This article originally appeared on Beyond Pesticides October 25, 2017. Oregon is the most recent site of an effort by a locality to establish more-protective pesticide regulations than are provided by the state. Voters in Lincoln County, on the north-central Oregon Coast, approved a ballot measure earlier this year that established a ban on aerial [...]
This interview happened on October 12th, 2017 with Doug McKenty on The Shift. This 70 minute video can be viewed HERE. In this episode of The Shift, host Doug McKenty speaks with Community Rights guru Paul Cienfuegos about his new organization, Community Rights U.S. Join them as they discuss how the concept of community rights can be used to [...]
HB 463 – corporate state legislation to block citizen initiative – struck by Court A Press Release from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from October 19, 2017. BOWLING GREEN, OHIO: Today, the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the right of Bowling Green residents to vote, ordering their first-in-the-state Right to Climate charter amendment on the November [...]
This article by Will Falk originally appeared in the San Diego Free Press October 18, 2017. In the war for social and environmental justice, even the best lawyers rarely serve as anything more than battlefield medics. They do what they can to stop the bleeding for the people, places, and causes suffering on the front [...]
This news story by Simon Davis-Cohen originally appeared on DeSmogBlog October 18, 2017. For the first time since 2013, a group of activists in Youngstown, Ohio, has been told it cannot place an anti-fracking initiative on local ballots, due in part to a misinformation campaign from the fossil fuel industry. MORE...
The following Letter to the Editor was in direct response to the Bradford, Pennsylvania newspaper's local news story titled "Highland Township’s Home Rule Charter Stripped by Court". Highland Township’s home rule charter that bans corporations from contaminating the public water supply may very well be “controversial” (according to this newspaper), but what is clearly much [...]
4-3 decision denies the right to vote, unites residents across the state A Press Release from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from October 7, 2017. While a split decision by the Ohio Supreme Court is blocking Youngstown residents from voting on two rights-based ballot measures this November, pressure is building as state legislators and local [...]
This article originally appeared in the Bradford Era on October 3, 2017. Highland Township’s controversial home rule charter has been stripped of its oil and gas provisions by a federal judge. … The saga over oil and gas rights in Highland Township has been ongoing for several years. In 2013, at the urging of Community [...]
A Press Release from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from October 2, 2017. Rules Township Residents Must Accept Injection Well; Closes Courtroom Door to the People of Highland Township Last week, Magistrate Judge Susan Paradise Baxter issued a decision invalidating provisions of Highland Township’s Home Rule Charter, which protected the Township from frack wastewater. The [...]
This article by Elon Glucklich originally appeared in The Register-Guard, September 30, 2017. Lane County environmental activists may have gathered enough signatures to put a countywide ban on aerial herbicide spraying on next year’s ballot, most likely drawing timber companies into a heated election battle. MORE...