OCERA (Oregon Coalition for an Environmental Rights Amendment) is a growing statewide coalition, now over 30 organizations, working to pass a Oregon Constitutional amendment for a fundamental and enforceable right to a healthy environment. The amendment is inspired by environmental rights in other state constitutions, including Hawaii, Pennsylvania and Montana. With our air, land, water, and climate in crisis, a constitutional amendment is a powerful way to reclaim environmental rights for all.

A state constitution is the state’s highest body of law. It cannot be overridden, and it cannot be amended without the people’s consent. Fundamental rights are housed in constitutions because they are considered so essential to life and liberty that they must be protected from political interference. Because the people’s right to a healthy environment with clean air, clean water and a stable climate is essential to life and liberty, it is a fundamental right that requires constitutional protection with an Environmental Rights Amendment (ERA).

Absolutely not. There are very few fossil fuel jobs in Oregon other than natural gas utilities and retail gasoline stations.  Fossil fuels are the main source of climate disruptions and other air pollution problems in Oregon.

For water pollution that is dangerous to human health, there is no amount of money that can compensate for deaths caused by toxic chemicals. Removing toxic chemicals at water treatment facilities (such as PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals") is far more expensive than preventing them from getting into rivers and groundwater used for drinking water.

Renewable generation and other green industries already provide far more jobs than fossil fuels. In 2022, there were 65,763 jobs in clean energy in Oregon, including electric transmission and distribution jobs.

On the issue of climate change and power plant emissions, new wind and solar power plants are cheaper than operating almost every coal-fired power plant in the western U.S.
.They are also much cheaper than operating natural gas (methane) fired power plants.

Switching to renewable fuels has already provided $249 billion in net health and climate benefits to the U.S economy. The Oregon Global Warming Commission found that "Oregon can feasibly reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions to 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 —five years ahead of the state’s 2035 goal — while also creating thousands of new jobs and more than $120 billion in economic and health cumulative net benefits in the state. (2023 Legislative Report, Page 2 see Oregon Climate Action Roadmap to 2030 )

Also, being a clean and healthy place to live has long been a feature that has attracted many new Oregon residents. Many of these people are entrepreneurs, small business owners and people who can work remotely from anywhere.  According to the Oregonian, Oregon had the highest percentage of working from home after Colorado.

"That hasn't happened yet anywhere, to my knowledge," according to Michael B. Gerrard, the Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice and Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.

Professor Gerrard continued, "Here is an article I wrote last year about the first decisions under New York's green amendment.  The landfill decision described there is now under appeal; New York's intermediate appellate court heard arguments a couple of months ago, and a decision is now awaited.  I would be very surprised if the case ultimately leads to an order that the landfill be closed down and another one be built elsewhere; it's probably more likely that the court would order stronger odor and pollution controls on the existing landfill.

"Judges have a great deal of discretion in how they implement the green amendments.  If they felt that addressing an environmental problem in one place might lead to creation of a sacrifice zone somewhere else, I think most judges would be very reluctant to do that. They should understand that BIPOC and low income neighborhoods deserve just as much protection as wealthy neighborhoods (if not more)."

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 Here's a recent success story:

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On June 20, 2024, young climate defenders (mostly Native Hawaiians) reached a groundbreaking legal settlement with the governor of Hawaii. Supervised by the court, Hawaii’s Department of Transportation must reach zero carbon emissions in land, sea and inter-island air transportation by 2045. Hawaii's constitutional inclusion of the people's right to a clean and healthful environment helped bring critical focus and power to the moment.  This demonstrates that a constitutional standard can reach whole-of-government effects, in and out of the courtroom.  There have also been successful court decisions in Montana and Pennsylvania.

Poorly regulated air pollution leads to thousands of illnesses and deaths in the U.S., primarily from very small aerosol particles. Heat waves and uncontrollable wildfires are driven by the climate crisis and have killed dozens in Oregon. While the deaths from urban air pollution have been widely studied, new studies show that 5 to 15 thousand of U.S. deaths from heart disease, respiratory diseases and cancer are caused by wildfire smoke. Groundwater pollution is a serious health issue that is poorly addressed in Oregon.

An amendment to the Oregon constitution must be approved by a simple majority of Oregon voters. There are two ways to get a proposed amendment on the ballot: (1) A referral process: Legislators must approve a proposed ballot measure by a majority vote; or (2) A signature-gathering initiative process: A required number of voter signatures must be gathered according to a detailed state-mandated process. OCERA plans to pursue both processes. For this reason, OCERA has formed a political action committee (PAC).

Senators Golden and Manning have indicated they will likely submit a draft environmental rights amendment to the Legislative Council as early as Sept. 27, 2024.  Representatives Gamba and Andersen have indicated a willingness to do the same on the House side, if necessary.

OCERA’s legal and strategy teams have been working with these legislators on draft language.

The Environmental Quality Commission and staff are engaged in a second rulemaking with comments due by Sept 27.  This an extremely important rulemaking that was initiated from Gov. Kate Brown’s executive order 20-04 of March 2020.  It has and will be legally challenged by the fossil fuel industry. It relies on a governor’s order that could be repealed by a future governor. A constitutional amendment can only be changed by a vote of the people. The CPP does not address the need for other aspects of a healthy environment, such as clear air, pure water and protection from toxics. 

The draft CPP rule also does not address all climate issues such as needed transportation infrastructure for alternatives to single occupant cars. Nor does it address new homes and commercial buildings that will last 50 to 100 years.

Environmental lawyer Jordan Yeager describes the value of ERAs like this: “[they shift] the burden onto government to say, ‘You’ve got to establish that what you’re allowing to happen isn’t going to hurt us before you allow it to happen.” Having an ERA in Pennsylvania’s Constitution made it a duty for the state to “prohibit the degradation, diminution and depletion of natural resources” and also to “act affirmatively to protect the environment.” Oregon is 1 of 15 states with no environmental provisions in its Constitution, meaning legislators have no obligation to “act affirmatively”. 

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As two examples of gaps in environmental protection: 

1. The known problem of nitrate pollution of groundwater in Morrow and Umatilla Counties and several other watersheds was swept under the rug for 30 years and is only starting to be addressed now.

2. Toxic leachate from the Coffin Butte Landfill in Benton County is being poured into the Corvallis and Salem sewer systems and is then dumped untreated into the Willamette River and the sewage solids are spread on agricultural lands. Wilsonville gets its drinking water from the Willamette River. There is no current statute that allows the Oregon Dept. of Environmental Quality to stop this practice.

That has not been the experience of other states with constitutional ERAs.

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OCERA is honored to have Maya van Rossum on our legal team.  Van Rossum was the lead petitioner on the landmark Pennsylvania case that revived the Environmental Amendment movement.  She wrote The Green Amendment, Securing Our Right to a Healthy Environment.

Van Rossum warns against "ill-considered test cases," like the lawsuit against a 307 foot observation tower at the Gettysburg Battlefield.  That case lost, and the loss "undermined [Pennsylvania's] recently passed constitutional provision for over forty years."  Environmental Amendments are intended to guarantee the right to a clean, safe, healthy environment for this and future generations, not to promote trivial lawsuits against "relatively insignificant harm(s)."

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Our draft Oregon amendment is crafted to address serious threats to human health now and in the future.  Courts will have the power and the inclination to dismiss trivial lawsuits.  Failed lawsuits will not get cost recovery from the courts.

NIMBY suits could be filed but they would only succeed if the project seriously threatens the health of local residents. Courts will consider the scientific evidence and weigh these health consequences with the consequence of the project not being built. The costs of unsuccessful suits are paid by those who file them. 

Addressing the effects of large scale damage to the environment from fossil fuels or serious local health threats will be prioritized over local nuisance effects or aesthetic considerations.

The issue is addressed in the text of the amendment that requires the government “to protect and restore this right equitably for all people, giving the highest priority to the safety and health of children and future generations.”