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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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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February 6, 2019

Today, officials with the Department of the Interior confirmed that destructive seismic testing will not take place in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge this winter.

February 4, 2019

A recent Sierra Club FOIA request of Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s emails and calendars show’s he is all too friendly with the industries he is supposed to be regulating. Here is a sampling of the findings from the first batch of newly-…

January 23, 2019

Last Friday, Sierra Club filed a brief in the Ingham County Circuit Court case on DTE’s nearly billion-dollar proposed gas plant, arguing that MDEQ did not follow the law when approving the air permit. Sierra Club initiated this case in October, but…

January 18, 2019

The Sierra Club and partner organizations filed an appeal today challenging a key permit for a massive proposed petrochemical facility known as an “ethane cracker” in Belmont County. The plant is part of the industry’s push to steeply increase U.S.…

January 15, 2019

WASHINGTON, DC -- Today, a federal judge ruled that the Trump Administration’s attempt to add a xenophobic citizenship question to the 2020 Census is illegal. The Commerce Department announced the addition of the citizenship status question to the…

10M+

acres of wilderness protected

200+

lawsuits filed to resist Trump

1K+

miles of dirty fuel pipelines blocked

382

coal plants retired