Legislation would put before voters an amendment to enshrine the right to a clean, safe and healthy environment in state constitution

By Damian Mann for Ashland.news

Oregon Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland, has sponsored a legislative effort that would seek to enshrine a clean, safe and healthy environment amendment in the Oregon Constitution.

“If we have it on the books, agencies will get more rigorous and will not be quite as quick to approve projects that have environmental consequences,” Golden said.

Senate Joint Resolution 28, the “Right to a Healthy Environment Amendment,” is backed by a number of senators and representatives, including Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland. It would take a simple majority of the Legislature to place the amendment before voters on the next general election ballot.

Golden said the proposed constitutional amendment is similar to amendments in other states — Montana, Hawaii, Pennsylvania and New York.

In Montana, 16 young environmental activists with Our Children’s Trust scored a landmark legal decision when a Montana judge ruled in August 2023 that state agencies violated the state’s constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment by permitting fossil fuel development.

The activists have found themselves at odds with the Montana governor and state Legislature.

Environmental groups have recently challenged a utility plant air quality permit along the banks of the Yellowstone River. The environmental activists submitted a brief in support of invalidating the permit while appeals are underway.

In Hawaii, 13 children and teens took the state to court, prevailing in June 2024 to force Hawaii on a path to decarbonize its transportation system in the next 20 years.

According to an Associated Press article, the suit argued the state violated its constitution because its transportation system harms the climate and infringes upon the right to a clean and healthy environment.
Golden said ensuring a clean, safe and healthy environment into the future is important to the younger generation.

“It seems to be the most exciting and motivating project for young people,” he said. “They’re basically saying, ‘We want a world we can continue to live in.’”

Golden said he’d heard about this movement to enshrine a clean environment into the state constitution in 2019.

However, some pro-environmental supporters were reluctant to take up the cause at this time for fear that it would be “virtue signaling,” Golden said. “The environmentally minded liked it but were not enthused.”

While the current political climate in the nation’s capital isn’t as conducive to environmental causes, Golden said, “This effort long proceeds what is going on right now.”

In Ashland, there has been a local effort by students to take steps to deal with the threat of climate change.

The Ashland City Council on Jan. 21 approved the first reading of an ordinance imposing fees to discourage installation of gas appliances in new residential construction.

Ashland Youth for Electrification, an organization of local students, worked for almost two years to get the ordinance passed. Oregon faces a number of environmental pressures on water and energy consumption that would benefit from a constitutional amendment, Golden said.

“Crypto-mining” and the explosion of large data centers in rural areas need the kind of oversight that the amendment would provide, he said.

“If we can pass the amendment, those issues get more serious discussion than they do now,” Golden said.

The “Right to a Healthy Environment Amendment” has received support from local climate activists.

Alan Journet, co-facilitator with Southern Oregon Climate Action Now, said the amendment will be a priority for his organization in this legislative session.

Journet said the current political climate makes it all the more necessary to seek voter approval for this amendment.

“The realities in D.C. are even more important for states and local communities to step up and fill in the void,” he said.

Journet said the U.S. Supreme Court recently has left it to the states to hold polluters accountable.

He said that the long-term hope of a constitutional amendment is to lessen the litigation against polluters.

“If we don’t divert our global climate trajectory, a sustainable future will not be an option,” Journet said a recent discussion on the climate.

Reach freelance writer Damian Mann at [email protected].