Rather than recognize a constitutional entitlement to a clean, safe, and healthy environment, here in the U.S., we protect our environment through a patchwork system of legislation and regulation. These laws and regulations are created by a political system dominated by money, partisanship, and narrow concentrations of social and economic influence that actually benefit (financially or politically) from environmental degradation. The resulting system of environmental protection is fundamentally flawed. 

Under this system, environmental pollution and degradation is something to be managed, moderated, or mitigated after the fact rather than recognized as a harm that can and should be prevented. It is a system that accepts and legalizes environmental pollution and degradation through regulatory reviews and permits. The law also contains many critical gaps in which environmental harms are not addressed until it is too late, or sometimes not addressed at all.

(For an example, look no further than PFAS, also known as forever chemicals: a man-made family of chemicals left unregulated for so long that they now permeate our environment and have found their way into our drinking water, food supply, and bodies, with devastating health and financial consequences.)

This approach means that when these laws fail to ensure needed environmental protections, impacted people generally have little recourse other than to protest or seek better candidates in the next political election, when it is often too late and irreparable damage has been done.

Moreover, this approach of “protection by statute” means that the burdens of environmental pollution—toxic air, contaminated water, and the growing impacts of the climate crisis—often fall most heavily on those whom the political process ignores. Historical and present-day inequities mean that the worst of these impacts are often concentrated in communities of color, Indigenous communities, and/or low-income communities. And the fact that even low levels of pollution disproportionately harm children, including those developing in utero, means that future generations often bear the brunt of this flawed system. 

Not only is this approach—which places the burdens of environmental pollution on those it deliberately excludes from the political process—morally abhorrent; it is economically foolish. The near- and long-term effects of exposure to pollution makes us all more vulnerable to disease and economic hardship. Exposure to environmental contaminants causes a range of health harms that include asthma, heart disease, dementia, and cancers of all kinds. The cognitive effects of lead poisoning are perhaps best known, but polluted environments can have a myriad of lasting effects on a person’s learning abilities. The destruction of ecosystems around the country, as well as our climate more broadly, is subjecting our communities to the rising threat of floods, droughts, wildfires, disease, deadly heat, and more.  

All of this costs us money through reduced human potential and economic activity, lost property values, resources required for emergency response services, disaster relief, and health care. At the same time, this environmental desecration deprives us of the emotional, physical, and psychological well-being that only time in nature can provide.   

Environmental degradation also undermines our fundamental freedoms. Neurotoxins and other environmental contaminants undermine the right to a quality education, and the disproportionate impacts of water, air, and soil pollution undermine the right to equal treatment under the law. The right to fish, hunt, and trap found in many state constitutions is being stymied by the loss of healthy habitat and species decline caused by mistreatment of natural resources. The safety and sanctity of our homes, and the property rights to which we are constitutionally entitled, are undermined when pollution crosses property or state lines or climate change-fueled disasters destroy our towns and cities. And the health impacts of outdoor air pollution, including asthma attacks or heart conditions, limit our other fundamental rights. 

As former Pennsylvania state Sen. Franklin Kury famously said, “Freedom of speech will be meaningless if we suffocate on polluted air.”

Constitutional Green Amendments transform this legal paradigm, adding overarching protections that explicitly empower our people and our government to more effectively protect the environment, while proactively preventing its degradation. 

Green Amendments, as I have defined them, are constitutional amendments added to the Bill of Rights section of our state constitutions, which recognize and protect the inalienable rights of all people, including future generations, to pure water, clean air, a safe climate, and healthy environments. By virtue of their placement in these Bills of Rights (called a Declaration of Rights in some states) and their carefully crafted language, Green Amendments put environmental rights on an equal constitutional footing with other civil, human, and political rights.

As with these other fundamental freedoms, Green Amendments require all government officials within a state—elected, appointed, and regulatory, as well as those working at the state, county, or local level—to affirmatively consider environmental rights and prioritize their protection in all decision-making. Green Amendments further require that environmental rights be protected equitably for all communities, regardless of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. And they require that natural resources be protected generationally, helping to ensure that future generations have the healthy environment they need to lead safe and prosperous lives. 

Green Amendments empower people to raise their expectations of government and to advocate more firmly and confidently for environmental protection. When there is a legal gap in environmental protection or implementation that results in dangerous environmental harm, these amendments provide explicit constitutional language that can be relied upon to secure needed protection. When government officials fail to fulfill their constitutional duty, or when the laws as written, interpreted, and applied fail to honor the environmental rights of the people or the obligation of the government to protect the state’s natural resources, Green Amendments provide a powerful tool to compel protection in court.

When it comes to the environment, states have a tremendous amount of authority.  While the federal government can obligate states to provide a basic level of environmental protection, states have the authority to do more to protect their residents. Passing a constitutional obligation on all government officials within a state to protect environmental rights equitably and preserve natural resources for both present and future generations can secure a higher level of environmental care than that afforded by federal law. While a federal Green Amendment will ultimately be needed in order to ensure our Congress, president, federal judges and regulatory agencies honor and protect our environmental rights, state-level constitutional action is especially meaningful and accessible in the near term. 

Currently, there are three states with constitutional Green Amendments in place: Pennsylvania, Montana, and New York. In Pennsylvania, the amendment was used to restore the authority of local governments to protect residential communities from industrial fracking operations and to restore the obligation of fossil fuel fracking operations to comply with environmental protection standards. In Montana, it was the presence of a Green Amendment that allowed 16 youth to successfully restore the right and obligation of government officials to consider the climate-changing implications of their decisions. New York’s amendment is only a few years old, but it is already being used by communities to secure protection of their air, water, and public natural open spaces. Across the board, these amendments are being used to advance and secure people’s rights to drinking water free from toxic contamination, open space and the immense benefit it has for their communities, ecosystems and wildlife that enrich their lives, and farmland that’s free from contaminants that can render crops and livestock unusable. 

Moreover, Green Amendments are being used to rein in and mitigate serious consequences that stem from air pollution and are helping corral industries like oil and gas that inflict devastating consequences on our people and environment. At the same time, these amendments provide powerful support to environmentally friendly industries, such as wind and solar, and can boost ecologically supportive development that provides jobs and bolsters economic prosperity.

Recognizing the need for transformational change when it comes to environmental protection, and inspired by the progress Green Amendments can and do achieve, over 20 additional states are working with Green Amendments for the Generations, the nonprofit I founded, to secure the powerful protections these Amendments offer.

The Green Amendment movement is a solution whose time has come, and it’s one that transcends political party, generation, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

In a moment when many are disillusioned by U.S. politics and our government’s inability to achieve essential environmental protections, the Green Amendment movement is leveraging the most powerful tools our democracy has—our state and federal constitutions—to secure environmental rights, environmental justice, natural resources protection, and generational security. By passing Green Amendments in every state, we can make sure that our environment, our health, and our lives are protected for generations to come.