In granting the youth a remedy, Judge Hill noted the extraordinary circumstances of the climate crisis, saying, “this is an urgent situation…these kids can’t wait.” The court discussed the catastrophic impacts of climate destabilization globally, including the impending loss of polar bears and low-lying countries like Bangladesh. The court explained that while it had no jurisdiction outside of Washington state, it did have jurisdiction over Ecology and would order the agency to comply with the law and do its part to address the crisis.
After a landmark November, 2015 decision, in which Judge Hill found that the state has a “mandatory duty” to “preserve, protect, and enhance the air quality for the current and future generations,” and found the state’s current standards to fail that standard dramatically, Ecology nonetheless unilaterally withdrew its proposed rule to reduce carbon emissions in the state in February, just months after Judge Hill specifically underscored the urgency of the climate crisis.
“It was absurd for Ecology to withdraw its proposed rule to reduce carbon emissions,” said petitioner Aji Piper, who is also a plaintiff on the federal constitutional climate lawsuit, supported by Our Children’s Trust. “Especially after Judge Hill declared last fall that our ‘very survival depends upon the will of [our] elders to act now…to stem the tide of global warming.’ I think Ecology should be ashamed by its reversal of potentially powerful action and today, Judge Hill issued a significant ruling that should go down in history books. Our government must act to protect our climate for benefit of us and future generations.”
“For the first time, a U.S. court not only recognized the extraordinary harms young people are facing due to climate change, but ordered an agency to do something about it,” said Andrea Rodgers, the Western Environmental Law Center attorney representing the youths. “Ecology is now court-ordered to issue a rule that fulfills its constitutional and public trust duty to ensure Washington does its part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect the planet.”
“This case explains why youth around this country, and in several other countries, are forced to bring their governments to court to secure a healthy atmosphere and stable climate,” said Julia Olson, executive director and chief legal counsel at Our Children’s Trust. “Despite clear scientific evidence and judicial recognition of the urgency of the climate crisis, Washington and most governments across the U.S. and other countries are failing to take correspondingly urgent, science-based action. That failure unfairly consigns youth to a disproportionately bleak future against which they can only reasonably ask the courts to step in to address this most time sensitive issue of our time.”
“This is a massive victory,” said petitioner Gabe Mandell.
Related cases brought by youth to protect the atmosphere are pending before other U.S. courts in the federal district court in Oregon, and in the state courts of North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Massachusetts and Oregon.
This is a press release of:
Oregon rejected a similar measure on election day, and the fairly conservative editorial page of the Oregonian quickly opined that the state legislature should pass the bill lest the state lose out on the business and tax opportunity to Washington – the same logic by which Rhode Islanders decided they didn’t mind casino gambling coming to the Ocean State, saying:
And if business booms at Washington’s pot shops, as expected? Our neighbor to the north will collect millions of dollars in new “sin” taxes, with much of the money coming from Oregonians who’d be happy to keep their business — and taxes — in state if given the opportunity.
There are far more tax dollars to be had by legalizing cannabis than through expanding gambling and the social ills are far, far less. Here’s hoping Rhode Island leads rather than follows on this one.
Here’s a short video of RI Future talking with Rep. Ajello last year about why marijuana should be taxed and regulated rather than remaining the purview of the black market.
]]>“Regular folks,” he said, think politics has become rigged to favor the richest Americans “and thats a bad framework for people to be looking at this United States government from. Unfortunately in a lot of ways, it’s a very accurate framework, and the tax code is one of the ways to prove that is really the case right now.”
The substantial change to the tax code, he said, would be that capital gains would be taxed just like any other kind of income for those who make more than a million dollars in a year. So a CEO who gets paid in stock options, would still have to pay taxes on that if they earned more than a million.
He said the proposal could come up for a vote “in the three or four months on either side of the New Year” when Democrats will could be negotiating from a position of strength because of the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. Right now, he said, the bill isn’t likely to get substantial floor time, unless the American people demand it.
Prompted by a question at the very end of the discussion, Whitehouse, who it turns out was once considered a candidate for the Supreme Court, threw a jab at the Citizens United decision: “Corporations are not people. I think the decision claiming that they were will go down in history as one of most grievous errors of the Supreme Court.”
Interestingly, Ted Nesi reports this morning that National Journal recently ranked Whitehouse as the 19th most liberal senator after two consecutive years of being ranked as the most liberal.
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