New York State’s ballot this fall will have a question regarding individual rights and the environment. A “yes” vote on Proposition Two would change the state constitution’s Bill of Rights to add a right to clean water and air.
Advocacy group Vote YES for Clean Air and Water supports the amendment because they believe it will help all state residents have access to a safe environment. The group also says the amendment would benefit New York’s economy by protecting citizens’ health, therefore leading to lower healthcare costs for families and businesses.
Opponents of the bill worry about its impact on the state’s agricultural industry. The Times Union reported that businesses worry about the potential legal issues between people’s “right to far with their right to clean air and water.”
Government Professor Chris Buck thinks the potential amendment to the New York constitution is a defensive approach to climate change. “It tries to prevent more direct harm to the environment as opposed to pressuring state and non-state actors to take proactive measures towards achieving carbon neutrality,” he says. “It is a really interesting strategy for environmental protection by opening up new legal strategies in the courts.”
Professor Buck says other states have added similar amendments to their constitutions, Pennsylvania being the first in 1971. “In the past decade, there’s actually been court cases that have hinged upon these environmental rights [in PA],” he says. “There was an effort by the state legislature in 2012 to change the Oil and Gas Act in Pennsylvania in order to make it easier for fracking to take place. A municipality objected to the action of the state legislature and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ultimately ruled in favor of the municipality and cited the environment rights [to clean air and water] that were enshrined in the constitution.”
The last “substantial” environmental addition to the New York constitution was the Conservation Bill of Rights in 1970, said the Times Union.
The Adirondack Mountain Club supports the amendment, saying the right to a healthy environment is “no less appropriate” than rights like free speech. They also said a right to clean air and water is important for environmental justice.
The concept of justice within the environmental movement, according to Professor Buck, is framed as the “ways vulnerable communities are disproportionally affected by environmental harms and don’t benefit from environmental amenities to the same extent as other communities, and that could be on the basis of class, on the basis of race, or on the basis of gender, just to name a few different identifications where environmental justice matters.”
The clean air and water amendment will be proposal two on the ballot. The New York State General Election is on Nov. 2. Early Voting ends Oct. 31.
Nov. 1 is the last day to deliver absentee ballot applications to the Board of Elections or apply for one in person. Absentee ballots must be turned into the Board of Elections or a polling place by the close. If mailed, they must be postmarked no later than Nov. 2.
Early voting is available at the St. Lawrence County Board of Elections on Oct. 29 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Oct. 30 and 31 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Nov. 2.