User:Shelbiedrake/sandbox

Besides Tamaqua, several other towns throughout the United States have drafted legislation that would, in effect, give nature natural rights. In 2008, residents in a town by the name of Shapleigh, Maine drafted a new section into their cities legal code. This new section stripped the rights of corporations granted by the United States Constitution, and granted rights to the nature and natural bodies of water that surrounded Shapleigh. What prompted the change to Shapleigh's legal code was a plan by the Nestle Corporation, which owns several water bottle brands such as Poland Spring, to pump truckloads of groundwater from Shapleigh to a bottling facility for resale. As of 2019, no lawsuits have been filed against Shapleigh, Maine for the change in the town's legal code, and the Nestle Corporation has not chosen to challenge the code either. In this case the CELDF did not assist the residents of Shapleigh in drafting sections 99-11 through 99-12 of their legal code, they were instead assisted by lawyers from Vermont.

In April of 2013, the CELDF assisted officials in Mora County, New Mexico in creating an ordinance that limited the ability of corporations to extract gas and oil, and gave rights to the natural ecosystems and natural bodies of water that resided within Mora County. This ordinance made Mora County the very first place within the United States to ban the production of gas and oil, within a certain area, in an official statement. A lawsuit was filed against Mora County on November 12, 2013 which asserted that Mora County's ordinance infringed on corporations rights, especially the first, fifth, and fourteenth amendments. In January of 2015, Mora County's ordinance was overthrown by U.S. District Judge James O. Browning as the ordinance violated corporations first amendment rights.