Climate Governance and Equity

Green Amendments

A Green Amendment, also called an environmental rights amendment, is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Environmental rights amendments have been used to advance critical efforts in the states where they exist. Often, these efforts take the tack of holding the state accountable for vigorous permitting enforcement, which can impact the siting and permitting of projects such as polluting power plants and landfills. In Montana, for example, the state's Green Amendment was the basis for the landmark climate case brought by sixteen youth plaintiffs in Held v. State of Montana, in which the state’s Supreme Court ruled that Montana’s law restricting the consideration of climate change in environmental reviews violated Montanans’ right to a clean and healthful environment. Green amendments have also been used to prevent state governments from striking down local governments’ restrictions on fracking near homes and schools.

There are different interpretations of what a meaningful Green Amendment must look like in practice. Notably, some leading practitioners hold that a Green Amendment must be in the Bill of Rights section of a state constitution in order to confirm the self-executing nature of the constitutional provision — that is, that the legislature does not need to pass laws in order to activate these rights — in order to ensure the right can be invoked to protect against government infringement proactively.

States with Policy Enacted

In Progress

Partially Enacted

See States List

Key Resources

Know Your Rights (And the Climate’s): Held v. State of Montana as a Catalyst for Enforcing State-Level Green Amendments

An article exploring legal cases that invoke Green Amendments in states such as Montana, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. The article explains how Held v. Montana can help other states enforce their Green Amendments.

Environmental Rights Amendments Resources

A list of resources on Environmental Rights Amendments, which include a model environmental rights amendment, two factsheets, a legal memo, a resource with the text of existing environmental rights amendments, and a chart analyzing existing environmental rights amendments.

Green Amendment: Active States

A list of states that have made progress to advance Green Amendments, with state-specific websites, timelines and actions, and resources to advocate for their passage.
2024
Source:

Green Amendment Checklist

A checklist of Green Amendment criteria to evaluate and better understand the essential elements of Green Amendment proposals.
2022
Source:

Model Rules

Model State Environmental Rights Amendment

A model that provides recommended language for a state environmental rights amendment that should be tailored for each state, based upon the priorities and goals of the people of the state, along with an analysis of state caselaw and constitutional structure and interpretation.

Model Green Amendment Language

Three model Green Amendments that provide language to establish a Green Amendment based on state priorities.
2023
Source:

Model States

Hawai‘i

Hawai‘i's Constitution states:

“Each person has the right to a clean and healthful environment, as defined by laws relating to environmental quality, including control of pollution and conservation, protection and enhancement of natural resources. Any person may enforce this right against any party, public or private, through appropriate legal proceedings, subject to reasonable limitations and regulation as provided by law.”

1978
Establishing Policies

Montana

Montana's Constitution lists inalienble rights that include the right to a clean and healthful environment, and its Environment and Natural Resources article states:

(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.

1972
Establishing Policies

New York

New York's Green Amendment states that “Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.”

Green Amendments By State

Filters
Status State Sort descending Region Components Year Enacted
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

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Southeast
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

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West
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

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Southwest
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southeast
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
West
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
West
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

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Northeast
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southeast
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southeast
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southeast
Enacted
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Hawai‘i's Constitution states:

“Each person has the right to a clean and healthful environment, as defined by laws relating to environmental quality, including control of pollution and conservation, protection and enhancement of natural resources. Any person may enforce this right against any party, public or private, through appropriate legal proceedings, subject to reasonable limitations and regulation as provided by law.”

Empty column
West 1978
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

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West
Enacted
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Illinois' Constitution states:

“SECTION 1. PUBLIC POLICY - LEGISLATIVE RESPONSIBILITY. The public policy of the State and the duty of each person is to provide and maintain a healthful environment for the benefit of this and future generations. The General Assembly shall provide by law for the implementation and enforcement of this public policy.

SECTION 2. RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS. Each person has the right to a healthful environment. Each person may enforce this right against any party, governmental or private, through appropriate legal proceedings subject to reasonable limitation and regulation as the General Assembly may provide by law.”

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Midwest 1970
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Midwest
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Midwest
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Midwest
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southeast
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southeast
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Northeast
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

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Southeast
Enacted
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The Massachusetts Constitution states:

"The people shall have the right to clean air and water, freedom from excessive and unnecessary noise, and the natural, scenic, historic, and esthetic qualities of their environment; and the protection of the people in their right to the conservation, development and utilization of the agricultural, mineral, forest, water, air and other natural resources is hereby declared to be a public purpose.

The general court shall have the power to enact legislation necessary or expedient to protect such rights.

In the furtherance of the foregoing powers, the general court shall have the power to provide for the taking, upon payment of just compensation therefor, or for the acquisition by purchase or otherwise, of lands and easements or such other interests therein as may be deemed necessary to accomplish these purposes.

Lands and easements taken or acquired for such purposes shall not be used for other purposes or otherwise disposed of except by laws enacted by a two thirds vote, taken by yeas and nays, of each branch of the general court.”

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Northeast 1972
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Midwest
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Midwest
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southeast
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Midwest
Enacted
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Montana's Constitution lists inalienble rights that include the right to a clean and healthful environment, and its Environment and Natural Resources article states:

(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.

Establishing Policies
Empty column
West 1972
Not Enacted
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A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Midwest
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
West
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Northeast
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Northeast
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southwest
Enacted
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New York's Green Amendment states that “Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.”

Empty column
Northeast 2021
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southeast
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Midwest
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Midwest
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southwest
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
West
Enacted
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The Environmental Rights Amendment guarantees Pennsylvanians the right to clean air, pure water, and the preservation of natural, scenic, historic, and aesthetic values of the environment. The Constitution also states "As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people."

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Northeast 1971
Enacted
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The Rhode Island Constitution states:

“The people shall continue to enjoy and freely exercise all the rights of fishery, and the privileges of the shore, to which they have been heretofore entitled under the charter and usages of this state, including but not limited to fishing from the shore, the gathering of seaweed, leaving the shore to swim in the sea and passage along the shore; and they shall be secure in their rights to the use and enjoyment of the natural resources of the state with due regard for the preservation of their values; and it shall be the duty of the general assembly to provide for the conservation of the air, land, water, plant, animal, mineral and other natural resources of the state, and to adopt all means necessary and proper by law to protect the natural environment of the people of the state by providing adequate resource planning for the control and regulation of the use of the natural resources of the state and for the preservation, regeneration and restoration of the natural environment of the state.”

Empty column
Northeast 1986
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southeast
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Midwest
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southeast
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southwest
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
West
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Northeast
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southeast
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
West
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Southeast
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
Midwest
Not Enacted
Empty column

A Green Amendment is an amendment to a state constitution guaranteeing the citizens of that state a right to a clean and healthy environment. The right to a clean and healthy environment can help to address climate change and provide a key tool to regulate greenhouse gases and achieve environmental justice goals.

Empty column
West

The State Climate Policy Dashboard tracks only passed policies and does not include bills currently proposed in legislative sessions. The website is intended to illustrate the current status of policies for each state, as well as key resources and model states for each policy.

Much of the information contained in this database is derived from the public domain, with links to resources provided. The information provided is made available solely for general information purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Click here for full Terms of Use.

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