Press Releases

July 1, 2025

Chicago, IL – Chicago’s Trump International Hotel & Tower has agreed to cease its illegal killing of aquatic life, bring its water intake structure into compliance with the Clean Water Act (CWA), and pay a record $4.8 million settlement after years of operating in violation of federal and state environmental law. The settlement is the result of a lawsuit filed by Friends of the Chicago River, the Sierra Club, and the Illinois Attorney General in 2018 after the Sierra Club discovered the Trump Tower cooling water intake violated state and federal law during a routine permit review.

June 30, 2025

Washington, D.C. - Today, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency’s intention to gut the Effluent Limitation Guidelines.

June 30, 2025

San Francisco, Ca – A full page open letter in the Sunday papers of the San Francisco Chronicle (A3) and Seattle Times (A5) calls on the country’s largest technology company CEOs – Amazon’s Andy Jassy, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella – to power their data centers with clean energy, or risk failing to meet their own climate goals.

June 28, 2025

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Sen. Mike Lee announced he would withdraw language forcing the sale of more than a million acres of public lands from the sprawling Republican budget reconciliation bill. 

The move comes after Lee previously failed to win approval from the U.S. Senate parliamentarian to include an earlier version of the proposal in the bill.

June 28, 2025

Washington, DC – Late last night, Senate Republicans released updated text of Donald Trump’s dangerous Budget Reconciliation bill that doubles down on efforts to endanger public health, sell off our nation’s public lands, kill clean energy jobs and their economic impact, and raise costs for working families and small businesses—all to hand big tax breaks to billionaires and corporate polluters.

June 28, 2025

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Senate Republicans unveiled their proposed version of Donald Trump’s sprawling “one big, beautiful” budget reconciliation bill, including Sen. Mike Lee’s controversial proposal to sell off vast swaths of public lands.

June 27, 2025

ATLANTA - After another week of hearings on Georgia Power’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) and its rate case settlement proposal, Georgia residents are still left in the dark about the company’s plans to build fossil fuel plants, and worry about the future of their energy bills.

June 27, 2025

Oakland, CA – The Sierra Club filed another lawsuit against the Trump Administration, this time seeking to hold the Department of the Interior accountable for its failure to respond to basic Freedom of Information Act requests within the timeline required by law, or even to provide estimates of when such requests may be fulfilled.

June 27, 2025

Claxton, TN - Tomorrow, two smoke stacks at the Bull Run power plant will be imploded and removed, marking the end of the coal-fired power plant. Following years of advocacy by the Sierra Club, the Tennessee Valley Authority retired the Bull Run power plant in 2023. Since 2012, TVA has retired or announced plans to retire 10 coal-fired power plants. 

June 27, 2025

HARRISBURG, PA – Public interest groups, led by NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), today legally challenged the Department of Energy’s mandate to keep the Eddystone Generating Station open past its planned closing. The Department of Energy (DOE) issued an order on May 30 forcing the uneconomic oil and gas power plant to remain operational past its planned May 31, 2025 retirement date.