Earth Law Center Blog
From Constitution to Code: How New York Municipalities Can Use the Green Amendment
This guide explains what the New York Green Amendment adds to environmental protection possibilities in New York State (NYS), where municipal authority permits action, and how existing environmental programs offer practical models. It closes with a drafting checklist to help local lawmakers turn those lessons into workable, legally defensible ordinances that protect New Yorkers while courts continue to define the Amendment’s reach.
Inside Earth Law Center’s Work Advancing the Constitutional Right to a Healthful Environment in New York
Chiara Grimes interviews Earth Law Center New York Ecocentric Law Fellow Maria Florencia Pérez about the organization’s initiative to help New York municipalities implement the state’s Green Amendment — its constitutional right to a healthy environment — passed by voters in 2021.
Policy and Cultural Support for a Healthy Environment: How Is Your Town Managing Organic Waste?
The New York Green Amendment represents an affirmative backdrop for local governments to enact laws designed to implement its goal of providing all New Yorkers with a comprehensive right to a clean and healthful environment, and Earth Law Center (ELC) has been working with New York municipalities to explore such possibilities. Organic waste management is an area where Green Amendment rights, though not a prerequisite for local policy and action, can draw communities into thinking about and acting on their desire for a healthy environment in ways that develop culture and awareness of the right to a healthy environment.