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A Republic, if we can keep it

Part XIX: Environmental justice

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It's time we enact a constitutional amendment guaranteering the right to clean air and clean water, writes Breslin.

Marco Bottigelli/Getty Images

Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law.”

This is the latest in a series to assist American citizens on the bumpy road ahead this election year. By highlighting components, principles and stories of the Constitution, Breslin hopes to remind us that the American political experiment remains, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, the “most interesting in the world.”

Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote, “a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” The parable of the “state as democratic laboratory” was born that afternoon in March 1932.

Several states have taken Brandeis’ challenge seriously, especially in the environmental arena. Seven states, in fact — Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Montana, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island — have embedded protections directly into their state constitutions. Four of those have gone so far as to enshrine fundamental rights to clean air and clean water, as well as a healthful environment right, into their bills of rights.


Take Montana’s Constitution, for example. Its Declaration of Rights insists, “All persons are born free and have certain inalienable rights. They include the right to a clean and healthful environment and the rights of pursuing life's basic necessities, enjoying and defending their lives and liberties, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and seeking their safety, health and happiness in all lawful ways.”

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Or Pennsylvania. Section 27 of the Commonwealth’s Constitution reads, “The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.”

New York, the latest to enter the constitutional amendment sweepstakes, just altered its supreme law to read, “Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.” Other states are currently considering green amendments for their constitutional texts.

And yet the U.S. Constitution is silent on the environment. Efforts to amend the document to replicate the experimentation at the state level have all failed. Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson was rebuffed in the early 1970s when he proposed a constitutional amendment that would have ensured “every person has an inalienable right to a decent environment.” Twenty years later, a constitutional amendment was proposed that at least matched the linguistic style of our Bill of Rights: “The right of each person to clean and healthful air and water, and to the protection of the other natural resources of the nation, shall not be infringed upon by any person.” It too went down to defeat.

The time has come to resurrect these attempts, and to do so with a commitment to environmental justice.

It begins with constitutional language. While working on a book, I had the great good fortune to interview Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization. I asked him to imagine being a delegate to a fictional 2023 Constitutional Convention — a contemporary return to Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, so to speak. What would his ideal constitutional amendment protecting the environment look like? His response did not disappoint.

“Americans today face urgent national (and global) environmental challenges that would have been unimaginable to previous constitutional framers,” he began. “Past leaders worked tirelessly to improve our environmental station, but they didn’t fully connect their ambitions to the constitutional project. They didn’t see that America’s organic law holds the possibility of real reform.”

“Our task,” he implored, “is to leverage the power of the constitutional text for the future of our planet.”

He then gave me what I ultimately asked for: proposed language for a constitutional amendment. Two concise sentences said it all: “The right of the people to clean air and water, and to the preservation of a safe and healthy environment, shall not be infringed. The public natural resources of the United States of America are the common property of all the people, including future generations, and shall be preserved and maintained for the benefit of all.”

Our chances of forming “a more perfect union” would be enhanced with Brune’s proposed amendment.

But constitutional language is not enough. Environmental justice requires a bit more, namely representation by all constituencies at the decision-making table, transparent and accessible planning processes, and equitable distribution of benefits and impacts across all communities. Thus far, environmental efforts have tended to favor the privileged, while negative impacts have disproportionately affected the marginalized. That has to change along with constitutional clauses.

States are donning their lab coats. It’s early, but promising signs point to state action aimed at fostering environmental justice. California, Maryland and Washington are at the forefront of fair and equitable treatment. More than a dozen states have established “environmental justice bodies” to focus on environmental pressures “in overburdened communities.” More than two dozen states now mandate that “environmental justice considerations be integrated into legislative and regulatory action.”

President Joe Biden has created the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. His Justice40 initiative is particularly encouraging. But the federal government still lags far behind the states in experimenting with environmental efforts. A constitutional amendment that safeguards a healthful environment for all would exemplify the courage Louis Brandeis urged. Thanks to folks like Michael Brune, the language is there. What’s missing is the will.

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In recent years, Michigan has been aggressive in its approach to clean energy: It’s invested millions of dollars in renewable energy infrastructure, created training programs for jobs in the electric vehicle industry, and set a goal of moving the state to 100% carbon neutrality by 2050.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other state officials aim to make the Great Lakes State a leader in clean energy manufacturing by bringing jobs and investments to local communities while also tackling pollution, which continues to wreak havoc on the environment.

Now Michigan’s clean energy efforts have seemingly hit a wall of uncertainty as President Donald Trump’s administration takes ongoing actions to roll back federal climate regulations.

“We’ve seen nothing less than an unprecedented, all-out assault on our environment and our democracy,” said Bentley Johnson, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters’ federal government affairs director.

The clean energy sector has grown rapidly in the United States since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. Congress appropriated $370 billion under the IRA, and White House officials at the time touted it as the country’s largest investment in clean energy.

According to Climate Power, a national public relations and advocacy organization dedicated to climate justice, Michigan was the No. 1 state in the nation in 2024 in its number of clean energy projects; from 2022-2024, the state announced 74 projects totalling over 26,000 jobs and roughly $27 billion in federal funding.

Trump has long been critical of the country’s climate initiatives and development of clean energy technology. He’s previously made false claims that climate change is a hoax and wind turbines cause cancer. Since taking office again in January, Trump has tried to pause IRA funding and signed an executive order to boost coal production.

Additionally, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced in March that the agency had canceled more than 400 environmental justice grants to be used to improve air and water quality in disadvantaged communities. Senate Democrats, who released a full list of the canceled grants, accused the EPA of illegally terminating the contracts, through which funds were appropriated by Congress under the IRA. Of those 400 grants, 15 were allocated for projects in Michigan, including one to restore housing units in Kalamazoo and another to transform Detroit area food pantries and soup kitchens into emergency shelters for those in need.

Johnson said the federal government reversing course on the allotted funding has left community groups who were set to receive it in the lurch.

“That just seems wrong, to take away these public benefits that there was already an agreement — Congress has already appropriated or committed to spending this, to handing this money out, and the rug is being pulled out from under them,” Johnson said.

Climate Power has tracked clean energy projects across the country totaling $56.3 billion in projected funding and over 50,000 potential jobs that have been stalled or canceled since Trump was elected in November. Michigan accounts for seven of those projects, including Nel Hydrogen’s plans to build an electrolyzer manufacturing facility in Plymouth.

Nel Hydrogen announced an indefinite delay in the construction of its Plymouth factory in February 2025. Wilhelm Flinder, the company’s head of investor relations, communications, and marketing, cited uncertainty regarding the IRA’s tax credits for clean hydrogen production as a factor in the company’s decision, according to reporting by Hometownlife.com. The facility was expected to invest $400 million in the local community and to create over 500 people when it started production.

“America is losing nearly a thousand jobs a day because of Trump’s war against cheaper, faster, and cleaner energy. Congressional Republicans have a choice: get in line with Trump’s job-killing energy agenda or take a stand to protect jobs and lower costs for American families,” Climate Power executive director Lori Lodes said in a March statement.

Opposition groups make misleading claims about the benefits of renewable energy, such as the reliability of wind or solar energy and the land used for clean energy projects, in order to stir up public distrust, Johnson said.

In support of its clean energy goals, the state fronted some of its own taxpayer dollars for several projects to complement the federal IRA money. Johnson said the strategy was initially successful, but with sudden shifts in federal policies, it’s potentially become a risk, because the state would be unable to foot the bill entirely on its own.

The state still has its self-imposed clean energy goals to reach in 25 years, but whether it will meet that deadline is hard to predict, Johnson said. Michigan’s clean energy laws are still in place and, despite Trump’s efforts, the IRA remains intact for now.

“Thanks to the combination — I like to call it a one-two punch of the state-passed Clean Energy and Jobs Act … and the Inflation Reduction Act, with the two of those intact — as long as we don’t weaken it — and then the combination of the private sector and technological advancement, we can absolutely still make it,” Johnson said. “It is still going to be tough, even if there wasn’t a single rollback.”

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