A hearing for Sen. Golden-sponsored Senate Joint Resolution 28 was packed with kids and seniors asking legislators to refer to voters a constitutional amendment enshrining climate rights

By Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital Chronicle

By the time Joanna Rogers got to give testimony at the Capitol on a bill that could one day help enshrine the right to a healthy and safe climate in Oregon’s Constitution, she and other speakers were told they’d have one, rather than two, minutes to make their case for or against the bill. The 11-year-old from Portland made fast edits to her testimony so she could cut straight to the heart of the matter.

“You are in charge of so many kids’ fates. Please do what you can,” Rogers told the lawmakers.

If passed, Senate Joint Resolution 28 would refer a ballot measure to Oregon voters in November to amend the state constitution so that it guarantees the “inherent, fundamental right to a clean, safe and healthy environment, including but not limited to clean air, clean water, thriving ecosystems and a stable climate system.”

It would make Oregon one of four states to make such a promise to future generations in its guiding legal document and would allow Oregonians to sue the state government and its agencies if it reneges on that promise.

At the first public hearing for the bill Wednesday in the Senate Rules Committee, Rogers was among a crowd so packed with people hoping to give testimony that a second room was opened to accommodate them. More than 170 people submitted written testimony in support of the bill in advance of the hearing and 26 submitted written testimony in opposition.

Those opposed include large trade associations such as the Oregon Farm Bureau, Oregon Business & Industry, Associated Oregon Loggers and home building groups.

“We see this as a pathway to an endless stream of lawsuits against family farms and ranches,” Lauren Kuenzi, a lobbyist for the Oregon Farm Bureau, told lawmakers. “This will put the court in the driver’s seat, allowing them to shape public policy for a lot of industries.”

The bill’s chief sponsor, state Sen. Jeff Golden, D-Ashland, said it would not lead to lawsuits against private parties or individuals.

“The government has a responsibility to uphold constitutional rights. Private interests have no responsibility to uphold constitutional rights,” he explained.

Citizens could sue the Department of State Lands for permitting a new mining operation, but they could not sue the mining company under the amendment.

Sharla Moffett, a lobbyist for Oregon Business & Industry, expressed concern that it would raise environmental rights to the same level as the right to due process and equal protection under the Oregon Constitution, without clarifying what all those rights entail.

“The terms ‘clean air,’ ‘clean water,’ ‘thriving ecosystems’ and ‘a stable climate’ could be highly subjective and are not defined in the bill,” Moffett said.

The bill is cosponsored by state Sens. James Manning Jr., D-Eugene, Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, and Reps. Tom Andersen, D-Salem, Thủy Trần, D-Portland, and Mark Gamba, D-Milwaukie.

Gamba, who tried to suppress tears as he gave testimony, described the need for the Legislature to meet climate change “as the existential threat that it is.” He said suing corporations over the environmental harm they’ve caused has proven to be extraordinarily difficult. But holding Oregon’s government accountable into the future could offer options.

“It’s a clever idea. It’s a bold idea. It allows voters to put an environmental rights amendment into our constitution and reclaim some of our power to stand up to big polluters,” Gamba said to applause in the hearing.

Among those in attendance was Miko Vergun, a 22-year-old plaintiff in the landmark youth climate case Juliana v. United States, filed a decade ago in U.S. District Court in Eugene against the federal government by 11 young Oregonians and 10 peers from several states.

The case, which attempted to hold the U.S. government accountable for accelerating global climate change through lawmakers’ policies and fossil fuel subsidies, never got a trial. It recently hit a dead end after the Supreme Court declined a petition from the plaintiffs to throw out a lower court’s decision to dismiss the case.

Vergun told the senators things might have been different if the state had guaranteed a constitutional right to a healthy climate for her and other young Oregonians.

“In states like Montana and Hawaii, young people like me have won their cases because their constitutions explicitly protect the right to a healthy environment. That’s why SJR 28 matters. It would give Oregonians the same chance to be heard and protected,” she said.

Alex Baumhardt has been a national radio producer focusing on education for American Public Media since 2017. She has reported from the Arctic to the Antarctic for national and international media, and from Minnesota and Oregon for The Washington Post.