Environmental Rights Amendment
- Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution is known as the Environmental Rights Amendment. It reads:
The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people. [Article 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution is akin to the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution; the Environmental Rights Amendment places environmental rights on the same level as political rights like free speech.]
