State preemption is one of the legal doctrines that Community Rights lawmaking challenges. Time after time citizen majorities have formed in communities to enact and enforce laws that make life easier for the many instead of the few. And more often than not state and federal levels of government step in to deny citizens their [...]
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 [...]
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, corporate plaintiff demands $293,750 from City of Toledo for defending the Lake Erie Bill of Rights. This press release was published by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) on March 13, 2020. TOLEDO,OH: The international corporate law firm Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP, has filed a motion demanding $293,750 [...]
This 25 minute video was published by Citizen Action for Exeter's Environment on February 21st, 2020. This video can be used as a tool to inspire, inform, educate and empower yourself and others on what it will take to start a campaign to pass a Right to a Healthy Climate ordinance in your community. The [...]
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 article by Tom Henry was published in The Blade on February 27th, 2019. The Lake Erie Bill of Rights was invalidated Thursday night by U.S. District Judge Jack Zouhary, who said in an eight-page ruling that his decision was “not a close call” because he believes the citizen-led referendum — though approved by [...]
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 [...]
Demands for self-determination in times of crises are growing. This article by Simon Davis Cohen and published on the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund's website on February 3rd, 2020. Protests rocked Puerto Rico in 2019. A core demand of the protests: local self-determination. After the island was hit by a financial crisis, the United States [...]
