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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September 4, 2020

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) issued a new [Biological Opinion] for the fracked gas Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). The 303-mile project is stalled while awaiting necessary authorizations, including from the U.S…

August 31, 2020

Today, former coal lobbyist and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler finalized another rollback of key clean water protections, which had been put in place to prevent the vast majority of coal plants across the United…

August 31, 2020

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled against the Trump Administration’s efforts to skirt the law and give a pass to allow automakers to pollute more. Today’s ruling states that the National Highway…

August 28, 2020

Today, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas declined to require Kinder Morgan to stop construction of the Permian Highway fracked gas pipeline across 129 waterways, allowing for the destruction of hundreds of acres of habitat…

August 27, 2020

Philadelphia, PA — The Third Circuit Federal Court of Appeals rejected the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of a weak air pollution rule today that would allow coal-fired power plants in Pennsylvania to exceed pollution limits.

10M+

acres of wilderness protected

200+

lawsuits filed to resist Trump

1K+

miles of dirty fuel pipelines blocked

382

coal plants retired