Advocates want the right to a clean environment in the state constitution

By Char­lotte Har­vey | UConn Jour­nal­ism
Jan­u­ary 20, 2026

For almost three years now, state leg­is­la­tors have been argu­ing over whether they should address envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems in a way only three oth­er states have tried.

With a new leg­isla­tive ses­sion about to start, some envi­ron­men­tal activists and law­mak­ers are hop­ing they can make progress on chang­ing the state con­sti­tu­tion to grant Con­necti­cut res­i­dents a new right: the right to a clean and healthy envi­ron­ment.

While the efforts have thus far been unsuc­cess­ful because of push­back from the Con­necti­cut attor­ney general’s office, some involved in the move­ment remain hope­ful that they can get it done.

Kim­ber­ly A. Ston­er, a biol­o­gist at the Con­necti­cut Agri­cul­tur­al Exper­i­ment Sta­tion, coor­di­nates the Con­necti­cut Envi­ron­men­tal Amend­ment Alliance.

“Obvi­ous­ly I’m hope­ful or we wouldn’t be try­ing so hard.” she said.

In 2023, biol­o­gist and Walling­ford Demo­c­ra­t­ic state Rep. Mary Mushin­sky, intro­duced a bill that would amend the state con­sti­tu­tion and put the right to a healthy and clean envi­ron­ment on par with oth­er rights such as free­dom of speech and reli­gion.

This effort is part of a nation­wide move­ment to amend state con­sti­tu­tions across the coun­try to add what the move­ment calls a “green amend­ment” into the Bill of Rights.

The nation­al green amend­ment move­ment was start­ed by Maya van Rossum, an activist and lawyer from Delaware. In 2013, she found­ed an orga­ni­za­tion called For the Gen­er­a­tions which has the pri­ma­ry pur­pose of pass­ing these green amend­ments. That year, Penn­syl­va­nia used a long-ignored pro­vi­sion in the commonwealth’s con­sti­tu­tion from 1971 to fight a law that pro­mot­ed frack­ing in the com­mon­wealth.

Penn­syl­va­nia also affirmed a con­sti­tu­tion­al right for its cit­i­zens to a clean and healthy envi­ron­ment. That right holds the same legit­i­ma­cy and strength as oth­er con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, such as the right to free speech.

Van Rossum exam­ined the lan­guage in Pennsylvania’s Bill of Rights so that it could be repli­cat­ed in oth­er states. Mon­tana was the only oth­er state at the time to have sim­i­lar lan­guage in its con­sti­tu­tion.

After this, van Rossum began a cru­sade to pro­vide the same envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tions to all peo­ple across the coun­try through the mech­a­nism of a con­sti­tu­tion­al right. New York adopt­ed a green amend­ment in 2021 and van Rossum is cur­rent­ly work­ing with more than 20 states to secure these same con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments.

“There was a breadth and qual­i­ty of lan­guage along with the Bill of Rights place­ment,” van Rossum said in a recent inter­view. “It allows the con­sti­tu­tion­al lan­guage to empow­er and oblig­ate gov­ern­ment offi­cials to ensure that every time they are act­ing, they are doing so in a way that pro­tects those cher­ished free­doms. Now we are adding to those free­doms – on the envi­ron­ment.”

Mushin­sky, who has been in the Con­necti­cut House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives con­tin­u­ous­ly since 1981, has always been pas­sion­ate about the envi­ron­ment. She heard remarks van Rossum had made regard­ing the move­ment, its intents and suc­cess­es so far and said that she was recep­tive to the ideas.

Last year, the bill died at the com­mit­tee lev­el, Mushin­sky said, pri­mar­i­ly because the envi­ron­men­tal divi­sion of the Con­necti­cut attor­ney general’s office want­ed to change the lan­guage in the pro­posed amend­ment. It did not want Con­necti­cut to be held legal­ly liable in chal­lenges by cit­i­zens on envi­ron­men­tal rights.

The attor­ney gen­er­al would be the one to defend against any law­suits brought by envi­ron­men­tal activists or cit­i­zens using the con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment as a basis for legal action.

“It puts the attor­ney gen­er­al in an awk­ward posi­tion because he does sup­port clean ener­gy, but he would have to go to court to defend the state against an envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenge,” Mushin­sky said.

Ston­er agreed that it was the lan­guage change the attor­ney gen­er­al want­ed that killed the bill.

By the time the altered bill had come to a vote in com­mit­tee, Ston­er said, the coali­tion of activists could no longer sup­port it. They felt it had been watered down to the point where it would no longer be effec­tive.

The lan­guage in the bill had ini­tial­ly been that, regard­ing the right to a clean and healthy envi­ron­ment, “the state shall pro­tect these rights.” This, the advo­cates argued, is lan­guage that would make the amend­ment enforce­able.

The changes made at the attor­ney general’s request altered the lan­guage to say: “The state shall not unrea­son­ably infringe upon these rights and shall make rea­son­able efforts to pro­tect these rights equi­tably.”

“What that mod­i­fi­ca­tion did was it stripped the amend­ment of all its pow­er, and made it pret­ty lan­guage that wasn’t going to change any­thing, you know? Noth­ing mean­ing­ful any­way,” van Rossum said.

The removal of sup­port from those fight­ing for the amend­ment caused the bill’s death in com­mit­tee, Ston­er said.

“There’s a lot of work involved in get­ting a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment and we didn’t want to do all that work for lan­guage that was not going to be strong,” she added.

Mushin­sky, Ston­er and van Rossum con­cur that this dis­agree­ment with the attor­ney general’s office is the biggest obsta­cle fac­ing the sup­port­ers today.

They say that the rea­son­ing behind this is the fear of friv­o­lous law­suits that could be brought against the state.

While van Rossum points out that this has not hap­pened in any of the oth­er states where this amend­ment exists – Mon­tana, Penn­syl­va­nia and New York – Mushin­sky said she under­stands why this doesn’t com­fort the attor­ney general’s office.

“The attor­ney gen­er­al would have to defend the state of Con­necti­cut in court against an envi­ron­men­tal advo­cate chal­lenge, and he doesn’t want to be in that posi­tion,” Mushin­sky said. “Even if it didn’t hap­pen in anoth­er state that has the con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment it could still hap­pen in Con­necti­cut, and then he would be on the defen­sive rep­re­sent­ing the state.”

The goal now, ahead of a new ses­sion, is to try to craft lan­guage that is accept­able to both the advo­cates and the attor­ney general’s office.