State Bar Task Force Several years ago, Professor Kuh spearheaded the New York State Bar Association task force on environmental issues relating to the state constitution. Assisting Professor Kuh were Haub Law adjunct professor Achinthi Vithanage, who is also Associate Director of Environmental Law Programs, and three Haub Law students (now alumni), Allison Fausner, Madison Shaff, and Patrick DeArmey. The task force included many attorneys who had experience working with the "forever wild" provisions in the state constitution. Those provisions were added in 1894 and prohibit development in the Adirondacks, a mountainous region that is the source of the Hudson River, and the Catskills, from where New York City draws nearly all its drinking water, according to Professor Kuh. “The task force concluded that it was important to maintain existing protections in the constitution for the forest preserve and that there would be significant value in adding a new environmental rights clause to the constitution, as other states had done,” Professor Kuh said. The Pace Law Review published the Task Force report in a special symposium issue that also included articles authored by Professor Robinson (Updating New York’s Constitutional Environmental Rights) and Haub Law alumnus and Visiting Professor James R. May (LLM ‘91), (Subnational Environmental Constitutionalism and Reform in New York State). In 2019 the New York Legislature passed legislation to add a right to clean air, clean water and a healthful environment to the state's Bill of Rights. The support was overwhelming: 45 to 17 votes in the Senate and 110 to 34 in the Assembly. The amendment passed with an even larger margin in 2020. The Senate approved it with a 48 to 14 vote, and the Assembly passed it with a 124 to 25 vote. And on November 2, 2020, New Yorkers voted overwhelmingly to accept the amendment. The amendment to the State Constitution added that “Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.” New York is just the third state in the US to recognize protecting environmental rights as an inalienable right. van Rossum is working with communities to secure similar Green Amendment protections in a dozen other states, including New Mexico, neighboring New Jersey, as well as states on the other side of the nation, including Hawaii and Washington. “I’m delighted that this success is inspiring others to join us in our Green Amendment movement so we can help them seek and secure their own meaningful rights to a clean and healthy environment like New Yorkers now have,” said van Rossum. “While this is a simple concept, there are many facets that are key to securing meaningful protection, so I ask folks to please partner up with me to advance
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