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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March 15, 2020

The electricity grid operator PJM’s capacity market has been overcharging tens of millions of customers to prop up unneeded dirty power plants, a new analysis has found.

March 5, 2020

Conservation, environmental and landowners groups argued in federal court in Montana today that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ issuance of a permit authorizing the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to be constructed through hundreds of rivers,…

March 5, 2020

Detroit, Mich. -- Today, after several years of advocacy, Sierra Club, NRDC, National Housing Trust and DTE Energy reached a landmark agreement that will bring significant energy efficiency upgrades to utility customers in danger of having their…

March 4, 2020

Today, the Sierra Club appealed the Georgia Public Service Commission's decision to award Georgia Power $525 million to clean up decades-worth of coal ash contamination.

March 2, 2020

A federal appeals court today ruled that the U.S. Forest Service broke the law by failing to consider an alternative that would protect the Gunnison National Forest’s Pilot Knob area from coal mining. The decision by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of…

10M+

acres of wilderness protected

200+

lawsuits filed to resist Trump

1K+

miles of dirty fuel pipelines blocked

382

coal plants retired