sr-012412-8b0
YO City Council Report
Santa Monica
City Council Meeting: January 24, 2012
Agenda Item: 21b
To: Mayor and City Council
From: Dean Kubani, Director, Office of Sustainability and the Environment
Subject: Declaration of Commitment to Sustainable Rights
Recommended Action
Staff recommends that the City Council:
1. Adopt the attached resolution supporting the Move to Amend campaign's call for
an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to abolish corporate personhood;
2. Adopt the attached Sustainability Bill of Rights resolution declaring Santa
Monica's commitment to sustainable rights;
3. Direct staff to formulate a process for identifying the policy, process and legal
changes that would protect the rights of people and natural communities
consistent with the resolution as part of the update to the Sustainable City Plan in
2012.
Executive Summary
The City's Task Force on the Environment and local and national environmental leaders
have asked the City to support and join the world -wide effort to address the mounting
environmental crisis by taking action to: (1) recognize the rights of people, natural
communities, and ecosystems to exist, regenerate and flourish; (2) authorize individuals
to sue to effectuate the rights of the natural world; (3) subordinate corporate rights
insofar as those rights threaten sustainability; and (4) commit the City to meeting
specified environmental goals by specified dates and taking other specified actions to
fulfill the commitments made in the Sustainable City Plan. Staff has prepared a
resolution that supports sustainable rights and commits to further exploration of how
best to protect these rights and achieve community sustainability goals. Staff is seeking
Council direction before undertaking that exploration. In addition, staff is recommending
that Council adopt a resolution supporting a call for an amendment to the U.S.
Constitution to abolish corporate personhood. There are no budgetary impacts related
to these recommended actions.
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Background
Santa Monica takes pride in its long- standing commitment to environmental leadership.
The City adopted its Sustainable City Plan in September of 1994 and updated it in 2003
and 2006. The plan recognizes that a healthy environment is integral to the City's long-
term societal and economic interests and that collective decisions made by the City
must allow the economy and community members to thrive without destroying the
natural environment upon which they depend. Therefore, the Plan commits the City to
protecting, preserving and restoring the natural environment. It also recognizes that
local environmental, economic and social issues cannot be separated from their larger
context and therefore commits the City to development programs and policies that will
serve as models for other communities.
In the years since the Plan was adopted, the City has created and funded a wide range
of successful environmental programs. And, the City has very successfully utilized
environmental protection laws to hold polluters accountable for damage done to its
natural resources.
Nonetheless, environmental crises, including: global climate change; habitat destruction
and species extinction; soil, air and water pollution; and resource depletion continue to
grow throughout the world. In response, Santa Monica's local environmental community
and national environmental leaders urge consideration of a new approach being taken
in other cities and countries — an approach that would recognize the rights of both
humans and the natural environment to exist and flourish. This natural rights movement
is based on the belief that Earth is a community whose members are humans, other
animals, plants, rivers, streams end eco- systems and that all members of the
community must have rights to ensure the sustainability of the whole. The movement
seeks a paradigm shift away from current economic and legal systems' classification of
land and natural things as "property" and towards a more holistic view that would place
the interest of long -term sustainability ahead of short- range, individual and corporate
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economic goals. This report provides information about that approach and suggests
possible actions for Council consideration.
In the United States, the natural rights movement reflects the growing recognition that
the power of individuals and even governments is weakening as the power of
corporations grow. Thus, in the November 19, 2011 Los Angeles Times, columnist Tom
Petruno wrote, in an article entitled "Corporate Power Grows Stronger as Government
Wanes ", that international corporations' cash holdings have soared to record levels. He
quotes the head of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington as saying, "We have an
economy that works for corporate America even if it doesn't work for anybody else."
Against this backdrop, the natural rights movement has grown mainly in communities in
the eastern U.S. where the environmentally devastating technique of hydraulic
fracturing (commonly referred to as "fracking ") has been used for extracting subsurface
natural gas deposits. The first local law recognizing the rights of nature was adopted in
2006 in Tamaqua Borough, Pennsylvania. Since then more than two dozen
communities in the United States have adopted local laws recognizing these rights.
Many of these communities acted in response to the threats fracking posed to their local
water supplies. Thus, in November 2010, the City of Pittsburgh became the first major
city in the country to ban natural -gas production through an ordinance declaring the
primacy of community interests over corporate rights and purporting to eliminate
corporate "personhood." Similar legislation was adopted in other, smaller cities in
Pennsylvania, Maryland and New York.
In Spokane, Washington a community Bill of Rights which would have amended the
City's charter was narrowly defeated in November 2011. That measure would have:
established the right of neighborhoods to make decisions on major development
projects; the right of the Spokane River and Aquifer to exist and flourish; secured
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workers' rights; and purported to eliminate the authority of corporations to wield
corporate constitutional rights to undermine local rights protected by the measure.
International efforts to establish natural rights include the incorporation of rights of
nature into the Ecuadoran constitution in 2008, and the adoption of a Universal Decision
of Rights of Mother Earth at the World Peoples' Conference on Climate Change &
Rights of Mother Earth, held in Bolivia in 2010.
On a parallel front, in the wake of the January 21, 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that rolled back legal limits on corporate
spending in the electoral process and affirmed that corporations have the rights of
"persons ", a coalition called MovetoAmend.org was created with the primary goal of
amending the U.S. Constitution "to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that
human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights." A
resolution in support of this goal is attached to this report and discussed below in more
detail.
Discussion
Sustainability Bill of Rights Resolution
On March 21, 2011 the City's Task Force on the Environment created a subcommittee
to explore the creation of a Sustainability Bill of Rights (SBoR) for Santa Monica. That
subcommittee drafted a proposed framework for the SBoR which would:
1. Recognize the rights of people, natural communities and ecosystems to exist,
regenerate and flourish;
2. Authorize individuals to sue to effectuate the rights of the natural world;
3. Subordinate corporate rights insofar as those rights threaten sustainability; and
4. Commit the City to meeting specified environmental goals by specified dates and
taking other specified actions to fulfill the commitments made in the Sustainable
City Plan.
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On June 20, 2011 after discussion of this framework the Task Force adopted the
following motion by a 4 to 1 vote`.
The Santa Monica Task Force on the Environment recommends Council direct staff to
develop a City of Santa Monica "Sustainability Bill of Rights"
The draft resolution (Attachment 1) declaring the City's Commitment to Sustainable
Rights was developed by staff based on the work of the Task Force on the Environment
and represents a formal recognition by the City of the rights of Santa Monica residents
to:
• clean, affordable and accessible water from sustainable water sources;
• a sustainable energy future based on renewable energy sources;
• a sustainable natural climate system unaltered by fossil fuel emissions;
• sustainable, comprehensive waste disposal systems that do not degrade the
environment;
• clean indoor and outdoor air, clean water and clean soil that pose a negligible
health risk to the public; and
• a sustainable food system that provides healthy, locally grown food to the
community.
The resolution also declares City recognition for the fundamental rights of natural
communities and ecosystems to exist, thrive and evolve; and it supports effectuating
these rights by modifying local law and policy as needed to better protect and sustain
the natural environment for current and future generations. Additionally, the resolution
directs staff to return with proposals for policy, process and legal changes that would
protect the rights of people and natural communities consistent with the resolution. If
Council adopts the resolution, staff proposes to return with these proposals in
conjunction with an update of the Sustainable City Plan indicators and targets, which is
tentatively scheduled for late summer or early fall 2012.
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Move To Amend Resolution
Consistent with its call for creation of a Sustainability Bill of Rights, the Task Force
unanimously adopted a motion on June 20, 2011 recommending that City Council adopt
a resolution in support of a campaign by MovetoAmend.org to amend the U.S.
Constitution to clearly establish that corporations do not have the same rights as
individuals. The draft resolution (Attachment 2) urges Santa Monica's elected federal
representatives and other communities and jurisdictions to take similar action, and
supports efforts to increase public awareness about the threats to democracy posed by
"corporate personhood".
Financial Impacts & Budget Actions
There are no immediate financial impacts of budget actions associated with the
adoption of either of the resolutions or further exploration of the development of possible
policy, process and legal changes to support the goals outlined in the Sustainability Bill
of Rights resolution. Costs associated with making policy, process or legal changes
would be included in the Sustainable City Plan update for Council's consideration.
Prepared by: Dean Kubani, Director, Office of Sustainability and the Environment
Marsha Jones Moutrie, City Attorney
Approved:
Dean Kubani
Director, Office of Sustainability and the
Environment
Attachments:
Forwarded to Council:
Rod Gould
City Manager
1 Resolution Declaring the City's Commitment to Sustainable Rights
2. Resolution to Support Move To Amend Campaign's Call for an Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution to Abolish Corporate Personhood
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City Council Meeting: January 24, 2012 Santa Monica, California
RESOLUTION NUMBER (CCS)
(City Council Series)
A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL
OF THE CITY OF SANTA MONICA TO SUPPORT THE MOVE TO AMEND
CAMPAIGN'S CALL FOR AN AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION TO
ABOLISH CORPORATE PERSONHOOD
WHEREAS, government of, by, and for the people has long been a cherished
American value, and We The People's fundamental and inalienable right to self - govern,
and thereby secure rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness is
guaranteed in the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and;
WHEREAS, free and fair elections are essential to democracy and effective self-
governance; and
WHEREAS, persons are rightfully recognized as human beings whose essential
needs include clean air, clean water, safe and secure food; and
WHEREAS, corporations are entirely human -made legal fictions created by
express permission of We The People and our government; and
WHEREAS, corporations can exist in perpetuity, can exist simultaneously in
many nations at once, need only profit for survival, and exist solely through the legal
charter imposed by the government of We The People; and
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WHEREAS, in addition to these advantages, the great wealth of large
corporations allows them to wield coercive force of law to overpower human beings and
communities, thus denying We The People's exercise of our Constitutional rights; and
WHEREAS, corporations are not mentioned in the Constitution, and The People
have never granted constitutional rights to corporations, nor have We decreed that
corporations have authority that exceeds the authority of We The People of the United
States; and
WHEREAS, interpretation of the US Constitution by appointed Supreme Court
justices to include corporations in the term 'persons' has long denied We The Peoples'
exercise of self- governance by endowing corporations with Constitutional protections
intended for We The People; and
WHEREAS, the illegitimate judicial bestowal of civil and political rights upon
corporations usurps basic human and Constitutional rights guaranteed to human
persons, and also empowers corporations to sue municipal and state governments for
adopting laws that violate 'corporate rights' even when those laws serve to protect and
defend the rights of human persons and communities; and
WHEREAS, corporations are not and have never been human beings, and
therefore are rightfully subservient to human beings and governments as our legal
creations; and
WHEREAS, large corporations' profits and survival are often in direct conflict with
the essential needs and rights of human beings; and
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WHEREAS, the recent Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission
Supreme Court decision that rolled back the legal limits on corporate spending in the
electoral process creates an unequal playing field and allows unlimited corporate
spending to influence elections, candidate selection, policy decisions and sway votes,
and forces elected officials to divert their attention from The Peoples' business, or even
vote against the interest of their human constituents, in order to ensure competitive
campaign funds for their own re- election; and
WHEREAS, large corporations own most of America's mass media and use that
media as a megaphone to express loudly their political agenda and to convince
Americans that their primary role is that of consumers, rather than sovereign citizens
with rights and responsibilities within our democracy, and this forces citizens to toil to
discern the truth behind headlines and election campaigning; and
WHEREAS, tens of thousands of people and municipalities across the nation are
joining with the Move to Amend campaign to call for an Amendment to the US
Constitution to Abolish Corporate Personhood.
NOW, THEREFORE, THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA MONICA
DOES RESOLVE AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. To call on our elected federal representatives to join the tens of
thousands of citizens, grassroots organizations and local governments across the
country in the Move to Amend campaign to call for an Amendment to the Constitution to
Abolish Corporate Personhood and return our democracy, our elections, our
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communities back to America's human persons and to thus reclaim our sovereign right
to self - governance.
SECTION 2. To call on other communities and jurisdictions to join with us in this
action by passing similar Resolutions.
SECTION 3. To support education to increase public awareness of the threats to
our democracy posed by Corporate Personhood and encourage lively discussion to
build understanding and consensus to take appropriate community and municipal
actions to democratically respond to these threats.
SECTION 4. The City Clerk shall certify to the adoption of this Resolution, and
thenceforth and thereafter the same shall be in full force and effect.
APPROVED AS TO FORM:
1101 011% aw
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Reference Resolution No.
10654 (CCS).