fandomhigh | Lawyering Up, Week 4: Wed, Period 2 (1/30)

Another class, another set of packets.

"Today we'll be discussing Environmental Law," Nathan said. "We like having clean air to breathe, water to drink, and food that won't kill us. Environmental law is how we make that happen.

"Environmental law has a wide scope," Nathan continued. "It could involve trying to create a law to protect a rare species, it could involve trying to bring a civil lawsuit against a company that poisoned your water supply. There is even environmental racism. That's when the 'not in my backyard' syndrome meets 'money talks.' Which means the environmentally harmful actions happen in places where those who live there don't have a political voice due to their social status and/or skin color.

"We can probably all agree that we want our environment to be safe to interact with," Nathan said. "But can we do that and not hurt our economy? Or without creating laws that are too broad in scope? Some wonder if we're allowed to argue it at all.

"Which brings us to today's exercise." Nathan indicated the last part of the handouts. "Environmental law and the Constitution. Does the Constitution as it stands now give us the strength to pass laws with the goal of protecting the environment? Or do we need to come up with new ways, such as an amendment that specifies a clean environment as being a fundamental right?

"Pair up," Nathan said. "One of you take a position that says the Constitution is fine, the other takes the position that it needs changing. Argue your case. See if you can change your partner's mind. I'll be here if there's any questions."

[ooc: OCD is up! Have at it!]

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"So... Constitution or not?"

"I don't care," Chris said. "You pick."

~~Is currently teaching the US Constitution in class.~~

She shrugged. "Of course the Constitution gives us enough strength to pass appropriate laws. There's a whole section that basically says 'and the government has the right to pass any other sorts of rules that they think are appropriate'. It's kind of a rubber band clause."

Chris nodded. "But just because the Constitution gives that right doesn't mean that actually passing a law is easy to do."

"No laws are supposed to be easy to pass. And the question isn't whether they're easy to pass, but whether the Constitution gives us enough power to allow them to be passed," Lana argued, but without much heat.

"But the hoop-jumping that has to go on to get a law passed could be detrimental to our nation's health," Chris pointed out.

"All laws need to go through the same hoop jumping, though," Lana said reasonably. "There's a reason why we have the process set up the way we do. Changing the Constitution will take even longer and years more of arguing and that time could be spent more productively actually starting to get environmental laws through the system."

"The problem is that the Constitution lets the politicians add all kind of rider clauses to their bills," Chris said. "So a nice bill that will save the enviroment might have a hidden line item that gives billions of dollars to weapons development and it gets shot down."

"But all a constitutional amendment would do is say that we're allowed to make laws about the environment which we already can do, it won't fix any of that stuff."

Lawyering Up, Week 4: Wed, Period 2 (1/30)

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