Loading...
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. 1 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 2 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 3 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. 12 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. 5 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 9 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 1 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 2 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 3 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 2 Reference Resolution No. 10654 (CCS).