The Delaware Green Amendment

 

 The Green Amendment

Background

  • Industrial externalities, damaging development, and misplaced government decision - making have allowed the inalienable rights of Delaware residents to plentiful and pure water, clean air, a stable climate, and healthy environments to be violated. 

  • Despite state environmental laws, regulations and agencies, Delaware water, air, soils, landscapes, and special natural spaces have been allowed to degrade in ways that are harming every aspect of people’s lives. 

  • Establishing an enforceable environmental right will drive better government decision making at all levels of government and will prevent situations or conditions in which land becomes too contaminated, water becomes too polluted, and air too dirty to support healthy lives, including a healthy economy.

What is The Delaware Green Amendment?

  • Mandates constitutionally that Delaware government officials protect the environmental rights of all residents, including present and future generations. 

  • Allows legal redress when this right is violated by government overreach or inaction.

What Will The Delaware Green Amendment Do?

  • Amend Article I of the Constitution to recognize and protect the rights of all of the people of Delaware “to a clean and healthy environment,” including protection of “water, air, soil, flora, fauna, ecosystems, and climate, and to the preservation of the natural, cultural, scenic and healthful qualities of the environment.”

  • Recognize the duty of the state to “serve as trustee of the State’s natural resources” and to “conserve, protect, and maintain” the state’s natural resources for both present and future generations.

The Delaware Constitution will have a new paragraph 22 added that reads:

“The people of Delaware have an inherent, indefeasible and inalienable right to a clean and healthy environment, including water, air, soil, flora, fauna, ecosystems, and climate, and to the preservation of the natural, cultural, scenic and healthful qualities of the environment. The State shall not infringe upon these rights, by action or inaction. The State's natural resources are the common property of all the people, including both present and future generations. The State, including all branches, agencies and political subdivisions, shall serve as trustee of the State’ natural resources and shall conserve, protect, and maintain these resources for the benefit of all its people. This provision and the rights stated herein are self-executing and on par with other protected inalienable rights.”

What Needs to Happen for The Delaware Green Amendment to Pass?

Both houses of the legislature must pass the amendment by a 2/3 vote in two consecutive legislatures, with broad publication to the people prior to the general election in between.