The Green Amendment: What Are New Yorkers’ Environmental Rights?

New Yorkers have a constitutional right to clean air, water, and a healthy environment. But this is more recent, and more complicated, than it might seem. 

What is the Green Amendment, and where did it come from? 

Hoosick Falls, Rensselaer County, 2016: toxic chemicals were detected in the city’s water supply. The community, fighting back, assumed that they had a right to safe drinking water. Legally, they learned, they did not. No New Yorkers did. 

In 2021, that changed. New York became the third state to pass a ‘Green Amendment’ – an amendment to the state constitution, recognizing citizens’ constitutional right to a healthy environment. Montana and Pennsylvania were the first, adopting Green Amendments in the 1970s.

New York’s Green Amendment was introduced to the Senate in 2017, but failed to pass. In 2021, it was introduced again. This time, the timing was right. The contamination of New York’s drinking water had been widely recognized as a public health crisis. Under Trump, major environmental protections, at the federal level, had been hit by unprecedented rollbacks. At the same time, extreme weather events, like Hurricane Ida in 2021, were increasing – and increasingly attributed to climate change. 

And with systemic racism recentered in Americans’ minds, environmental justice became part of the story. 

New, visualized data connected demographics with exposure to environmental harms, showing clear racial and socioeconomic disparities – revealing, for example, the Bronx’s ‘Asthma Alley’, where extreme air pollution has led to abnormally high asthma rates, especially among children of color. New York was considered a leading state on environmental law – but it wasn’t protecting everyone. Extreme pockets of unequal exposure to hazards, from dirty air to contaminated water, were indisputable. Something had to change. 

Here, Green Amendments for the Generations played a key role. They’re a nonprofit working to create a national Green Amendment Movement, state by state. 

In November 2021, New York’s Green Amendment was put to voters as a ballot measure, and it passed with overwhelming support. In January 2022, it was formally adopted into the New York Bill of Rights, as Article 1, Section 19: ‘Each person shall have the right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.’  

What does the Green Amendment mean? 

The Green Amendment means that the right to clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment are guaranteed for all people in New York. 

But since the Amendment is new, courts are still working out how to interpret it, which will largely determine how our legislative and executive authorities enforce it. Right now, it’s interpreted narrowly. Judges remain split on whether the amendment is a self-executing, fundamental right. 

Non-self-executing rights need further legislation to define their scope and how they’ll be implemented. But self-executing rights are more powerful. They’re immediately enforceable by courts. They allow individuals or organizations to take direct legal action if the rights are violated, and government agencies have an absolute, non-discretionary duty to maintain them. 

Judicial interpretation may take time. But local governments can enforce the Amendment now, through municipal laws (ordinances) and programs. These could address: 

• Clean water. E.g. laws ensuring that drinking water is free from lead and PFAs (‘forever chemicals’), laws on wetland restoration, and laws on stormwater management. 
• Clean air. E.g. laws to reduce transportation emissions, monitor industrial emissions, and monitor air quality in disadvantaged communities. 
• Climate. E.g. local clean energy targets and climate action plans, environmental justice laws, and environmental emergency and resilience plans. 
• Healthy soil and biodiversity policies. E.g. Laws on sustainable agriculture, land use zoning, and wildlife protection. 

NYLCV actively supports many of these policy goals. And this year, the Earth Law Centre, a legal environmental nonprofit, created a Green Amendment Toolkit – a roadmap for implementing and strengthening the Amendment, designed for local governments and advocates like us – and, we hope, like you. 

Looking ahead

The Green Amendment is a strong statement of values, affirming a right that most New Yorkers already consider self-evident and vital – and yet, constitutionally, often don’t know that they have. It’s a statement about who we are as a state. 

At a time when environmental protections are under intense threat from the federal government, the Green Amendment shields state laws from political turbulence. Its full power is yet to be determined. But with enough advocacy, and the right implementation, it can help balance the scales of justice – toward New Yorkers, our ecosystems, and our earth. 

Georgia Good is Communications Fellow at the New York League of Conservation Voters. She’s a Steinhardt Graduate Scholar in Environmental Conservation Education at NYU, with a focus on climate communications and advocacy. She’s had comms roles at Climate Arc, the Cambridge Centre for Climate Engagement, and Mercy Corps, and she has a BA in English from UCL, UK.