Highly Touted “Green Amendment” Does Not Include Climate, Public Health, Or Environmental Justice
Green Activists Scramble To Request Last Minute Amendments In Testimony
Embarrassing Amateur Hour In Trenton
The proposed NJ Constitutional amendment (SCR 43) to provide certain individual rights to a clean environment does not include individual rights regarding a stable climate, protection of public health, and ensuring environmental justice.
The SCR 43 does mention climate, but it defines “climate” not as an individual “right”, but as one of the “public natural resources” that the State holds in Trust (through DEP) under the Public Trust Doctrine, which is legally separate and distinct from Constitutional “rights”. This means that the State (through DEP) is in complete control of the “climate” issue and that people could not bring lawsuits to enforce the climate issue as a right like the other rights created by the Resolution. For example, NJ people could not sue to challenge a DEP permit that failed to consider climate, like the climate case in Montana that is being used by activists.
So “the people” do NOT have this right. This is a glaring error.
Public health is not even mentioned in the SCR 43. Protection of public health is a foundational element of environmental law.
So “the people” do NOT have this right
Environmental Justice is not even mentioned in the SCR 43. The EJ issue has been a priority of the green activists for over a decade and NJ passed an “historic” EJ law just 2 years ago.
So “the people” do NOT have this right
I flagged these key flaws after a 15 minute review of the SCR 43 and wrote about it in my initial post on March 2, see:
The green activists say they’ve been working on this Constitutional amendment for more than 8 years. It was first introduced in the legislature in 2016 – 2017 Legislative session as ACR 259
The green activists have formed a national organization to promote these green amendments and the leader has written a book.
So how is it possible that they failed to include “rights” to establish protections for climate, public health and environmental justice in their SCR 43 Constitutional amendment?
This gross incompetence was revealed during testimony to the Senate Environment Committee on March 7, 2024 (listen to the testimony here). Let me walk you through that testimony, including key excerpts (we always have the receipts for what we write!)
The gross incompetence of failure to include these fundamental issues in the SCR 43 was not the only huge error by the green activists. It was compounded by how they requested amendments to repair these huge flaws in the SCR 43. Follow this, it was a circus:
The basic protocols of legislative lobbying in Trenton are that there are “no surprises”. You never blind side a legislator, especially in public on important and controversial issues like climate, EJ and public health. And that goes double for a Committee Chairman.
That means that if you are going to request amendments to a piece of legislation, you must do this before the hearing. You never, ever, waltz into a hearing and during testimony blind side the Chairman (and sponsors) with amendment requests. You first contact the sponsor privately and get their approval and after that you reach out to the Chairman to give them a heads up and request that the amendments be drafted (OLS aides draft amendments in bill form).
So, please read the following excerpts (with time stamps) or hit the link and go listen to how Maya van Rossum, the leader of this “green amendment” initiative (and author of a book on the subject) casually requests major amendments at the very close of her testimony.
Maya’s amendment request shocked Committee Chairman Bob Smith, who immediately issued a warning to her to “watch what she says”. Chairman Smith then asked Maya if she’d discussed these amendments with the sponsors and whether the amendments have been drafted.
Maya then dodges the issue and says that amendments are being handled by the Trenton lobbyist, Dave Pringle.
Dave Pringle later testifies and basically says that he didn’t consult with the sponsors and that he has nothing in writing to circulate for review.
Unbelievable incompetence and bungling.
So, here are the excerpts: lets start with Maya van Rossum at time 1:04:40
I do want to highlight, very quickly, just in closing, the green amendment proposal before you, this was put forth 5 years ago. We have spoken with what I call our legislative champions and other advocates and we really would recommend some adjustments we’ve identified over 5 years since the original proposal in 2017. We think that the right to healthy soils and a safe climate should be added as individual rights. … The human health qualities of the environment we recommend be added as well as an explicit environmental justice statement that says the state shall protect these rights equitably for all people. … the first state where the Constitution speaks directly – directly – to ensuring a safe climate for present and future generations.
Gobsmacked, Chairman Smith, who very tightly controls the climate issue and knows where the third rails are, immediately interrupts:
So, a couple of comments. Number one, I didn’t mention it, … but every word you are saying is being recorded.We have a court stenographer here. We’re going to provide a record of this hearing to all of the legislators …. so be careful what you say, …. it is being recorded”.
Secondly, Maya, have you sent those proposed amendments to (the sponsors) Senator Greenstein and Senator Zwicker?
Maya replies, with a qualifier:
Yes, we have, through my colleague David Pringle …. I believe we have shared them
Smith comes back with:
Well, you might want to resend them, because I’m not quite sure everyone has them or maybe they got lost in the emails.
Pringle, the last to testify, after being named as the consultant who worked on the “amendments” Maya requested, just flat out misleads the Chairman and says: (2:47:30)
I’d like to say its worth the 6 years wait…
We know this isn’t going to be fast tracked. We hope it will be released from Committee soon. We will follow up with appropriate language we’ve been talking about additional information on case studies (sic). This is just the very beginning of the process. Long way to go.
(Yea Dave, a real long way to go. Heckofajob!
Like Maya, Dave can’t count or is spinning history. The Resolution was introduced in the 2016 – 2017 Legislative session. That is 8 years ago, not 6.)
But that was not all.
The hearing began with testimony from Legislators from Pennsylvania and New York who were supposed to brief the Committee on how the constitutional amendment in their states had been implemented. Both witnesses were not familiar with the law, the litigation, or even basic facts of the cases involving the litigation in their states. It was truly embarrassing. Listen to that yourself, I won’t waste my time and yours with excerpts.
Finally, as I wrote last week in a followup piece, the implementation of the “green amendment” in Pennsylvania has been a disaster, see:
And now, because the NJ proposed green amendment does NOT include an individual right to a stable climate, the Montana green amendment case is not even applicable. Read the national coverage of that by Bloomberg. Both Maya van Rossum and Dave Pringle are quoted in the story, presumably as “experts”!
Montana, Pennsylvania, and New York are the only states with green amendments in their bill of rights, said Maya K. van Rossum, founder of Green Amendments for the Generations. But none of those states’ amendments specifically mention climate, relying instead on the environment more broadly.
The Held v. Montana decision was so influential because it paves the way for climate issues, not just water and air quality, to be considered part of states’ green amendments, van Rossum said. Since much of the case was spent arguing that same issue, she said more states could learn to use exact wording in future amendments.
Wow. Maya tells a Bloomberg reporter more states could learn to use exact wording in future amendments” and then the NJ Resolution SCR 43 does not include any wording on a climate right and the wording it does include explicitly does NOT make climate a right, but vests control with the DEP. And then she asks for that amendment during testimony and blindsides the Chairman.
And listen to this fact free whopper from Pringle:
In New Jersey, there’s “strong bipartisan support” for a green amendment, said David Pringle, a consultant and green amendment activist. …
Because New Jersey is so industrialized, “we face environmental problems sooner and more significantly,” Pringle said. He’s optimistic that the state will see a green amendment on the ballot in the next couple of years, he said.
Let me make my own prediction: after the circus testimony (and the business community’s opposition – they came out swinging, which I’ll discuss in the next post) the green amendment is DOA in NJ.
It might get released from Committee to avoid humiliating Chairman Smith, but it will die and never get a Senate floor vote.
Smith was humiliated just weeks ago, when Big Oil and Gas forced him to gut his own proposed Constitutional amendment to ban construction of new fossil power plants, see:
Facing industry oposition, he’s also abandoned his proposals to established standards to define, monetize and collect “natural resource damages” and the work of his forestry task force. After decades in the legislature, he has very little power. (I can tell you from personal experience that he only sponsored the Highlands Act because he was ordered to do so by Gov. McGreevey.)
(Lots more to follow on the NY situation, the implications for democracy, the business community’s opposition, unintended consequences, and a comparison of the far more effective approach I recommend .)