Poetry Inspires Hope and Climate Action
I became a lawyer to pursue justice for the poor and for those deemed voiceless. Over the years, as I watched the environmental crisis intensify, while welcoming my children and then grandchildren into...
View ArticleCan Regulation Promote Environmental Justice?
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is charged with protecting human health and the environment. Some advocates argue, however, that not everyone is protected equally. Low-income communities...
View ArticleAre Biofuels Doing More Harm Than Good?
The annual global production of biofuels—liquid or gaseous energy sources derived from organic material—has skyrocketed in recent years, experiencing a 475% increase between 2001 and 2015. This rapid...
View ArticleTribal Regulatory Authority to Combat Climate Change
Just last year, residents of the small community of Newtok, Alaska—home to approximately 380 Yup’ik Alaska Native people—packed up their belongings and moved away. As a result of climate change, the...
View ArticleUtility Ratemaking for Racial Justice
The NAACP has long emphasized the importance of environmental and climate justice to marginalized communities, including issues in the energy sector. People of color and low-income people in the United...
View ArticleAre Artificial Christmas Trees Safe?
Opting for an artificial Christmas tree this year? Chances are, the answer is “yes.” Over 80 percent of U.S. households that put up a Christmas tree will choose an artificial tree over the natural,...
View ArticleRegulating to Achieve Environmental Justice
Low-income, minority, and tribal communities disproportionately suffer from the distribution of pollution in the United States. In 1994, President Bill Clinton directed federal agencies to identify...
View ArticleFERC Proposes Revamp to Pipeline Approval Process
Low-income and minority communities in the United States have long suffered from the negative impacts of natural gas development. In response, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced...
View ArticleThe Inequalities of California’s Environmental Quality Act
In recent years, one California statute has been used to fight the construction of homeless shelters, block denser urban housing, delay solar projects, and challenge a public transit proposal designed...
View ArticleBig Oil Fights New Environmental Law in California
Earlier this fall, California Governor Gavin Newson signed into law environmental protections for California residents. Three days later, the oil and gas industry submitted to the state attorney...
View ArticleEPA Creates New Environmental Justice Office
The environmental justice movement has a long and storied history in the United States. During the height of the movement in the 1970s and 1980s, climate demonstrators and activists coined the term...
View ArticleElectrifying Environmental Justice
Over the past several years, electric vehicles (EVs) have taken the United States by storm; EV sales more than doubled between 2020 and 2021 alone. Although climate scientists emphasize that...
View ArticleNative Self-Governance and Environmental Justice
Only three active copper smelting plants exist in the United States—two just beyond the borders of Native American reservations. Despite comprising only one percent of the U.S. population, Native...
View Article