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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January 23, 2024

Phoenix, AZ -- In a disheartening verdict, today the Maricopa County Superior Court ruled to uphold the Arizona Corporation Commission’s (ACC) decision to approve Salt River Project’s (SRP) revised proposal to expand the gas-fired Coolidge…

January 17, 2024

Detroit, MI – The Sierra Club filed a brief in its lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) unlawful approval of Michigan’s request to move the Detroit area from nonattainment to attainment for ground-level ozone pollution.

January 12, 2024

In a critical step to ensuring that the Martin Lake coal plant must reduce its harmful pollution, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s designation that two rural East Texas counties do…

January 10, 2024

Conservation groups sued the U.S. Forest Service today for failing to protect streams in the Cherry River watershed from the harmful effects of coal hauling in the Monongahela National Forest.

December 20, 2023

The Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club filed notice today of their intent to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to ensure that areas in 11 states and two U.S. territories have effective plans for cleaning up sulfur…

10M+

acres of wilderness protected

200+

lawsuits filed to resist Trump

1K+

miles of dirty fuel pipelines blocked

372

coal plants retired