Envision Seattle

Judge Blocks Anti-Coal Train Initiative from Bellingham's November Ballot

Judge Charles Snyder

On Friday, August 3rd, Whatcom County Superior Court Judge Charles Snyder blocked Bellingham's Proposition 2 (No Coal! ordinance) from appearing on the city's November ballot. The Bellingham Herald reports that the Judge "...said the initiative, with its coal transport ban and Community Bill of Rights, exceeded the scope of city government's power. Among other things, it would have attempted to nullify state and federal laws." No Coal! organizers have filed an expedited appeal of the ruling to the Washington State Court of Appeals (pdf).

This case is really about who gets to decide on local issues of major importance, such as the dramatic escalation of coal train exports planned for the Northwest.

As The Stranger reported last week, "States and municipalities are prohibited from regulating interstate commerce, and international trade rules prevent the federal government from restricting the export of nonscarce resources. So neither Seattle nor Congress has the power to forbid the trains from coming through."

Why would No Coal! organizers (or Initiative 103 for that matter) draft initiatives that challenge settled state and federal law? Simply because when faced with massive harms facing our communities and our environment, we must assert our rights to say no, and block such harms. 

The Seattle area would face 18 1.5 mile long coal trains per day: up to 150 million tons coal per year. There are 130 cars per train which each leak 500 - 2000 lbs of poisonous coal dust and remnants on the journey. In total, this project represents 50% more coal than the U.S. has ever shipped. Doctors say health effects from diesel emmissions and coal dusts begin way below current federal safety standards.

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund's Executive Director Thomas Linzey wrote last week, "People watching the destruction of their communities right before their eyes have used all of the legal tools that the system has deigned to give them – appealing regulatory permits, challenging Environmental Impact Statements. But it has all miserably failed to turn the boat around. ... If we’re really interested in actually stopping the harms, we must recognize that structural changes are necessary – ones that permanently elevate community power above corporate power. Because without real, local control, we will never be able to move towards any semblance of sustainability."

Prop. 2 organizers had delivered nearly twice the number of signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. Bellingham residents clearly want a vote on the coal train and corporate constitutional "rights". But Judge Snyder has blocked them of this opportunity ignoring Washington State precedents to allow citizens to vote on initiatives before challenging their legal validity.

Says Linzey:

The courts – programmed to keep municipalities from interfering with corporate 'rights' - have created a myriad of ways in which citizen lawmaking can be prevented. The recent decision by the county court essentially allows any initiative to be challenged pre-election for any reason. So much for citizen lawmaking power  - even when it’s just about the right of the people simply to vote on an initiative. 

If you want to stop getting screwed, you have to change who makes the decisions that are screwing you. And changing “who decides” means coming face-to-face with a structure of law and government that has been designed very carefully to eliminate the democratic process; and then openly and frontally challenging that system of law.

That’s why the Bellingham initiative has very little to do with coal – and everything to do with restoring the right of people to make decisions about what happens within their own communities, where they live. 

Escalated coal train exports are coming to the Northwest unless we take action. Initiative 103 strips corporate constitutional privileges and provides Rights for Nature to stop the coal train. Please contribute to i103 today.

Sign i103 to Stop Seattle's Coal Train Expansion

The phrase "The City of Seattle will request" appears five times in its brief resolution stating its "opposition" to coal exports. The fact is that there is no law on the books that allows the city to restrict heightened coal exports.

If you haven't heard yet, Peabody Energy plans to dramatically scale up coal exports to Asia by rail from Montana through Seattle up to Bellingham. The Seattle area (especially Ballard) would face 18 1.5 mile long coal trains per day: up to 150 million tons coal per year. There are 130 cars per train which each leak 500 - 2000 lbs of poisonous coal dust and remnants on the journey. 480 of the largest single hull vessels in the world would be coming through San Juan Islands each year. In total, this project represents 50% more coal than the U.S. has ever shipped. Doctors say health effects from diesel emmissions and coal dusts begin way below current federal safety standards.

In last week's, Global Warming's Terrifying New Math, Bill McKibben explains the science that the planet is on track to an 11 degree rise "which would create a planet straight out of science fiction. ... We have five times as much oil and coal and gas on the books as climate scientists think is safe to burn."

This is why it's imperative that the coal train be stopped - to protect our community and our planet. But, after having its plastic bag fee overturned by an industry-funded referendum and being sued for its phone book ordinance, the city council is hesitant to pass a ban on coal exports that would surely invoke a lawsuit over interstate commerce regulations. The Constitution states that only Congress can regulate interstate commerce.

The problem therefore is that the City of Seattle has no way to protect our community from the diesel emmissions, coal dust and remnants and climate change from coal exports.

Seattle's  Initiative 103 (pdf) would authorize the city council to protect our community with Rights for Nature; and corporations that attempt to challenge these regulations would not have personhood rights or constitutional protections, such as the commerce clause. If the city does not step up to protect our community, i103 allows for any citizen to have standing to do so. I103 also includes a formal call to state and federal officials to change laws that currently allow corporations to overturn the health, safety and wellbeing of communities nationwide.

Call to Action: Help Initiative 103 qualify for the ballot. Right now, print and sign the petition form and mail it in. If you just want to sign it yourself and have a few friends sign it, use the five signature form. Or, if you want to gather a lot of signatures, use the fifteen signature form. Forms must be printed double-sided or stapled. Learn more about signature gathering and drop off points.

Thank you for your support!

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p.p.s. Please get involved with i103 or consider a contribution

Initiative 103 Provides Tools Seattle Needs to Protect Our Community

    Issue after issue in Seattle pits corporate power and influence peddling against residents and our environment. Initiative 103's Community Bill of Rights provides the tools residents need to protect and manage what happens in our city. 

    Take a quick look at some of the issues emerging in Seattle to see how I103 seeks to put people first in decision making processes:

Ending Corporate Personhood

• The phonebook companies' appeal of its failed lawsuit against the City of Seattle for its opt out program is wasting taxpayer money and they may just win. The entire suit is based on their claim of corporate personhood and free speech rights. Read more 

Restricting Corporate Lobbying to Public Forums

• Mayor McGinn and hedge fund investor Chris Hansen announce a privately hatched plan to build an NBA arena with $200 million in city funds. I103 would require these discussions happen transparently, in public from the beginning.
• Washington State has a huge tax fairness problem related to corporate influence peddling in Olympia and tax breaks. In the past twelve years, Microsoft's lobbying and Nevada tax dodge has saved the company $4.3 billion. As a result, Gov. Gregoire has had to cut $4 billion from K-12 and Higher Education since 2008. I103 would require the company to be public and transparent about its efforts in Seattle and its a first step towards a state lobbying restriction.
• Increasingly, business interests are seeking to control public schools and privatize public school funding through charter schools. Recently, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched public attacks on the Seattle's School Board and a school charter movement effort (funded in part by wealthy technology families such as Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer's wife) has launched a state initiative.

Eliminating Corporate Spending on Elections

• In 2011, Costco spent a record $22 million to pass a liquor privatization initiative. I103 would prevent companies like Costco from advertising state initiatives to Seattle residents.
• In 2009, the American Chemistry Council spent $1.4 million on a referendum to repeal Seattle's plastic bag ban. I103 would outlaw corporate contributions to city campaigns.
• Each year, Tim Eyman uses corporate funds to pay signature gatherers to qualify state initiatives. This year, BP and Conoco contributed $250,000 for Initiative 1185. I103 would prevent any of this money from being spent in Seattle.

Rights for Nature

• Peabody Energy is pushing a major expansion for coal trains on the Seattle waterfront (see also Railroad Union Stretches Truth About Coal Dust and Climate Solutions). No state or federal regulations give Seattle the ability to say no to fifty years of 18 daily mile long coal trains. I103's Rights for Nature gives both the City of Seattle and Seattle residents the right to stop this kind of environmental pollution. See also Coal Found Along Washington Waterways.

Citizen Oversight of Police

• The United States Department of Justice finds that the Seattle Police Department engages in a pattern or practice of excessive force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and patterns of racially biased policing which include excessive use of force. Nothing in the Mayor's 20/20 settlement proposal addresses the issue of citizen oversight. I103 would move the internal police Office of Professional Accountability from reporting to the Police Chief to the Mayor. And, I103 establishes a right of citizen oversight of the police. 
• The Mayor seems comfortable spending $200 million of public funds for a private NBA arena but unwilling to spend $41 million to begin implementing a more publicly accountable police force.

Rights for Workers

• Seattle-based Amazon has been accused of operating sweatshops and treating its workers poorly) as well as tax dodging and funding right wing lobbying group ALEC). I103 reinforces state and federal rights to collective bargaining and Constitutional rights in the workplace, which will support whistleblowers.

Neighborhood Rights to Approve Zoning Changes

• The Capitol Hill Community Council rejected the Mayor's proposed zoning changes for the neighborhood. Similarly, SODO area businesses have serious concerns about the new NBA arena proposal. I103's Rights for Neighborhoods ensure that local residents have majority approval over any commercial zoning changes.

Rights to Network Neutrality

• The City of Seattle pulled the plug on its municipal WiFi pilots and has abandoned its efforts towards a citywide broadband network. Comcast is already violating network neutrality through its private deals with Microsoft. I103 would make present day network neutrality law in Seattle.

Contact us if you'd like to help place Initiative 103 on the ballot: Download a petition, join our Facebook page, sign up for our mailing list or come to one of our upcoming events.

Pacific Northwest Emerging as a Stronghold for a New Kind of Activism

There's a new form of activism gaining strength in the Pacific Northwest. Citizen organizers in three Washington cities are gathering signatures to place initiatives on the November ballot that would limit corporate power and elevate peoples' rights above corporate rights:

1) Seattle's Initiative 103 would reverse the impact of Citizens United locally by banning corporate speech in city elections as well as establishing a basic Community Bill of Rights, including rights for nature.

2) Coal Free Bellingham's Prop 2 would strip judge-made "constitutional rights" and establish similar community rights aimed at stopping a massive coal train export operation and deep water shipping terminal.

3) Spokane's gathering signatures for a third effort at making its Community Bill of Rights law. In November 2011, voters narrowly rejected an earlier initiative by less than a thousand votes.

All three initiatives have their roots in legal ordinances drafted by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). CELDF has helped more than 110 communities pass ordinances restricting harmful corporate activities. Since 2010, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Dryden (NY), Las Vegas (NM), et al. have banned fracking and stripped corporate rights from drilling companies using CELDF-drafted ordinances. In 2008, CELDF helped Ecuador added rights for nature to its new Constitution.

Using the initiative process to pass local laws that provide immediate protections to communities is part of a dual-pronged strategy and broader theory of change to fighting off corporate harms and restoring our community democracies.

Firstly, these initiatives both limit the legal rights of corporations by ending corporate personhood and stripping judge-made "constitutional" rights but also elevate peoples' rights by establishing Community Bills of Rights for residents. Secondly, the momentum and awareness generated by these communities working together provides a model for other communities. All three Northwest efforts have evolved from Democracy School trainings taught by CELDF over the past decade. Portland working groups led by organizer Paul Cienfuegos are considering a similar initiative effort. Initiative 103 co-organizer Jeff Reifman says he hopes these efforts inspire communities around the country to begin drafting their own legislation.

Reifman, an ex-Microsoft manager and one of its millionaire alumni says his theory of change finally shifted after his efforts to get Washington's state legislature to end the company's twelve-year Nevada tax dodge ended in three notable failures (Microsoft's tax dodge cost the state more than $1.5 billion in lost revenue but the figure balloons to $4 billion if you include the impact from the company's lobbying to reduce tax rates). First, the democratic legislature, led by an ex-Microsoft executive, redefined the state's Royalty Tax in Microsoft's favor and granted it amnesty. Second, the governor appointed another ex-Microsoft executive to run the state's tax department. And finally, the governor began praising Microsoft's $5 million annual scholarship fund (a comparatively small fraction of its annual tax savings) after more than $4 billion in cuts had been made to K-12 and higher education under her watch. "This experience was the last straw for me," said Reifman. "I knew that our state's leadership had been corrupted by corporate influence past the point of no return and that there had to be another way."

Says CELDF's Executive Director Thomas Linzey, "Organizing communities to pass local law is about giving up hope that Congress is going to do the right thing, or State legislatures are going to do the right thing; and beginning to craft a structure of 'rights' at the municipal level that challenges the hegemony exercised by those other levels  of government; and then using the combined force of that municipal strength to push upwards against those higher levels of government to get the change that we want and need."

These efforts mirror the women's suffrage movement: "In addition to the strategy to obtain full suffrage through a constitutional amendment, reformers pursued state-by-state campaigns to build support for, or to win, residence-based state suffrage. Towns, counties, states and territories granted suffrage, in full or in part, throughout the 19th and early 20th century." These local battles played out for fifty years before the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. "By 1920 when women got the vote nationwide, Wyoming women had already been voting for half a century." Similarly, as Northwest and other cities fight to limit corporate legal powers, the national Move to Amend effort is pursuing a longer term Constitutional Amendment.

However, unlike the Move to Amend effort which requires the support of state and federal officeholders compromised by corporate money, these local initiatives will become law as soon as they are passed by voters at the ballot box. These efforts are stepping away from the federal regulatory system which has been designed to permit corporate environmental harm and weakened by corporate influence. These efforts are stepping out of traditional models of nonprofit activism which funnels donor money and volunteer resources in support of an ongoing institutional lobbying effort targeted at comprised state and federal officials on a playing field tilted in the favor of wealthy corporations.

Says Linzey, "This organizing is about turning away from traditional activism (which is mired in letter writing campaigns and lowest common denominator federal and state legislation) and dipping our hands into a new activism in which the grassroots forces themselves begin to craft and model rights-based laws which then stitch together to change state constitutions, and eventually, to change the framework of the federal constitution itself. It's a realization that the only way substantive change is going to happen - especially that change that runs counter to the interests of a relatively small handful of corporations - is a revolt from the bottom, from the municipal level."

In February, a New York court upheld the Town of Dryden's right to pass local legislation that bans fracking. Just as Article 6 of the Constitution and the First Amendment helped separate church from state, these initiatives seek to separate corporate power from state, cleansing local governments and foreshadowing longer term efforts to restore our democracy at the state and federal levels. 

Corporations are already fighting back in Pennsylvania: "Act 38, better known as 'ACRE' – was adopted in 2005.  ACRE empowers the State Attorney General to represent agribusiness corporations against municipalities that dare enact local laws challenging corporate farming. The Attorney General has already sued nearly a dozen municipalities under ACRE, including rural Packer Township in Carbon County.  In that case, the Attorney General is defending the 'right' of corporations to override the community’s right to protect itself from sewage sludge being dumped on its farmland.  The bitter irony – and the proof that Pennsylvania’s government has been further privatized – is that the Attorney General, an elected official, is turning around and suing the very folks who elected him, on behalf of corporations." More recently, the lobbyist-controlled, taxpayer-funded legislature passed Act 13, which seeks to pre-empt the rights of Pennsylvania communities from passing legislation that limits gas extraction. 

"Initiative 103 is clearly framed to elevate peoples' rights over corporate rights," says Reifman. "It's one thing if the Supreme Court makes a change to national campaign finance legislation as it did with Citizens United, it's entirely another thing if it tries to tell the voters of Seattle that they can't pass essential laws to protect their community democracy from corporate harm."

All three Northwest efforts are moving forward steeped in education, community and collaboration. Coal Free Bellingham is hosting ongoing democracy schools. Envision Spokane is a collaboration of more than 20 neighborhood and community organizations. Seattle's Initiative 103 is hosting a weekly speaker series, the Common Good Cafe, to raise discussion about corporate power and its impact in our communities. Says Linzey, "This is promising and hopeful work involving people who have given up on higher levels of government doing what's needed; who are refocusing themselves on change that matters at the local level."

Related Links:

• Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
• Envision Spokane
• Envision Seattle & Initiative 103
• Coal Free Bellingham & Proposition 2
• Portland's Organizing Effort

Initiative 103 Can Stop the Coal Train from Coming to Ballard

"What are the risks if the largest coal company in the world - Peabody Coal - is allowed to transport up to 48 million tons of coal through Ballard annually on rail to send to Asia? Learn more about protecting Ballard from 20 mile and half long coal trains per day!"

Here's a recent KUOW audio report on this issue: Increased Coal Train Traffic Could Mean Bad News For Public Health (KUOW).

Coal Free Bellingham is nearly complete with signature gathering for an initiative similar to I-103 which would strip coal companies of the corporate constitutional rights and establish rights for nature to allow local citizens to protect their communities.

While Initiative 103 (pdf) is not as narrowly focused on coal, its ordinance also strips corporations of their personhood rights and corporate constitutional rights and establishes rights for nature. It also makes corporate speech in elections and corporate lobbying (excluding public forums) illegal. These are the legal powers corporations traditionally use to overturn local community rule. How do we stop the coal train from coming to Ballard? Gathering signatures to place Initiative 103 on the ballot and passing it in Seattle and asking our Bellingham neighbors to support Coal Free Bellingham.

New York Court Affirms Towns’ Powers to Ban Fracking (ProPublica) is an example of courts siding with communities' rights to make law which block harmful corporate practices like the coal train. This is part of a growing broader movement.

Here some other facts from Coal Free Bellingham:

• The proposed Cherry Point Gateway Pacific coal export terminal will be a transfer station for up to 48 million tons of coal per year – dumped from trains into 90 foot piles and then loaded onto enormous, polluting freighters and shipped across the Pacific Ocean to provide power in China.
• In addition to the coal trains already traversing our city daily on their way to British Columbia, 18 mile and a half long coal trains will noisily rumble back and forth daily (9 uncovered, filled with coal and 9 returning empty), up and down our coastline (e.g. Ballard) and through the heart of our city and proposed waterfront development throughout the day and night.
• Burning coal in 1 typical plant emits 3.7 million tons of CO2, the primary human cause of global warning – as much CO2 as cutting down 161 million trees. (Union of Concerned Scientists)
• The Pacific Northwest receives fallout of a shocking 1,400 tons of air-born mercury per year, mostly from burning coal for electricity in China (Mt. Bachelor Observatory)

Acidity in ocean killed NW oysters, new study says (Seattle Times) is one example of the impact of global climate change on Puget Sound and our community. You can learn more about this at People for Puget Sound's Climate Change page and their State of the Sound climate change (pdf).

Related links:

• Shipping terminal project application complete, Whatcom says (Go Skagit - bring a gas mask?)
• Increased Coal Train Traffic Could Mean Bad News For Public Health (mp3) (KUOW EarthFix)