Alan Journet, SOCAN Cofacilitator, February 2026

We Oregonians are rightfully proud of our unique and beautiful state. Indeed, so committed are we to this delightful corner of the universe that many of us probably think that the health and safety of our environment is constitutionally protected. This is not the case!

The Oregon Coalition for an Environmental Rights Amendment (OCERA) is seeking an amendment to the Oregon Constitution that would enshrine the concept that Oregonians have the right to enjoy a safe and healthy environment and that the state government should manage our natural resources in a manner that protects them for future generations while assuring Oregonians a safe and prosperous future. This principle of sustainable management of our natural resources is not new; it dates back to the ancient Public Trust Doctrine.

Certainly, court decisions are based on a wide range of considerations rather than a narrow number of issues or a single issue. However, in the years that Our Children’s’ Trust has been employing the Public Trust Doctrine to assist youth as they file suit seeking sustainable management of our natural resources and a safe and healthy environment for their future in accordance with state laws, they have achieved greater success in states that include the right to a safe and healthy environment in their Constitutions than in states that where the right is absent. This trend has resulted in many Oregonians recognizing the merit of incorporating the guarantee of a safe and healthy environment into the Oregon Constitution.

The Public Trust Doctrine (PTD) is an ancient principle with roots in Roman Law. It asserts that sovereigns and governments have a duty to manage natural resources for the ongoing benefit of the public (e.g., Quirke 2016). This might be described as an early, if not the earliest known, statement of the importance and moral imperative of sustainable management of our natural resources. Though applying mainly to water resources, recent efforts have sought to expand the PTD to include natural resources, especially those impacted by climate change (NALC undated).

In 2010, the Eugene-based public interest law firm, Our Children’s Trust (OCT), was founded by current co-Executive Director Julia Olson. In Olson’s words, its mission was “to provide legal representation to young people in lawsuits against government entities for actions causing and worsening climate change….” (Olson 2025). Since then, OCT has assisted our youth in seeking judicial application of this doctrine in defense of their future. This effort has involved lawsuits brought by young Americans against governments, state and federal, for not applying laws that exist and would, if applied, defend our natural resources against their abuse and excessive exploitation.

In 2015, OCT assisted 21 young Americans between the ages of 10 and 21, in filing suit, titled Juliana vs the United States of America, against the U.S. Federal Government. Their complaint asserted (OCT 2025a) that “…through the government’s affirmative actions that cause climate change, it has violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources.” After years of legal wrangling, this case was finally rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2025 (Clark 2025).

Fifteen of the plaintiffs have now filed suit against the U.S. for Human Rights Violations at the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (OCT 2025b). In their petition, they accuse the U.S. of violating their fundamental human rights stating: “For more than five decades, their government has knowingly violated their substantive rights by perpetuating fossil fuel-driven climate destruction. For the past decade, it has violated their procedural rights by taking extraordinary measures to block their access to justice and preventing their case from being heard in court.”

In addition to that case, OCT has assisted youth to file similar suits in several states.

Ochenski (2024) pointed out tht the Montana constitution provides an “inalienable right to a clean and healthful environment” in Montana for “present and future generations.”

In Held vs State of Montana 16 Montana youth, supported by OCT, filed suit against a bill passed by the Montana House that precluded consideration of climate change in the application of the Montana Environmental Policy Act. The plaintiffs sought to overturn that law as unconstitutional.  

When Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled on the case in August 2023, Miller (2023) reported the outcome as follows: “The State of Montana’s failure to consider greenhouse gas emissions from energy and mining projects violates the state constitution because it does not protect Montanans’ right to a clean and healthful environment and the state’s natural resources from unreasonable depletion, a judge ruled Monday in a victory for 16 youth plaintiffs who sued the state.”

Inevitably, the state appealed the Seely decision, to the state Supreme Court. In a 70-page decision, that court affirmed, as reported by Drew and Miller (2024) “that the youth plaintiffs have a ‘fundamental constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment.’ ”

Unsurprisingly, the state has been tardy in complying with this Supreme Court ruling, so thirteen of the original plaintiffs are now returning to the state Supreme Court seeking enforcement of their historic victory (OCT 2025c).

Article 11, Section 9 of the Hawai’i Constitution deals with Environmental Rights (Justia undated). Among other requirements, it states “Each person has the right to a clean and healthful environment, as defined by laws relating to environmental quality, including control of pollution and conservation, protection and enhancement of natural resources.”

In June 2022, 13 Hawai’i Children of the land (Keiki o ka ‘āina), supported by OCT, took to the courts to require the state Department of Transportation to decarbonize its transportation system in accordance with the demands of the constitution. Echoing the Public Trust Doctrine, the youth argued that the state should acknowledge its responsibility to future generations by achieving a zero-emissions transportation sector by 2045. The case was settled to the satisfaction of the youth and their attorneys when the state’s Department of Transportation developed a plan to meet the stated goals (OCT 2025d).

In 2011, supported by OCT, two Oregon youths, Ollie Chernaik and Kelsey Juliana, filed a constitutional climate lawsuit against Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber and the State of Oregon, demanding that the government create a viable climate recovery plan for reducing carbon dioxide emissions in order to protect Oregon’s natural resources.

In December 2012 Amicus Briefs were filed “on behalf of political leaders, businesses, agricultural groups and student native groups in support of the youth plaintiffs and their case.” (OCT 2025e). Also “An additional amicus curiae brief was filed by the Western Environmental Law Center on behalf of twenty-two top legal scholars from around the country who urged the court to apply the Public Trust Doctrine to the atmosphere and allow the case to proceed” (OCT 2025e).

As further catalogued by OCT (2025e), in January 2018 “The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled against the youth plaintiffs, finding that the Public Trust Doctrine imposes no affirmative duty on the state.” And, in October 2020, “The majority opinion of the Oregon Supreme Court denied the claims of the youth plaintiffs.”

While the outcomes of court cases, and the reasoning for judicial decisions are always complex and nuanced, there seems to be a track record of the courts and government agencies being much more sensitive to the claims that our youth make when the claims are supported by a constitution that clearly incorporates the concept that residents have the right to a safe and healthy environment than when that is absent.

This pattern has served as a factor in persuading members of OCERA to take steps to modify the Oregon Constitution to incorporate such a guarantee. Since a constitutional amendment requires a vote of the people, in 2025 OCERA sought to persuade the legislature to refer such an amendment to the voters for the 2026 general election. This was unsuccessful. The OCERA effort is now focused on a ballot measure for the 2028 election cycle initiated by a petition drive.

Over recent months, the federal government has launched a series of efforts to undermine our health and environment:

• By overturning the 2009 Endangerment Finding of the Environmental Protection Agency that greenhouse gas emissions represent a threat to our health and safe environment, the Federal government is compromising the livability of all the states in the union (e.g., Brown 2026).
• By overturning the United States Forest Service Roadless Rule that protects our forests, particularly old growth forests, from excessive logging, the federal government is compromising publicly owned forests across the nation (e.g., EJ 2026; Huffman 2025).
• By promoting the so-called ‘Fix Our Forests Act’ (HR471) which is a thinly veiled effort to use wildfire protection as a justification (ruse) for increasing logging of our forests, the federal government further threatens our publicly owned forests (e.g., Ehrlich 2025; Montgomery & English 2025).
• The Trump Administration has signaled its commitment to reversing the program that seeks to convert school buses from toxic polluting fossil fuels to clean energy sources. This commitment promotes climate pollution at the expense of school bus power that is healthier for our kids and cleaner for the environment (e.g., Salerno 2025; Lavelle 2026; Silvestro 2026).
• The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was established by Congress in 1974 as an independent agency charged with assuring the safe operation of nuclear power plants in the U.S. (NRC 2025). The Trump Administration has adjusted the charge to the NRC while weakening nuclear operational safety rules (e.g., UCS 2025, NIRS 2025). Instead of monitoring the safety of nuclear power, the NRC is now designated as a promoter and marketer, clearly a conflict of interest with monitoring to promote safety. Even proponents of nuclear generation have sounded the alarm (e.g., Burns et al. 2025)

The message emerging from Washington is that Americans can no longer be confident that the federal government, through its Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies, is protecting us and guaranteeing us a safe and healthy environment. As a result, pressure on states to fill the void vacated by the federal government becomes ever more urgent. A guarantee that Oregonians have the right to enjoy a safe and healthy environment would provide a means towards defending ourselves against federal assaults.

Figure 1. Historic temperature rise for Jackson County 1895-2025, from NOAA (2026)

Those of us living in the Rogue Valley and Southern Oregon are acutely aware of the threats that ongoing climate change imposes upon us. We can see and feel the rising temperatures clearly depicted historically, for Jackson County (for example) by NOAA. (2026) as in Figure 1, showing warming at the rate of 0.2°F per decade between 1895 and 2025 and projected by the United States Geological Survey (USGS 2026) showing a rise by the end of this century of some 10°F compared to the 1981-2010 average (Figure 2), and from 48.09°F to 55.12°F  by the last quarter of this century (Figure 3).

Figure 2. Projected average temperature change for Jackson County 1950-2100, from USGS (2026)

Figure 3. Projected average temperature for Jackson County 1950-2100, from USGS (2026)

In these graphs, the red line and pink shading represent the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) 5-85 along with its 10th to 90^th percentiles of probability. This represents a scenario of accelerating fossil fuel use and concomitant accelerating greenhouse gas emissions. It has often been described as the ‘Business as Usual’ pathway since we seem to be following this trajectory. The orange line and shading represent the SSP3-70 scenario while the blue line and range represent the SSP2-45 scenario. The latter two scenarios depict a future where we exhibit a substantial reduction in the SSP 5 -84 fossil fuel and greenhouse gas emissions scenario. The message is clear; with prudent action we have the capacity to modify our climate future.

The projected trends also depict summer warming greater than winter warming with a concomitant reduction in summer precipitation and a small increase in winter precipitation.

Other patterns are evident from the USGS projections. In particular, we can expect a future where precipitation and temperature patterns combine to produce substantially reduced snowpack and snow water equivalent (Figure 4) and soil water availability (Figure 5). These trends have the potential, when combined, to generate increased spring plant growth and biomass fuel) accumulation followed by increased summer/fall drought and resultant fire risk. It is anticipated that climate trends will exacerbate wildfire risk, already substantially influenced by climate. According to Climate Check (CC 2026) for example, Medford has the highest heat risk of any Oregon city.

Figure 4. Projected average snow water equivalent for Jackson County 1950-2100, from USGS (2026)

Figure 5. Projected average snow water equivalent for Jackson County 1950-2100, from USGS (2026)

A relevant study conducted by Marlon et al. (2012), and depicted in Figure 6, demonstrates that area burned by wildfire in western states over the last 3,000 years, 1,400 of which are depicted, has exhibited a substantial correlation with climatic trends. Of some considerable concern is the recognition that according to recent climate trends, the area burned should be much greater than it is. This means the western states are experiencing a fire deficit that can only be corrected by our region suffering a greater area burned by fire than we are experiencing

Figure 6. Historic correlation between Climate and area burned in western forests (Marlon et al. 2012).

While fire risk is an obvious result of the climate trends and projections for Jackson County, it’s worth considering other consequences.

The distribution of our natural ecosystems and the biodiversity they support is determined largely by average temperature and precipitation (essentially a surrogate for water availability). Figure 7 (modified from Whittaker 1975) depicts how temperature and precipitation influence natural ecosystem distribution across the planet. It should be evident that a shift of just a few degrees (much less than is anticipated for Jackson County this century in Figure 2), will shift the climate out of the range that supports the current location of our ecosystems and biodiversity.  This is a statewide problem!

Figure 7. The distribution of global natural ecosystems in relation to mean annual temperature and precipitation. (modified by Alan Journet from Whittaker 1975)

It’s worth adding that our forestry, agriculture and fisheries are impacted by the same variables and will likely be severely compromised by century’s end if we do not adjust our collective global behavior.

In summary, those of us living in Rogue Valley of Southern Oregon are currently experiencing massive climate changes that will affect our environment and our lives. Not surprisingly, we would like to see a Constitutional Amendment that would guarantee Oregonians the right to a safe and healthy environment in order that we can persuade our state government and state agencies to do what they can to contribute to the global effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce their concentration in the atmosphere to a manageable level.

OCERA will be holding a Listening Tour of public programs to introduce the effort and seek public input during Spring and early summer. This tour kicks off in the Rogue Valley on March 31st at the SOCAN monthly public meeting, with other Southern Oregon vents to follow:

March 31st, Sneak Preview in the Clubhouse at Mountain Meadows, 855 Mountain Meadows Dr. Ashland, Oregon 2:00pm

March 31st Official Launch at the Medford Public Library, 205 S. Central Avenue, Medford, 6:00 pm.

April 1st in the Science Lecture Theater on the SOU campus, 1250 Siskiyou Blvd, Ashland, at 4:00pm.

April 2nd at Troon Vineyard and Farm, 1475 Kubli Rd, Grants Pass, at 5:30 pm.

Curry County events in Brookings, Gold Beach, and Port Orford; events to be determined.

Douglas County event at the Public Library, 1409 NE Diamond Lake Blvd, Roseburg; to be determined.

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Lavelle M. 2026 EPA’s Clean School Bus ‘Revamp’ Means Less Support for EVs Inside Climate News. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20022026/epa-clean-school-bus-revamp/

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Miller B. 2023 Judge sides with youth in Montana climate change trial, finds two laws unconstitutional. Daily Montanan https://dailymontanan.com/2023/08/14/judge-sides-with-youth-in-montana-climate-change-trial-finds-two-laws-unconstitutional/

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