Isn’t MN as valuable as Montana?

Today’s posting will be short and, for me at least, sweet. I’ve been stewing (yes, me!) about this since I first read the announcement: ‘Gamechanger’: judge rules in favor of young activists in US climate trial. The decision was based, in large part, on provisions of the 1972 version of the Montana state constitution, as found in Part IX. ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES:

Protection And Improvement

Section 1. Protection and improvement. (1) The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations.

(2) The legislature shall provide for the administration and enforcement of this duty.

(3) The legislature shall provide adequate remedies for the protection of the environmental life support system from degradation and provide adequate remedies to prevent unreasonable depletion and degradation of natural resources.

does this not warrant constitutional protection?

Photo by J. Harrington

The Sierra Club has made available on line an extensive background to the Held decision. You can read that here. However, what has me perturbed is the information in an article in Bloomberg Law that notes:

Green amendments provide an explicit and unmistakable mandate to protect environmental rights with the same legal vigor, guided by the same constitutional mandates, given our most highly regarded fundamental rights and freedoms, such as free speech, freedom of religion, property rights, and gun rights. The clarity of instruction provided by green amendments leaves little room for anti-environment activism in any branch of government.

Three states already provide this highest green amendment protection for environmental rights and natural resources: Pennsylvania, Montana, and, as of 2021, New York.

At this moment, constitutional green amendments that protect the rights of all people to a clean, safe, and healthy environment, are advancing in states across our nation. Among the states with active green amendment campaigns are Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Mexico, New Jersey, and Washington.

Minnesota is not listed among those states that have adopted or are advancing constitutional rights to a clean and healthy environment. Why not?

Admittedly, Minnesota does have an Environmental Policy Act, which can be modified by the legislature. The environmental provisions in our constitution have to do with funding, not constitutional rights. They read as follows:

Sec. 14. Environment and natural resources fund.

A permanent environment and natural resources trust fund is established in the state treasury. Loans may be made of up to five percent of the principal of the fund for water system improvements as provided by law. The assets of the fund shall be appropriated by law for the public purpose of protection, conservation, preservation, and enhancement of the state's air, water, land, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources. The amount appropriated each year of a biennium, commencing on July 1 in each odd-numbered year and ending on and including June 30 in the next odd-numbered year, may be up to 5-1/2 percent of the market value of the fund on June 30 one year before the start of the biennium. Not less than 40 percent of the net proceeds from any state-operated lottery must be credited to the fund until the year 2025.

[Adopted, November 8, 1988; Amended, November 6, 1990; November 3, 1998]

Sec. 15. Outdoor heritage, clean water, parks and trails, and arts and cultural heritage; sales tax dedicated funds.

Beginning July 1, 2009, until June 30, 2034, the sales and use tax rate shall be increased by three-eighths of one percent on sales and uses taxable under the general state sales and use tax law. Receipts from the increase, plus penalties and interest and reduced by any refunds, are dedicated, for the benefit of Minnesotans, to the following funds: 33 percent of the receipts shall be deposited in the outdoor heritage fund and may be spent only to restore, protect, and enhance wetlands, prairies, forests, and habitat for fish, game, and wildlife; 33 percent of the receipts shall be deposited in the clean water fund and may be spent only to protect, enhance, and restore water quality in lakes, rivers, and streams and to protect groundwater from degradation, and at least five percent of the clean water fund must be spent only to protect drinking water sources; 14.25 percent of the receipts shall be deposited in the parks and trails fund and may be spent only to support parks and trails of regional or statewide significance; and 19.75 percent shall be deposited in the arts and cultural heritage fund and may be spent only for arts, arts education, and arts access and to preserve Minnesota's history and cultural heritage. An outdoor heritage fund; a parks and trails fund; a clean water fund and a sustainable drinking water account; and an arts and cultural heritage fund are created in the state treasury. The money dedicated under this section shall be appropriated by law. The dedicated money under this section must supplement traditional sources of funding for these purposes and may not be used as a substitute. Land acquired by fee with money deposited in the outdoor heritage fund under this section must be open to the public taking of fish and game during the open season unless otherwise provided by law. If the base of the sales and use tax is changed, the sales and use tax rate in this section may be proportionally adjusted by law to within one-thousandth of one percent in order to provide as close to the same amount of revenue as practicable for each fund as existed before the change to the sales and use tax.

[Adopted, November 4, 2008]

Now, I am not a lawyer, so you might want to check with your state representative or senator or the governor’s office because I would love to learn that I’m wrong about this, and that Minnesotans have as much of a constitutional right to a clean environment as the citizens of Montana, Pennsylvania and New York. In fact, wouldn’t such an amendment help keep the mining companies and their promoters in line when they apply for hard rock mining permits?

Once the World Was Perfect

By Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.

Then we took it for granted.

Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.

Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

And once Doubt ruptured the web,

All manner of demon thoughts

Jumped through—

We destroyed the world we had been given

For inspiration, for life—

Each stone of jealousy, each stone

Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.

No one was without a stone in his or her hand.

There we were,

Right back where we had started.

We were bumping into each other

In the dark.

And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know

How to live with each other.

Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another

And shared a blanket.

A spark of kindness made a light.

The light made an opening in the darkness.

Everyone worked together to make a ladder.

A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,

And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,

And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

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