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Communities Pushing For Legal Rights To Regain Power Over Fracking Companies

October 20, 2015

Communities Pushing For Legal Rights To Regain Power Over Fracking Companies

A Colorado group with concerns about the environmental impacts of fracking are pushing for a fundamental change to the state’s legal system to give communities greater power over corporations.

Coloradans for Community Rights has set its sights on dismantling the legal system where state laws take precedence over local rules.

This system where local authorities must fall back on state law instead of forming their own makes it nearly impossible to raise minimum wages, set environmental protections, or even strengthen tenant rights and set rent controls.

In August, CCR launched a statewide initiative: The Colorado Community Rights Amendment. The group plans to gather the necessary 99,000 signatures necessary to place the community rights amendment on the 2016 ballot. In 2014, a similar initiative was proposed but not enough signatures were collected to qualify for the ballot.

By bringing together a broad coalition of environmental, economic and social justice fighters, the CCR is optimistic its model will be successful in bringing about political and legal change.

The moves come as the Colorado Supreme Court has agreed to adjudicate in battles between community groups and fracking companies.

In early October, CCR was at the Stop the Frack Attack national summit in Denver to raise awareness about its mission.

The community rights amendment would “allow real democracy to start to happen in the country,” said CCR Member Rick Casey.

Casey explained the amendment was crucial because it puts local policymakers and local communities in control over, as the amendment states, the “competing rights, powers, privileges, immunities, or duties of corporations.”

The Colorado ballot initiative is part of the fledgling national Community Rights Movement, which works off the legal model proposed by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

Reuters reported that 18 communities in six states have been supported by CELDF in passing community rights law.

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