Regulatory Agencies & Laws (Federal & State)

Our Daily Planet: The Growing Movement to Grant Legal Rights for Nature

This article appeared in Our Daily Planet in February of 2020. Traditionally, environmental laws have been written to manage how we use nature. However, the rapid degradation of nature driven by human activity is forcing indigenous leaders and activists to push for nature having rights that are enshrined in law.  We saw an example of this last year [...]

Sierra Club Magazine: Nevertheless, They Persisted: How one small town in Pennsylvania is successfully fighting the fracked gas industry

This article by Aaron Skirboll about Grant Township's resistance to Pennsylvania General Energy (PGE) injecting fracking wastewater into abandoned wells in the township was published in Sierra Club magazine on December 17th, 2019. JUNE 3, 2014. Looking back, many residents of Grant Township, Pennsylvania, believe that was the day their fight against the state's powerful [...]

Brett Kavanaugh’s Latest Opinion Should Terrify Democrats

The Supreme Court now has five votes to sabotage the next Democratic presidency. This article by Ian Millhiser was published on the Reader Supported News (RSN) website on November 26th, 2019. A brief commentary about the article by Paul Cienfuegos, Community Rights US Founder and Director: The author predicts catastrophe for any future effort by [...]

Alarm: Barb Lucia

This blog post by Barb Lucia was posted on the Pennsylvania Community Rights Network's (PACRN) website on October 16, 2019. I was simply a resident in the West Side neighborhood of the City of Warren, not involved in any political action, until 8 years ago when we learned through a reporter’s “leak” of a “secret” [...]

Feeding the People: Community Rights and Chili

Reflections on Community Rights from Rural America is a monthly column by CR activist and organizer Curt Hubatch. Curt is an unschooling father of two young children and one young adult. Currently he works as a substitute rural letter carrier for the USPS. He lives in a cordwood house that he built with his wife, [...]

Anatomy of a STATE And Corporate Attack on a People’s Movement

This article was written and published by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund on October 23, 2019. Since its inception, a state-wide movement in Ohio has faced a state and corporate attack that amounts to concerted opposition from all branches of state government, corporate lobbies, private law firms, and both political parties. The entire repressive [...]

Corporate Hijacking of the U.S. Constitution

This article by the Greg Coleridge was published on the Program on Corporations Law and Democracy's (POCLAD) website in October of 2019. Move to Amend recently issued a series of written documents detailing the many constitutional rights awarded to corporations by the Supreme Court. The series, Corporate Hijacking of the U.S. Constitution , includes a four-page [...]

New Publication: Do It Yourself Community Rights

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) recently published a do it yourself guide on how to advance Community Rights laws in your state. You can learn all about it and download it HERE! Description of the publication below. Are you interested in advancing Community Rights laws in your state? Community Rights includes Rights of [...]

Press Release: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Attacks 4-Year-Old Community Water Protection Law

The local law is currently protecting Grant Township’s drinking water source from toxic hydraulic fracking waste injections. This press release was published by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) on October 17th, 2019. --A week ago, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) presented arguments to overturn a community ban on frack waste injection [...]

Indiana Gazette: Hellbenders have their day in court

This article by Chauncey Ross was published in the Indiana Gazette on October 5th, 2019. PITTSBURGH — Six years after a plan for a drilling waste-disposal injection well was first revealed in northern Indiana County and after area residents banded together against it, lawyers waged another battle Friday in Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court. The dispute centers [...]

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