Proposed Constitutional Amendment: Arkansas Attorney General Rejects Clean and Healthy Natural Environment Amendment

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin transmitted a November 4th letter (Opinion No. 2025-110) to Jennifer Waymack Standerfer rejecting a popular name and ballot title for a proposed Arkansas constitutional amendment titled:

The Clean and Healthy Natural Environment Amendment.

The November 4th edition of the publication Arkansas Advocate states that the amendment was drafted by University of Arkansas students.

This is the second time that the proposed constitutional amendment has been rejected. See Opinion No. 2025-098.

The ballot title reads as follows:

This measure amends the Arkansas Constitution. It protects “The Natural State” for Arkansans today and in the future. It preserves the outdoors and natural resources for Arkansans’ recreation, economy, and public health. It gives Arkansans the fundamental right to a clean and healthy environment. The government will maintain and improve a clean and healthy environment. The government will protect the environment from unreasonable misuse. The legislature will make laws to implement and enforce the measure. This measure repeals all inconsistent state laws. This amendment is severable. If part of it is held invalid, the rest is still valid if it can stand on its own.

The Attorney General’s letter rejecting the ballot title states that problems in the text of the proposed amendment involve the phrases:

• Governmental entities.
• Fundamental right.
• Impact on other laws.

Additional issues cited in the November 4th letter include:

• Partisan coloring in the popular name.
• Legislative findings provision.
• Inconsistent provisions.
• Ballot title summary.
  • Requiring “governmental entities” to “[p]rotect Arkansas’s natural environment from unreasonable depletion and degradation”;
  • Requiring “governmental entities” to “[p]reserve Arkansas’s natural environment for future recreational enjoyment, economic enhancement, and public health benefits”;
  • Requiring “governmental entities” to “[a]llow for the efficient, limited, and adequate use of Arkansas’s natural environment for current recreational enjoyment, economic enhancement, and public health benefits”; and
  • Defining the phrase “natural environment” as “living and non-living things that occur naturally, without human creation or significant human alteration,” including without limitation “ecosystems, natural resources, wildlife, plant-life, and native species.”

A copy of the November 4th letter and the proposed constitutional amendment can be found here.