Amendment—its constitutional recognition and protection for our inalienable human right to clean water and air, and a healthful environment.
Passage of the New York Green Amendment was truly “a dream realized”.
Since that magical moment, when the people of New York exercised our democratic rights to amend our state constitution, government leaders have failed to join us in our environmental protection and environmental justice goals.
Rather than uplift, defend and embrace our New York Green Amendment, the NY State Attorney General has gone to court with legal arguments that seek to undermine and narrow it.
Please sign on to urge the NY Attorney General to embrace the NY Green Amendment as an empowering opportunity to better protect the people of New York, to address environmental racism, and to create a legacy of protection for all generations of New Yorkers.
Our collective voices secured passage of our New York Green Amendment.
Today our collective voices are needed to ensure it has strength, meaning and vitality.
Sign on to the letter here:
Read the letter:
Office of the New York State Attorney General
The Capitol
Albany, NY 12224-0341
Dear Attorney General Letitia James,
In November 2021 the people of New York—after nearly 10 years of dedicated grassroots efforts—secured their right to vote on whether they chose to amend their state constitution’s Bill of Rights to include a right to a clean and healthful environment. Overwhelmingly—by over 70% of the vote—the people voted “YES”. In response, Article 1 Section 19, the New York Green Amendment was added to the state constitution’s Bill of Rights and established environmental rights as freedoms to which the People of New York were entitled.
The NY Green Amendment must be a tool that empowers all New Yorkers to assert their environmental rights and ensure that everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, income, or geographic location has access to a clean and healthful environment.
Unfortunately, developing case law threatens this right. You, as the Attorney General, have an essential role to play in ensuring that case law remains protective of the NY Green Amendment.
Why a New York Green Amendment?
New Yorkers recognized that there were too many places and spaces where insufficiently protective New York law and state government were failing to protect the public’s human right to clean water and air, a safe climate and a healthy environment. In response, New Yorkers turned out to ensure there was no longer a question that a clean, safe and healthy environment was among the rights to which the government was obligated to give highest protection. More than that, we enshrined our environmental rights in our State Constitution’s Bill of Rights to ensure that if/when our government and laws fail to give our environmental rights highest constitutional standing and protection, New Yorkers have a place at the table and the opportunity to enforce our cherished environmental rights in a court of law.
The vote to add Article 1 Section 19 to our state constitution’s Bill of Rights was not perfunctory, nor was it an effort to advance a toothless policy sentiment that government could disregard. Instead, the People of New York established an enforceable, self-executing, right to clean water and air, and a healthful environment.
New Yorkers were inspired by our neighboring state of Pennsylvania where a 2013 landmark legal victory had, after 42 years of disregard, recognized that environmental rights were not given by government and should not be taken by government, and that through constitutional recognition environmental rights could be protected and secured. Pennsylvania’s Green Amendment, with its similar Declaration of Rights placement and its clear and direct statement of rights, had been recognized by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court as being self-executing, inviolable by government action, and enforceable by the people of the state.
The plain language of the amendment, its adoption by the People, and its placement within Article I of the Constitution (the State’s Bill of Rights), clearly demonstrates that when New Yorkers overwhelmingly voted “yes” on its passage, they intended the Amendment to guide and constrain governmental action, including legislative and administrative decision-making that may conflict with its constitutional guarantee.
So What’s the Problem?
Time and time again since its passage, the Attorney General’s office, on behalf of the Governor and state agencies, has gone to the courts with arguments that are undermining the NY Green Amendment.
Too often, the State’s briefing and posture has been to advance positions that substantially narrow Article 1 Section 19’s constitutional role in guiding and impacting government obligations and New Yorkers’ environmental rights;
including assertions that the NY Green Amendment:
a) lacks enforceable force, absent legislative implementation;
b) cannot be relied upon to establish an affirmative constitutional obligation that government must respect and protect environmental rights; and
c) must be defined by legislative or regulatory action rather than by the constitutional text itself.
Furthermore, the State has urged courts to interpret the amendment in ways that limit its self-executing character and has relied on interpretations of precedent from other environmental rights states that emphasize limiting language while giving far less weight to the broader constitutional principles those decisions recognize.
In some instances, the State has further argued that the amendment does not impose an affirmative duty on government to safeguard the public’s rights to clean air, clean water, and a healthful environment.
Overall, rather than embrace the opportunity to argue for strong and protective interpretation and application of the NY Green Amendment the Attorney General’s Office has specifically asked the courts to evade such opportunities, leaving the amendment in a weakened state.
Taken together, these actions place the Green Amendment in a posture where its practical force is at risk of being substantially diminished and failing to achieve the goals of the people of New York who voted for its passage.
The result?
New York’s Courts have become timid in enforcing environmental rights. Worse yet, we are starting to see court opinions that are chipping away at the legal vitality and value of the constitutional language. Emerging court decisions threaten to disempower New Yorkers who are facing real environmental harms.
In decisions like The People of the State of New York, Green Education and Legal Fund v. Norlite and Chan v. U.S. Dept of Transportation the courts have dismissed and/or diminished Article 1 Section 19, denying its importance and strength in ensuring that the people of our state have a self-executing right to “clean water and air, and a healthful environment” that is meaningful and enforceable against infringing government action. Your office’s repeated positioning that denies the legal posture and power of the amendment, rather than embracing and upholding it, is having a denigrating impact.
Where To Go From Here?
Across the state, New Yorkers continue to experience environmental harm that is impacting their health, safety, the quality of their lives, and inflicting economic harm. And we are all watching as the federal government eviscerates essential environmental protections and demonstrates callous disregard for the health and safety of both present and future generations.
Now more than ever, New York state government should embrace the NY Green Amendment and the instruction it provides that environmental rights must be given the same highest constitutional protection and standing as other cherished freedoms, such as speech and property rights.
When defending the State in cases involving Article I, Section 19, we urge and implore you to advocate your legal positions without denying the Amendment’s significance in New York law and the important role it must play in strengthening environmental protection, protecting environmental rights, and addressing legislative and regulatory deficiencies.
As the chief legal officer of the State, the Attorney General’s office has a unique responsibility not only to defend agency actions, but also to ensure that the constitutional provisions adopted by the people are treated with the seriousness and respect they deserve.
Recognizing Article I, Section 19 as both a constraint on government authority and a guiding constitutional principle presents an opportunity for you to strengthen government’s ability to protect the rights of all New Yorkers in an equitable manner, including for those living today and the generations that will follow.
As New Yorkers, we respectfully urge the Attorney General’s office to:
Defend its positions in litigation without advancing arguments that deny or seek to diminish the constitutional role of Article I, Section 19;
Embrace the NY Green Amendment as an empowering opportunity that strengthens your ability to better protect the people of New York, to prevent and address environmental racism, and to position New York as a leader in addressing the climate crisis;
Explicitly recognize the NY Green Amendment as legally self-executing;
Recognize the NY Green Amendment as supporting a private cause of action challenging government action that infringes upon the constitutionally protected right to clean water and air, and a healthful environment;
To help all government officials in New York state – including those in the executive, legislative and judicial branches, in both state and local government – to view the amendment as a positive, self-executing and enforceable contribution to New York law that helps government ensure the inalienable, human right of all people to a clean, safe and healthy environment can be realized.
In sum, the NY Green Amendment has provided you the foundation and opportunity to demonstrate historic and legacy-leadership when it comes to protecting our environment and addressing the environmental racism that has left so many children, families and communities bearing an increasing burden of environmental harm simply because of the color of their skin, their indigenous heritage, or the size of their bank account.
As espoused by the Honorable Ariel D. Chesler, “The Green Amendment is a great dream realized.” But in order for that dream to become a reality, it requires us all to work proactively, positively and unfailingly to accomplish the promise of protection it provides.
Respectfully,
