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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January 7, 2019

WASHINGTON, DC - A federal court has ruled in favor of the Sierra Club that the Environmental Protection Agency must expedite the public release of approximately twenty thousand pages of emails, as well as calendars, for acting EPA Administrator…

January 4, 2019

  New Report Shows Coal Plant Highly Uneconomic        

December 19, 2018

SAINT PAUL, MN -- Today, opponents of the Line 3 tar sands pipeline filed multiple lawsuits with the Court of Appeals challenging the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) approval of the project. On June 28, the PUC approved Enbridge’s proposal to…

December 13, 2018

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the US Forest Service’s federal approval for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross two national forests and the Appalachian Trail.

December 10, 2018

MISSION, TX-- On Friday, the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC) filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to challenge its use of unlawful waivers to expedite border wall construction in the Rio Grande Valley,…

10M+

acres of wilderness protected

200+

lawsuits filed to resist Trump

1K+

miles of dirty fuel pipelines blocked

382

coal plants retired