News — The Government Law Center at Albany Law School will host the third installment of the 2022 Warren M. Anderson Legislative Seminar Series, “New York's New Green Amendment: Mountain or Molehill?” on April 26 from 8-9 a.m.
The session will focus on the recently added New York State Constitutional Amendment that guarantees, “Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.”
Environmental Law professors from four law schools will discuss the potential impact of the provision on existing law and policy, as well as how similar state constitutional provisions have been interpreted.
Seminars are free and open to the public, but registration is required. For attorneys that attend, one continuing legal education (CLE) professional practice credit is available.
Albany Law School Professor Jonathan Rosenbloom will moderate the seminar. Panelists include:
• Rebecca M. Bratspies – City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law, Founding Director of the Center for Urban Environmental Reform
• John C. Dernbach – Widener University Commonwealth Law School, Director of the Environmental Law and Sustainability Center
• Nicholas Robinson – Pace University Elizabeth Haub School of Law
“The Green Amendment to the New York State Constitution raises questions about what new limitations there are on government action that impacts the environment and what new protections beyond the existing environmental laws, if any, New Yorkers now enjoy,” said Patrick A. Woods, Deputy Director of the Government Law Center. “We are bringing together this panel of scholars of state government law and environmental law to help answer some of those questions.”
This seminar follows previous meetings about ethics reform and revitalization of the New York State Law Revision Commission held earlier this spring. A final seminar is scheduled in May. Each seminar features experts addressing major legal and policy issues pending before the New York State government.
All previous seminars can be viewed at
The series is named in honor of Warren M. Anderson ’40 who served in the New York State Senate for 36 years, working with six governors. He was the longest-serving majority leader of the Senate, holding that position from 1973-1988.
Anderson was best known for working to bail out New York City from its fiscal crisis in the mid-1970s. He was also responsible for establishing the state’s Tuition Assistance Program, which helped fund the education of thousands of New York college students.
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