State or federal preemption that blocks people's ability to provide more protection for their water is wrong and unjust and should be challenged. by Paul Blackburn, Attorney, Bold Alliance on May 3, 2022 on Pipeline Fighters Hub. As landowners and counties are being inundated with carbon pipeline companies wanting to take land by eminent domain, [...]
For 50 years, environmentalists have celebrated the illusion that the law is on their side. This article by Markie Miller and Crystal Jankowski was published in Common Dreams on April 22nd, 2020. Let’s abolish Earth Day. Here’s why: The protection offered by the environmental regulatory system is an illusion. In 2014, our Toledo, Ohio municipal [...]
Stacey Schmader, Co-founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), offers us two provocative ideas in this three minute video: Walk away from Earth Day and the regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). She says they do more harm than good. We at Community Rights US invite you to give this video [...]
This article by Jon Hurdle appeared on State Impact Pennsylvania's website on March 27, 2020. Advocates for increased local control over Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry welcomed a decision by environmental regulators to revoke their own permit for an injection well to be built in a rural township, on the grounds that the well would [...]
As someone who is involved in a Community Rights campaign, and follows the movement somewhat closely, this letter to the editor by Mary Geddry (below) interests me. Why? Because she is pointing at the predictable results of trying to stop a "19th century, fossil-fuel energy project like Jordan Cove LNG [A Liquified Natural Gas Terminal [...]
After a seven-year battle, Grant Township fought off a permit for an injection well. “Fights like ours should mushroom all around Pennsylvania,” says town supervisor This article by Justin Noble appeared in Rolling Stone magazine on April 1st, 2020. An unlikely crew of environmentalists who took on the powerful Pennsylvania fracking industry in a David vs. Goliath [...]
The movement to legally enshrine the rights of species and ecosystems has been gaining steam worldwide This article by Helen Hill was published in Street Roots News on March 6th, 2020. In a letter to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee dated Feb. 11, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown offered her full support for removal of the four [...]
This article by Chauncey Ross appeared in the Indiana Gazette on March 6th, 2020 PITTSBURGH — A state appeals court has turned aside an appeal by Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and left standing a home rule charter adopted by a northern Indiana County municipality in a bid to control its own local environment. The [...]
This informative and empowering article by Paul Cienfuegos, Community Rights US Founder and Director, was published in our February newsletter. After many months of behind the scenes intensive work, we are proudly announcing that we have just released our new Community Rights ordinance which entirely bans any corporate 5G wireless internet in a town, city or county. [...]
This article appeared on the Center for Earth Jurisprudence's website on February 11th, 2019. Change can bring with it a corresponding resistance. The legal recognition of the rights of Nature has spread throughout the world’s property-based systems of governance in recent years, prompting significant backlash along the way. Currently in Florida, local groups are seeking [...]
