> On its face, the proposal seems straightforward and appealing. Who could be against clean air and water? With backing from a host of environmental organizations, including the Nature Conservancy and the Natural Resources Defense Council, as well as putative good-government groups such as the League of Women Voters, the amendment is expected to pass decisively. But beneath its innocent veneer, the amendment could upend environmental law in the state. > “It’s a real wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Tom Stebbins, executive director of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York (LRANY) told me. As written, the amendment appears to give individuals and activist groups undefined—potentially unlimited—rights to sue both the state government and private parties over perceived environmental wrongs. In other words, Stebbins says, the measure takes environmental enforcement “out of the hands of accountable elected officials and puts it in the hands of private attorneys. That’s not the way to govern.” Philip K. Howard, a longtime advocate of nonpartisan legal and regulatory reform, told me he believes the provision “will open a Pandora’s box of litigation.”