Fifteen Vermont senators are sponsoring a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would give residents the right to “a clean environment.”
Sen. Chris Bray, D-Addison, the chair of the Senate Natural Resources Committee and the lead sponsor of the amendment, said he is proposing the amendment to block the Trump administration’s drastic roll-back of environmental regulations in the past few years.
President Donald Trump has restricted 95 environmental rules and regulations since he took office, according to The New York Times, including those governing air pollution and emissions, water pollution, and drilling and extraction.
Bray said the amendment could serve as a “bulwark against many kinds of erosions” of Vermont’s environmental rules, which, in many cases, are stricter than federal regulations.
“As the federal laws recede, this is a perfect time for us to pause, and say ‘Let’s affirm this in the most fundamental way we can,’ which is to express it in our Constitution,” Bray said.
Bray said he doesn’t want to move forward with an amendment that is only symbolic in nature. In the coming weeks, his committee will take testimony on how the constitutional change could protect the state.
He believes it would help shield the state’s environmental rules from future court challenges seeking to weaken them.
“If someone challenges a rule there will be a legal foundation to point to to say ‘Look we have already made explicit and guaranteed to each other the right to clean air and clean water,’” he said.
Two states, Pennsylvania and Montana, have constitutional amendments designed to explicitly protect environmental rights.
As of last year, 13 other states were considering similar “Green Amendments,” according to the environmental publication Grist.
James Ehlers, an environmental advocate and former Democratic candidate for governor, has been pushing for the constitutional changes for four years, and said ongoing water and air pollution in the state demonstrate that added protection is needed.
“Nobody has a right to poison one another and we’re looking forward to that being assured right up there with your right to private property,” Ehlers said.
Sen. President Pro Tem Tim Ashe, D/P Chittenden, expressed skepticism about the amendment, pointing to Pennsylvia, which adopted a similar amendment in the 1970s, but has still seen environmental damage from the fracking industry.
“Pennsylvania, I believe, is the state that’s often pointed to and their fracking process leaves one to wonder what the impact of that constitutional language has given, since many people there do not have clean air or clean water,” he said.
Ashe said he was still open to considering the amendment.
“It’s a late-in-the-game one and we will have internal discussions about how and whether we can move it forward in light of everything else going on.”
In order for the Constitution to be amended, the proposition would need to pass the Senate and House once this legislative biennium and again in the next biennium.
It would then go directly to voters for approval on the ballot.
In the last year, the Legislature has already passed two constitutional amendments: one protecting abortion rights in the state, and one that would clarify that slavery and indentured servitude are prohibited “in any form.”
