Environmental Law

Environmental Law Program

Environmental Law Program

The Environmental Law Program uses strategic legal campaigns to fight climate change, to protect clean air, water and wilderness, and to promote justice for communities threatened by pollution.


In the past year alone, we launched more than 200 legal actions to challenge the fossil fuel industry's destructive effects on our air, water, and climate.

About Our Program

Our team of top-notch attorneys and legal staff leverages all of the Club's tools of democracy, integrating legal advocacy with grassroots organizing, sophisticated communications, a state-of-the-art digital strategies team, and administrative lobbying.

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Support the Environmental Law Program

We pair litigation with effective community organizing and strong local communications to build genuine, informed support from community members and government officials.

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Sierra Club ELP in Lake Tahoe

Our Staff

We are a team of professional attorneys and staff who combine sophisticated legal tactics with a commitment to social and environmental justice at the grassroots level. We pair litigation with effective community organizing and strong local communications to build genuine, informed support from community members and government officials, making courtroom victories sustainable over the long term.

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November 8, 2019

A federal judge blocked the 2,000-acre expansion of a coal mine in the wildlands of Colorado’s Gunnison National Forest today, ordering the Trump administration to consider limiting methane emissions and address potential harm to water and fish.

September 23, 2019

As a result of a legal challenge to a massive proposed petrochemical facility in Belmont County, the company behind the project will implement several critical air pollution concerns that state regulators failed to address.

August 21, 2019

Environmental and animal protection groups today sued the Trump administration over its new regulations that dramatically weaken the Endangered Species Act.

August 14, 2019

LANSING, MI -- Earlier this week, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel joined twenty two other Attorneys General and seven local governments in a lawsuit challenging the Trump Administration’s so-called “Affordable Clean Energy” rule, more…

August 13, 2019

The Sierra Club and a coalition of environmental allies launched a lawsuit today challenging former coal lobbyist and EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s “ACE” rule -- known by many as the Dirty Power Plan.

10M+

acres of wilderness protected

200+

lawsuits filed to resist Trump

1K+

miles of dirty fuel pipelines blocked

382

coal plants retired