The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States lays out a mission for the republic.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The first words are ‘We the People’, a clear indication that the government is not the highest authority, but in fact it reports to the people. This is echoed in the Bill of Rights, which opens with constraints on lawmaking, and so on all three branches of government, and concludes with the clarification that power resides with the people.

The First Amendment bars any legislative act to abridge the right to seek redress for grievances. That therefore makes any such act by the Executive or the Judiciary unlawful. This is a reinforcement of the standard that it is the people, not the government, who determine when rights have been violated and when a matter has been concluded fairly.

In court proceedings, it is juries of citizens that must find guilt, not judges or prosecutors. The legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government, must, effectively, ask permission to do what they seek to do through courts of law. The Fourth Amendment bars government from seizing papers and documents without a legitimate judicially determined cause.

This separation is seen throughout the Bill of Rights. Civil society is recognized as a reservoir of public authority, which authoritarian actions must not erode or infringe. This does not mean polluters can do as they wish; it means society can organize itself to prevent pollution and favor clean industry and enterprise.

This implied principle is reinforced by the limiting of military activity in communities (Third Amendment)—blocking unwanted intrusions—and by the Article I mandate to support the advancement of science and “useful arts”, for the purpose of benefitting society. Good outcomes from innovation are among the “Blessings of Liberty”; the word “Blessings” is crucial, and clearly does not envision a society where the innocent are routinely harmed by people and institutions who profit from harming them.

The Fifth Amendment prohibits the taking of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”. This is crucial for understanding that government is not granted, by the Constitution, any lawful authority to compel any human being to suffer toxic pollution, or the negative health effects of pollution moving through their environment. The Bill of Rights views such an action as fundamentally contrary to the structure of a democratic republic.

The Preamble also notes that the nation’s mission is to “establish Justice… promote the general Welfare”, and defend the people’s safety and security.

• “Common defence” was not only the mutual military defense of the 13 founding states; it was an intentionally general representation of the obligation of government to protect the human rights and liberties inherent in all people living under the Constitution.
• There is no “general Welfare” without justice; there is no justice without all people enjoying a genuine right against arbitrary violence, cruelty, and injustice.
• The republic stands when its commitment to fundamental human rights is upheld, day to day, by all of the instruments through which the people govern themselves.

The Constitution aims to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”. Should children and future generations thank us if what we leave to them is a world where “Liberty” has allowed unaccountable, flawed enterprises to soak them in toxins that will degrade their own lives and liberty and end their lives and the lives of those they love, prematurely?

The Ninth Amendment makes clear:

• Rights not enumerated in the text of the Constitution are nonetheless “retained by the people” and fully protected against unaccountable abuses of power.
• Rights are paramount; power is subordinate. That is the hierarchy set up by the Bill of Rights, and it was done deliberately.
• The framers understood that allowing government to rule without consent or reasoned good faith public service as the focus could lead to arbitrary killing, extrajudicial detention, and the elimination of basic freedoms.

The Tenth Amendment creates a critical check on centralized authority and its tendency toward arbitrary, uninformed, and coercive action. It specifies that:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The text does not allow for Congress to alter the scope of federal and state authority, or the natural authority of the people. It clearly specifies that federal authorities must be explicitly granted to the federal government in the written text of the Constitution itself. Congress is not granted authority to overrule the Constitution or strip the states of lawful authority.

What it does do, however, is grant the people the authority to limit or expand the powers exercised by state and local government. So long as those jurisdictions do not violate Constitutional rights, the people can empower them to intervene on their behalf, to prevent, limit, and punish harm and injustice.

This has implications for federal legislative or executive action, and for the courts. The Bill of Rights treats unaccountable harm as fundamentally illegitimate, indefensible, and unlawful. Actions by government that seek to reduce harm and protect human security and wellbeing, while honoring the rights of all, are inherently legitimate; actions that seek to remove rights protections or create a zone of impunity are inherently illegitimate.

Freedom from pollution is a Constitutional right. It is woven into the fabric of the Constitution and strongly reinforced by the Bill of Rights. Civil society, alongside state and local government, is one of the reservoirs of public authority, and the people are the ultimate power holders, to whom all public officials, including the Congress, the Executive, and the Courts, owe unfailingly honorable service.