How can communities reclaim the right to say "no" to corporations?

Mari Margil, of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, recently posted this article on local rights-based ordinances, originally written for Yes! Magazine. She focuses on the recent circuit court overturn on Morgantown, West Virginia's local anti-fracking ordinance, and asks

"Why is it that cities and towns facing the direct impacts of these and a wide range of other harmful corporate activities do not have the authority to determine whether they should occur? How is it that corporate directors who live hundreds if not thousands of miles away--working hand-in-hand with the state and federal officials that residents often expect to protect them--are able to override local, democratic decision making like Morgantown's?"

Pittsburgh's anti-fracking ordinance, which declares the "fundamental and inalienable right" to water for both residents and ecosystems, also gives residents legal standing to sue on behalf of protection of the municipality's ecosystems. But passing these ordinances is nothing but show unless municipalities are also willing to enforce them.

In the meantime, as Wenonah Hauter points out, the energy industries still have too many tools at their disposal to influence public policy in the service of making money, regardless of the risk to health, environment, and local democracy.

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Pittsburgh bans natural gas drilling

Good news from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, whose press release is below. Kudos to the City Council for their unified stand for public safety and health, and to the people of Pittsburgh for electing accountable and responsible Council members. 
 
The Pittsburgh City Council has unanimously adopted an ordinance banning corporations from conducting natural gas drilling in the city.
 
The ordinance was drafted by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) at the invitation of Councilman Bill Peduto, and was introduced by Councilman Doug Shields.
 
Pittsburgh's first-in-the-nation ordinance confronts the threat of Marcellus Shale drilling--an activity permitted by the state which allows corporations to site drilling activities over the wishes of a community.
 
Energy corporations are setting up shop in communities across Pennsylvania, to drill for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation.  The gas extraction technique known as "fracking" has been cited as a threat to surface and groundwater, and has been blamed for fatal explosions, the contamination of drinking water, local rivers, and streams.  Collateral damage includes lost property value, ingestion of toxins by livestock, drying up of mortgage loans for prospective home buyers, and threatened loss of organic certification for farmers in affected communities.
 
Councilman Shields stated, "This ordinance recognizes and secures expanded civil rights for the people of Pittsburgh, and it prohibits activities which would violate those rights.  It protects the authority of the people of Pittsburgh to pass this ordinance by undoing corporate privileges that place the rights of the people of Pittsburgh at the mercy of gas corporations."
 
Shields added, "With this vote we are asserting the right of the city to make critical decisions to protect our health, safety, and welfare.  We are not a colony of the state and will not sit quietly by as our city gets drilled.  We encourage communities across the region to take this step and join with us to elevate the rights of communities and people over corporations."
 
CELDF's Ben Price, who is engaging with communities across the state seeking to protect themselves from drilling, said, "Communities are coming to recognize that our state laws and government are not in place to protect their interests, but rather the interests of private corporations."
 
Price applauded the city for taking a stand on behalf of community rights. "Some will say that the municipality doesn't have the authority to ban this noxious practice associated with gas drilling.  The only way that's true is if the state has the authority to strip the residents of their rights, and it doesn't."
 
Under the ordinance, corporations that violate the ordinance or that seek to drill in the city will not be afforded "personhood" rights under the U.S. or Pennsylvania Constitution, nor will they be afforded protections under the Commerce Clause or Contracts Clause under the federal or state constitution.
 
In addition, the ordinance recognizes the legally enforceable Rights of Nature to exist and flourish.  Residents of the city shall possess legal standing to enforce those rights on behalf of natural communities and ecosystems. 

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Pittsburgh's City Council gives a first nod to fracking ban

From WDUQ-FM, via CELDF:
Pittsburgh City Council has given preliminary approval to a ban on future Marcellus Shale gas well drilling. The bill, which was first introduced in August has gone through several rounds of debate at the council table and has been the subject of more than one public input session. Bill Sponsor Doug Shields says over the weeks it has become clearer to him that the ban is needed if the city is to protect its water supply, property values and quality of life.

Most council members and legal experts believe the bill runs afoul of state law but Shields says it is far too important of an issue for him to worry about a legal challenge. “Maybe some members are comfortable with this challenge, some members aren’t, but I won’t concede an inch on a legal argument. I will not concede anything until that argument is made. I will not be preempted. I hope we do not preempt the city’s voice,” says Shields.

Shields says he is not certain that the drilling companies would want to launch the fight but if they do he has been in contact with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. A representative of that group says he will put in writing that CELDF will provide free legal assistance to the city if a challenge if filed.

The bill was passed 7-0 with councilmen Ricky Burgess and Daniel Lavelle not in the room at the time of the vote. While the mayor has not taken a stance on the bill the 7 votes means council would be able to override a veto.

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Pittsburgh's City Council to consider a ban on drilling for natural gas in the city

At a City Hall press conference today, Councilman Doug Shields announced he will introduce a bill that would ban corporations from drilling for gas in the city of Pittsburgh. He said he will introduce the ordinance following Council's current recess.

At the heart of "Pittsburgh's Community Protection from Natural Gas Extraction Ordinance" is this statement of law: It shall be unlawful for any corporation to engage in the extraction of natural gas within the City of Pittsburgh.

Also included in the ordinance is a local "bill of rights" that asserts legal protections for the right to water, the rights of natural communities, the right to local self-government, and the right of the people to enforce and protect these rights through their municipal government.

The bill was drafted by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund at the invitation of Council members.

Commenting on his legislative proposal, Shields stated, "Many people think that this is only about gas drilling. It's not - it's about our authority as a municipal community to say "no" to corporations that will cause damage to our community. It's about our right to community, local self-government."

Shields urged all municipalities in the Commonwealth to enact similar laws "to send a message to Harrisburg," and he insisted that a temporary moratorium "will not be an acceptable consolation prize for a failure of the State to recognize this local law and these fundamental rights."

Energy corporations are setting up shop in communities throughout Pennsylvania, with plans to drill for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation. The frenzy of industrial gas extraction that once appeared to be confined to rural communities and state forest lands has taken residents of the city by surprise. Corporate "land men" have busily signed-up Pittsburgh property owners to contracts allowing wells to be erected on private property throughout the city. The prospect of paved-over green spaces, nights lit like airport runways, round-the-clock sounds of loud machinery, broken and pitted roads from the high volume truck traffic, and the threat of toxic trespass by a cocktail of patented chemicals and escaping methane into the ground water, has alarmed neighbors of lease-holders, and they've begun to organize in opposition to the proposed drilling.

Ben Price, Projects Director for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, said he applauds the Council member for taking a stand on behalf of community rights. "Some will say it's controversial, or that the city doesn't have the authority to ban gas drilling. The only way that's true is if the State has the authority to strip the residents of the city of their rights, and it doesn't."

Price commented that "we don't have a gas drilling problem. What we have is a democracy problem. We need to stop treating the environmental symptoms and cure the societal disease that's brought fracking to our doorstep. The State says we don't have the right to decide whether or not we get fracked and that only the corporate-lobbied members of the General Assembly have the wisdom to decide how much harm should be legalized through state-issued permits. There's something sick about that kind of thinking. If we cure the systemic anti-democratic disorder manifested by our state's refusal to recognize the right to local, community self-government, gas drilling without consent of the governed will go away."

The gas extraction technique known as "fracking" has been cited as a threat to surface and ground water throughout the region, and has been blamed for fatal explosions, the contamination of drinking water, local streams, the air and soil. Collateral damage includes lost property value, ingestion of toxins by livestock, drying up of mortgage loans for prospective home buyers, and threatened loss of organic certification for farmers in the affected communities.

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, located in Chambersburg, has been working with people in Pennsylvania since 1995 to assert their fundamental rights to democratic local self-governance, and to enact laws which end destructive and
rights-denying corporate action aided and abetted by state and federal governments.

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Sustainable living on Hundredfold Farm

Hundredfold Farm is an environmentally friendly co-housing community about eight miles west of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. One of its founders is Lou Hammann, former Co-chair of the AfD National Council, who sends this update:

"Recently we have received two recognitions: the first from The Green Builders Association of Pennsylvania for the 'design' of the community. More recently, the local Chamber of Commerce recognized us as 'Environmental Stewards'. Along with this award we also received citations from both the House and the Senate of the Pennsylvania legislature. We have, with some frequency, appeared on two local TV stations, two local newspapers and two regional magazines.

"We also entertain visits by groups of teachers and environmental classes from a variety of public school and college courses. Through it all, believe it or not, our friendly Electric Cooperative is now buying back our surplus electricity at double the original rate-six cents a killowatt. This electricity is generated by arrays of photovoltaic panels on the roof of each house. We have also significantly cut down our use of natural gas with rooftop solar hot water panels. I must note, of course, the significant help given this effort by the Local Electrical Cooperative-not your typical 'corporate person.'

"The last of our conservation efforts is a green house in which we process all of the "waste" water produced in the houses. The final phase of this "green machine" is a veritable forest of aquatic plants that completes the filtering and purifying of all of our waste-without chemicals. The recycled water is pumped back to the houses for flushing and back onto our fields for distribution by a drip irrigation system.

"Just this week a long-time member of the community is at last able to build the tenth house on the mere 7 acres of our 45 acres tree farm. We live with the hope that soon the "real estate debacle" will ease and allow us to build the final five houses in the project.

"There is much else to be said about HfF, but one thing is clear: We have not been abused or corrupted by Corporate America. Through all of this celebrity we have managed to maintain the integrity of our mission statement: A cooperative venture in sustainable living. For more information, visit our web site: hundredfoldfarm.org."

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"NOW" on natural gas fracking and contamination of groundwater

PBS's NOW had a story this week on hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking", the practice of drilling into and then fracturing natural-gas-bearing rock with a combination of compressed water and chemicals in order to release gas deposits that can't be extracted through conventional drilling. Hydraulic fracturing is being touted as a way to access large amounts of a cleaner fossil fuel within continental US borders, and so reduce dependency on both foreign oil and domestic coal, but the health and environmental costs of this procedure are still unknown, with some disturbing patterns of illness and contamination being seen in regions where fracking wells have been drilled, including Montana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Here's an interview with filmmaker Josh Fox, whose Sundance-honored film "Gasland" spotlights the downside to this supposedly cleaner fuel, including chronic illness, tapwater fireballs, and lack of regulatory oversight to protect groundwater and health. You can read more about the show on the NOW site or visit the film website here.

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2009 end-of-year report

Here's the wrap-up on major chapter and national campaign activities for 2009--if you're not an AfD member, why not join now? A stronger democracy in 2010 should be on everyone's list of resolutions!

Contribute on-line here. If you'd like to join but can't afford to make a donation right now, please email the Alliance for Democracy at afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org.

2009 AfD Activity Report

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Lou Hammann's remarks at Thursday's single payer rally

AfD co-chair Lou Hammann was one of the campaign-finance activists arrested in the Capitol Rotunda Democracy Brigades actions, and in his talk at Thursday's rally in Washington, he reminds us of the corrupting power of money in politics--a problem that's only gotten worse since.

I don’t want to blur the focus of this rally, but indulge me for a moment or two.

Back in 2000 the Alliance for Democracy organized a series of demonstrations in the Rotunda of the Capitol to call attention to the need for campaign finance reform. Over a period of ten or eleven months, I would estimate that close to 100 people were arrested for exercising their rights of free speech. Our method involved civil disobedience. That meant simply that we did not behave in the public arena in a way consistent with some ill-defined “tourist standard.” We should note, however, that in the halls of that Capitol, lobbyists were free to move without any constraints. Why? Because they were engaged in “business as usual.” In practical terms that meant persuading the people who should represent us that the business of corporations has priority over the hopes, needs and judgments of ordinary citizens. Surely, such an army of professional lobbyists was not behaving like any group of “standard tourists.”

One of those demonstrations was meant to expose the virtual bribery of legislators by “healthcare industries” and their lobbyists. In a fact sheet that we had put together, we asked the question, “Can we possibly have Universal Health Care?” Our answer was, “Not when members of Congress and their parties have taken (in’99 – ’00 alone) $66,000,000 in political contributions from insurance and pharmaceutical corporations.” That was nearly a decade ago! There is no need to repeat what many here know about the quantity and distribution of money, privilege and opportunity that tempts (should we say, seduces?) people now in positions of power and authority. It is not the shadow of money that falls over the current effort at healthcare reform. It is real money—and everyone here knows how to track it through the legislative labyrinth.

It is just a fact, a decade later, that corporate money and privilege still flow through the halls and offices of those who govern our country. It would be naïve to suppose that prospective healthcare legislation is an exception to the rule of influence.

The excuse that many who resist a move to universal healthcare invoke is embarrassingly consistent. They tell us that it is simply impossible to create a system that shares risk and cost equitably and distributes services efficiently. But that is not a bona fide reason. “Impossible,” why? Check the money and corporate power that now flows through the halls and offices of government. If you ask for the judgment of many healthcare professionals who live with the inequities of the current healthcare system, they will tell you that it is impossible to endure any longer the unhealthy system of healthcare delivery that now holds us all captive.

And then there are the confusion and anxiety of ordinary citizens who can’t safely maneuver through the system of private healthcare: Surely they deserve a system that is not defined as an “industry” that puts corporate profits above their human needs—and human rights. In the current climate, being “patient” is hardly a virtue. The stories of how so many patients are abused by the strategies of insurance corporations are multiplying dangerously—“dangerously” both for the economy and for the real people whom we here represent. No need to invoke the millions of stories “out there” in the real world where people live with their bodies and minds and resources at constant risk. You can hear those stories in kitchens, living rooms and offices—stories of pain, sadness and disability, exacerbated by the cruelties of profit-driven healthcare.

The Alliance for Democracy has held from its beginning that corporate power has usurped the rights of citizens, the environment and government. Such power too often overrides the legitimate needs and human rights of those of us who live our lives in the real world, where exorbitant money and privileges are not the only things that give life meaning.

I am from Pennsylvania, where bills in both our house and senate are beginning to move the state toward a Single Payer system of Healthcare. The American democracy was born in our state. Surely universal healthcare is a real extension of this democratic polity.

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Two Quick Actions for Single Payer!

Through your efforts the grassroots movement for single payer health care is growing stronger and louder every day. But we must keep up the pressure. We're headed into the "endgame" for health care reform, with lobbyists for the health care profiteers swarming over Capitol Hill promoting piecemeal plans and toothless reform.

Please forward this alert to everyone on your lists and take the actions below. And keep making calls, talking to family and friends, sharing your health care stories, responding to the media, and writing letters to the editor. We will be heard!

Action #1: Sign Sen. Bernie Sanders's "A Petition to Congress Supporting Single-Payer Health Care"
Sign the petition, forward the petition, and leave your story on the comments section. More than 20,000 people have already added their names. Join them!

Action #2: Call Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius at 1-877-696-6775 and email the President.
Tell them that the current proposed health care reforms are not universal (36 million Americans will still be uninsured), and too expensive--with Congressional Budget Office estimates on the Kennedy legislation at $1 trillion over ten years. Adopt single payer, make health care a right, not a commodity, and you cover everyone and save nearly $400 billion.

Finally, thanks to Alliance for Democracy members in Rochester, New York, for their work for single payer, and for Alliance co-chair Lou Hammann, who has been working both nationally and at the state level; check out a slideshow from Healthcare for All PA's single payer rally June 11 in Harrisburg, PA in support of Pennsylvania's two state-level bills. On Friday, June 26, AfD council member Ruth Caplan will speak at a single payer demo in Washington D.C., starting at 5:30 p.m. in front of Union Station. If you're in the area, be part of this action!

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Slideshow from statewide single payer rally in Harrisburg, PA

Several states are working on their own single-payer initiatives. California's bill was probably the best known nationally, but Pennsylvania also has a strong campaign going, as the slideshow from their June 11 Capital rally shows:



The campaign website is Healthcare for All PA.

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Hundredfold Farm, a low-impact co-housing project, is focus of Earth Day broadcast

For the past several years, Alliance for Democracy co-chair Lou Hammann has been one of the organizers of a unique co-housing project in the south central Pennsylvania town of Orrtanna--Hundredfold Farm. The project was recently featured on National Public Radio, as part of their Earth Day coverage. You can access the .mp3 of the show here and hear about Hundredfold Farm (mistakenly referred to as Hunter Fall Farms) in the first third of the show.

You can also visit Hundredfold Farm's website here.

Lou recently told the Alliance council that Hundredfold Farm is quickly becoming the local "go-to" group on environmental and sustainability issues, because of the low-impact design of the housing and their unique wastewater treatment facility, which uses an artificial wetland to purify water on-site, so that it can return to the local aquifer.

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Democracy School!

A nine-minute overview of Democracy School, where it came from, how it works and the results in Barnstead, where their self-governance ordinance stripped personhood rights from corporations. Thanks to Ainsof18! If this inspires you to learn more, visit the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund website. If you're in the Tucson area, AfD'ers are planning a school this fall.

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Another video resource on single-payer

AfD co-chair Lou Hammann writes:

"I have an hour dvd that was made here in PA for the Single Payer project. Me, a local doctor and the ex director of Healthcare 4 All PA made it locally. It is informative, argumentative (in a good sense) and accurate about what is trying to happen in Pennslvania. Conyers thinks we have one of the best possible approaches to the healthcare travesty. If anyone would like to see this piece, I can send you a schedule for its streaming on the local TV station... (editor's note: see the schedule at the end of this post)

Copies of the dvd are available--free if you ask politely.

To view the PA video on your computer head to the Adams Community Television website (ACTV.org)

Click "ACTV On Line" to watch the show at the following times:

Monday, Feb 9th -- 9:00 to 10:00 p.m.
Wednesday Feb 11th -- 9:00 to 10:00 p.m.
Friday, Feb 13th -- 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. and 9:00 to 10:00 p.m.

Lou will be representing the Alliance at the next Leadership Conference on Guaranteed Health Care in Washington.

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