Last year, for example, the group gave money to 4-H, the Boy Scouts of America, and the Texas Wildlife Association, all of which promote conservation and sponsor outdoor education - activities that could easily be linked to the sweeping priorities of Agenda 21. While the NRA is hardly a hotbed of sustainable activism, it supports several programs that dovetail with Agenda 21. To get an understanding of the breadth of this language, it’s worth noting that, under its broadest interpretation, Texas’ bill could have curtailed the activities of the National Rifle Association. In Texas, a similarly sweeping anti-Agenda 21 bill submitted this year sought to prevent any governmental entity from accepting money from or granting money to any “nongovernmental or intergovernmental organization accredited by the United Nations to implement a policy that originated in the Agenda 21 plan”. “We wouldn’t be able to use CFL light bulbs in state buildings because that would be considered energy efficiency,” he said. Arizona house minority leader Chad Campbell called his state’s bill the “ most poorly crafted bill” in the statehouse at the time. The exception was Alabama, which unanimously adopted a law in 2012 to prevent any future effort to “deliberately or inadvertently infringe or restrict private property rights without due process, as may be required by policy recommendations originating in, or traceable to ‘Agenda 21’”.Īs Alabama’s legislation demonstrates, one of the biggest dangers of anti-Agenda 21 bills lies in their often-vague wording, which can obscure many of their potential impacts. Almost all have failed, either dying in committee, getting defeated on the statehouse floor or – in the case of Missouri’s 2013 bill – getting vetoed by the governor. While Arizona’s bill was especially concerning, it’s only one of several anti-Agenda 21 bills that have come to the floor in state legislatures across the country. The state’s chamber of commerce was among the bill’s staunchest opponents. It could negatively impact not only Phoenix and its residents, but the entire state”.Īgenda 21 addresses issues ranging from children’s health to public transportation to women’s empowerment, all of which could also have been severely curtailed under the sweeping wording of Arizona’s bill. If it hadn’t been defeated, Phoenix mayor Greg Stanton feared the bill “would send the message that Phoenix doesn’t believe in a sustainable economic future. If it had passed, it could also have cost the state millions of dollars in lost revenue, as well as thousands of jobs. Taken at face value, Arizona’s bill – which was defeated in 2012 – would have curtailed almost any sustainability efforts in the state, restricted the activities of tens of thousands of philanthropic organizations that promote sustainability, and potentially scared away hundreds of sustainability-minded companies. In Arizona, for example, a proposed bill dictated that the state could not “adopt or implement the creed, doctrine, or principles or any tenet” of Agenda 21, and prohibited it from “implementing programs of, expending any sum of money for, being a member of, receiving funding from, contracting services from, or giving financial or other forms of aid to” a host of organizations with sustainability agendas, including the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. Legislators in several states have even created anti-Agenda 21 bills, many of which could pose serious threats to companies pursuing sustainability in those states. Criticism of the resolution extended to the Republican party’s 2012 platform, which stated: “We strongly reject the UN Agenda 21 as erosive of American sovereignty.” APC is on the political fringes, but anti-Agenda 21 sentiment is moving into the political mainstream.
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