Environmental activists promote Green Amendment

 

By Catherine Ferguson SNJM

Because 350 Spokane believes a new approach to environmental protection and regulation is needed, it is collaborating with 350 Washington to promote a Green Amendment for the Washington state constitution to ensure effective preservation of earth's environment.

While a Green Amendment will not be proposed for the 2026 Washington state legislative session because it is the short session, members of 350 Spokane encourage education about the idea, recognizing that it was proposed in 2019 and 2021 but did not reach the floor.

Larry Luton, a board member and climate activist from 350 Spokane, and Trenton Miller, the board chair of 350 Spokane, know that there is need for a long term, persistent effort, aware of how slowly environmental policy is usually made.

In a December 2024 talk at the Unitarian Universalist Church (UUC) of Spokane, Larry advised those engaged in climate action to be resilient.

"In climate activism, if we have a small step backwards, it takes a long time to regain the position we had before, but we have to stay at it," he encouraged.

Trenton echoes that sentiment and, as the head of the volunteer organization, exemplifies the commitment and resilience it takes to be an effective climate activist. A full-time software engineer and family man, he expresses his commitment through climate advocacy both with the Washington State Legislature and the Spokane City Council.

He became a climate activist out of the 2018 election when Initiative 1631 was on the ballot. The initiative proposed an escalating fee on polluters based on the carbon content of fossil fuels.

"The initiative had many supporters—individuals, tribes, organizations and faith groups. Only two organizations opposed it, the Western States Petroleum Association and the Association of Washington Business, both connected with oil," he said. "They flooded the state with ads, spending twice as much as supporters. The measure failed.

"It made me angry, and so I decided to get involved and not allow that to happen again," he said.

Larry came to activism as an academic. He moved to Spokane in 1984 from North Carolina and spent 30 years as a professor of public administration at Eastern Washington University, retiring in 2014. For at least 20 years, he has been a climate activist, joining 350 Spokane in 2017 and later becoming a board member.

He worked with groups that developed Spokane's first Sustainability Action Plan in 2009 and the second Action Plan from 2018 to 2021. He served on Mayor Lisa Brown's transition team on climate and sustainability.

In his talk at the UUC, he suggested ways listeners could be engaged in climate action collectively and individually.

Despite their different paths to activism, Larry and Trenton agree that the current approach to environmental protection is not effective.

"Our laws do not protect the environment. They give project contractors the ability to pollute legally," Larry said, explaining that many environmental laws were formulated in the 1970s, a period of environmental activism and enthusiasm, but have since been worked around to allow harmful projects to take place.

As an example, he said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allows pollution through permit systems like the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System for water and the Clean Air Act for air. Both set specific, monitored limits on discharges.

Rather than banning a project, this means the EPA let projects operate within federally mandated caps. So it legalizes pollution.

Larry and Trenton said green amendments have been effective in establishing a self-executing, enforceable, constitutional right to protect the environment.

They told how Montana's amendment protected the Earth in the Held v. State of Montana case. Article IX states in part: "The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations. The legislature shall provide adequate remedies for the protection of the environmental life support system from degradation and provide adequate remedies to prevent unreasonable depletion and degradation of natural resources."

Using this right in 2020, 16 youths sued the state, the governor and multiple state agencies, alleging its actions exacerbated the harm they experience from climate change. They challenged provisions of Montana's State Energy Policy Act and the Montana Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) as unconstitutional. They argued that these provisions violated their constitutional right to a clean, healthful environment by promoting fossil fuel development and prohibiting consideration of greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews.

In 2023, the First Judicial District Court found in favor of the young people and in 2024 the Montana Supreme Court upheld the decision, showing that a case brought under the green amendment could result in a permanent injunction prohibiting the state from acting in accordance with the unconstitutional provisions.

Although a bill for the Green Amendment that 350 Spokane and 350 Washington are promoting will not be introduced in Washington this session, activists are seeking a sponsor for the bill and ways to address concerns from some who say a green amendment could impact the enforcement of Native American treaty rights or reduce funding education receives from the management of public lands.

For the current session, 350 Spokane focuses its climate activism on the issues of this session.

For information, email info@350spokane.org or visit wagreenamendment.org.

 

Climate Class compared laws in Europe, U.S.

 

This fall, Tony Zelle, president of the Earth Law Center in Colorado and the lead editor and author of a book entitled Earth Law: Emerging Eco-centric Law moderated an online course attended by The Fig Tree writer Catherine Ferguson SNJM.

One point was a contrast of the European legal approach to environmental regulations with that used in the United States, she said, noting the relevance of the dynamics to her article on the Green Amendment.

In Europe, courts use a precautionary principle as their standard. So in case of scientific uncertainty, an action or policy that has a suspected risk for harm to the public or environment, an alternative action or no action is preferred to a harmful one.

On the other hand, U.S. law incorporates precautionary elements only through specific, congressionally mandated statutes and traditional legal principles, often allowing expert regulatory agencies discretion to act in face of scientific uncertainty.

In other words, in Europe, the proposer of an environmental project must prove it is safe, while in the U.S., those who oppose the project must prove it is harmful. Thus, in the U.S., it is easier for harmful proposals to be accepted than in Europe.

Tony noted that U.S. law prioritizes commercial and economic considerations, giving second place to social and cultural harms in considering potential harms.

Other approaches he presented as potential legal avenues for preserving the Earth include laws based on the rights of nature, rights of future generations, rights of individual species, the doctrine of public trust and working within an Indigenous legal framework where nature is viewed as a relative of the human.

For information, visit earthlawpractice.com/23