Paul Hammel
LINCOLN — A group of young people descended on the Capitol on Wednesday in hopes of convincing state lawmakers to support adding a “Green Amendment” to the Nebraska Constitution.
Such an amendment — which would require approval by Nebraska voters — would give citizens a legal right to a “clean and healthy environment,” including “pure water,” clean air and “healthy soils.”
Advocates said the language would grant citizens and communities a pathway to sue state regulators if they weren’t taking steps to protect the environment, or had taken steps that harm it. Some cited the example of the AltEn ethanol plant in Mead, which had skirted state environmental rules for years before the state eventually shut it down in 2021.
“We are here to fight for the right of a livable environment,” said Sara Holler, a Washington, D.C.-based activist with the youth-led environmental group, Capitol Hill Academy.
“The future for our generation should not be up for debate,” added Lake Liao, the founder and executive director of that organization, who said the younger generation would have to live with the consequences of failing to protect the environment.
Risk to property rights, ag
But detractors of the effort, including Gov. Jim Pillen, indicated that such an amendment could empower governmental entities to “destroy private property rights.”
“Ill-defined constitutional amendments are dangerous to Nebraskans,” said Laura Strimple, the governor’s spokeswoman.
She said lawsuits could conceivably force homeowners to abandon Kentucky bluegrass lawns as not “native flora and fauna,” as outlined in the amendment. It also could restrict the amount of corn and soybeans planted in the state to provide a “balanced ecosystem.”
Holler and Liao were among speakers attending a rally and legislative hearing Wednesday over the proposed constitutional amendment.
State Sen. George Dungan of Lincoln is the main sponsor of the proposal, Legislative Resolution 22CA. He said Wednesday that he introduced the measure after being inspired by the activism of young people to protect the environment.
Three states, Montana, New York and Pennsylvania, currently have green constitutional amendments, with at least nine states, including Iowa, considering similar proposals.
Students engage
On Wednesday, more than 20 high school students with the Nebraska affiliate of the national group, Students for Sustainability, and members of Sustain UNL, a group based at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, wore bright-green T-shirts and carried placards reading “No Nature? No Future” and “Protect Our Planet.”
Mia Perales, a UNL student studying environmental engineering, said a Green Amendment would allow citizens in her home neighborhood of South Omaha a way to force regulators to address odor and wastewater issues associated with meat processing plants there.
Evalina Sain, an Omaha Central High School student and executive director of the local Students for Sustainability chapter, said Nebraska loses young college graduates because the state hasn’t embraced more progressive steps to protect the environment.
Investment in clean energy and the environment, she added, also provides jobs.
Who will pay?
But the lone opponent to testify in person against LR 22CA during the legislative hearing, predicted that lawsuits spawned by a Green Amendment would cost the state billions in court judgments and legal costs.
“Liberal lawyers,” according to Omaha attorney David Begley, would file dozens of lawsuits claiming that the state has failed to protect citizens from contamination in groundwater and protect butterflies from chemicals.
“In my opinion, this is the most extreme and expensive bill that has ever been offered in the Unicameral,” Begley said. “Our budget deficit will skyrocket.”
He said it would be cheaper to ship proponents of the Green Amendment to “Santa Monica” (California), where they would discover “mankind can’t control the climate.”
Proponents said Green Amendments have not opened “the floodgates” to more lawsuits in other states or inspired frivolous legal action. Dungan said states with such amendments have seen an average of three to 10 new lawsuits a year.
Questions about limits
Senators on the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee asked several questions about what a Green Amendment would allow.
State Sen. Jana Hughes of Seward, for instance, asked whether it would allow her to sue neighbors if the nitrate levels in her groundwater exceeded safe levels for drinking.
Sheridan Macy, an Omaha native and lawyer who drafted the proposed amendment for Nebraska, said it would allow the senator to file a lawsuit against state and local regulators who might have failed to take steps to avoid nitrate contamination in local aquifers.
“Nebraska is a great place to grow up and raise a family,” Macy said. “(But) if we do not take steps to protect our environment, that will change.”
The committee took no action on LR 22CA after the hearing.
Macy said if the Legislature fails to act, people would consider an initiative petition drive to put the issue on the ballot.