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Pennsylvania environmentalists who sued over alleged cryptocurrency mining pollution have invoked the state’s “green amendment,” ushering the long-standing constitutional language into new territory.
The lawsuit filed March 25 is thought to be the nation’s first crypto mining complaint that cites a state’s constitutional right to a clean environment, said Aaron Freiwald, managing partner of Freiwald Law PC and lead attorney for plaintiff Save Carbon County. The lawsuit names the state and Stronghold Digital Mining Inc. as defendants.
The case, filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, points specifically to part of Pennsylvania’s Environmental Rights Amendment that designates the state government as the trustee of environmental resources and all state residents as beneficiaries. That requires Pennsylvania’s governor and agencies to put people before corporations in environmental matters, Freiwald said.
“Here we have an industry that is so energy intensive and yet produces no real benefit other than to the investors,” he said.
Save Carbon County accused Stronghold Digital Mining, which owns and operates two Pennsylvania electric power plants to fuel its mining activities, of “polluting the environment and harming neighbors” by emitting 6 million tons of carbon per year from burning waste coal and old tires for energy. A host of statutory claims—including alleged violations of state public and private nuisance laws and others—could leave Stronghold on the hook for damages, emissions testing, and more, according to the lawsuit.
Pennsylvania’s green amendment, if successfully defended, would bar the state from giving Stronghold millions in alternative energy tax credits annually, as well as revoke the company’s agency-approved permits, Freiwald said.
“We are analyzing the lawsuit but adamantly deny any wrongdoing,” a Stronghold spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We’ll take this as an opportunity to educate the public on our environmentally beneficial operations” like removing piles of waste coal and reclaiming blighted land.
Pennsylvania didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Green amendments set narrower guardrails for courts since all existing laws must be interpreted through that lens, said Maya van Rossum, who founded the nonprofit Green Amendments for the Generations and is credited with starting the country’s green amendment movement.
“This becomes another example of how a green amendment can help provide a legal tool” to counterbalance industry’s sway over lawmaking, she said.
Crypto mining has spurred environmental lawsuits in Kentucky, New York, and other states, but there’s no bellwether to point to yet because those legal battles are still in progress, said Mandy DeRoche, deputy managing attorney in Earthjustice’s clean energy practice.
Green amendments—the term for constitutionally guaranteed environment rights—have been around in a couple of states, including Pennsylvania, since the 1970s. But they got a popularity boost in 2023 when a Montana judge ruled that state energy permitting laws violated plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.
Last year’s outcome in Montana was an example of just how powerful green amendments can be, Freiwald said, “but we’re not naive about fact that there will be big money and lots of lawyers on the other side of this case” in Pennsylvania.
Freiwald’s case looks like a usual green amendment lawsuit since it deals with alleged pollution cleanup, van Rossum said. But its relation to cryptocurrency, a new and still largely unregulated field, sets it apart.
“I really think we’re going to see more” cryptocurrency lawsuits as more people become aware of the industry’s environmental impact, Freiwald said.
The case is Save Carbon Cty. v. Commonwealth of Pa., Pa. Ct. Com. Pl., No. 240302915, complaint filed 3/25/24.
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