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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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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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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SALT LAKE CITY, UT – Today, a Utah federal District Court ruled in favor of a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) challenge to protect iconic Utah public lands from the Alton mining expansion. Filed by Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), Grand Canyon Trust, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment and WildEarth Guardians, the groups have been seeking to protect Bryce Canyon National Park and the local environment from the coal mining expansion for the last ten years. 

Fresno, Calif.— Conservation groups sued the Bureau of Land Management today over the Trump administration’s rushed sale of seven oil and gas leases on public lands in Kern County, California.

Brownsville, TX -- Today, news broke that Annova LNG has abandoned its plans for its LNG fracked gas export terminal when it filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to withdraw its certificate. Annova LNG, backed by Exelon, Black and Veatch, Enbridge, and Kiewit Energy group, was one of three fracked gas export terminals proposed for the Rio Grande Valley. If built, Annova LNG would have destroyed wetlands, blocked a wildlife corridor threatening the survival of endangered wildlife, and put communities needlessly at risk.

State regulators charged with looking out for the best interests of Indiana’s utility customers failed today in that duty by allowing Duke Energy Indiana to keep forcing Hoosiers to pay millions of dollars every month to run their coal-burning power plants, Edwardsport and Gibson, even when cheaper energy is available.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif.— Community and environmental groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging Kern County’s adoption of an ordinance that would fast-track permitting for oil and gas projects and eliminate future environmental reviews and public participation.

200+

lawsuits filed to resist Trump

1K+

miles of dirty fuel pipelines blocked

300

coal plants retired

10M+

acres of wilderness protected