Environmental Justice

EELP collaborates with environmental justice and Tribal organizations and coalitions to identify legal pathways for laws, regulations, and policies to be more equitable. We produce legal research on how governmental agencies can drive meaningful engagement and produce more just environmental and public health outcomes for impacted communities.

Media Inquiries

Regulatory Tracker

The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL)

The pipeline is operational but still lacks a key permit from the Corps to cross under Lake Oahe in South Dakota. The Corps issued a draft EIS analyzing the impacts of issuing that permit on Sep. 8, 2023, and plans to issue the final EIS in 2025.

January 28, 2025

CleanLaw Podcast

CleanLaw — Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, Part II: Environmental Justice Lawyering in Practice

Hannah Perls speaks with Debbie Chizewer and Nick Leonard about their work representing frontline communities facing disparate environmental harms.

December 2, 2024

EELP News

How Durable Is President Biden’s Environmental Justice Agenda?

Which elements of Biden’s EJ agenda can be preserved if Trump wins?

November 1, 2024

CleanLaw Podcast

CleanLaw — 60 Years of Defending Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, Part 1

Hannah Perls speaks with Columbia Law Professor Olatunde Johnson about Louisiana v. EPA, disparate impacts, and the history and future of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

October 25, 2024

Legal Analysis

Key Changes in CEQ’s Phase 2 Regulations Implementing NEPA

A review of three key changes to the rule: factors that shape agencies’ level and scope of analysis, implementation of recent amendments to NEPA, and integrating environmental justice considerations.

August 8, 2024

Comments Filed

EELP supports comments on EPA’s Technical Guidance for Assessing Environmental Justice in Regulatory Analysis

January 30, 2024

Legal Analysis

President Biden Issues Long-Awaited Update to Clinton-era Environmental Justice Executive Order

On April 21, 2023, President Biden issued Executive Order (EO) 14096, “Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All,” updating President Clinton’s EO 12898 issued in 1994, “Federal Actions […]

August 3, 2023

CleanLaw Podcast

CleanLaw — Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm

Hannah talks with Susan Crawford, the John A. Riley clinical professor at Harvard Law School, and Michelle Mapp, an Equal Justice Works law fellow at the ACLU of South Carolina and former CEO of the South Carolina Community Loan Fund, about Susan’s most recent book, Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm.

June 26, 2023

CleanLaw Podcast

CleanLaw — Equitable Disaster Insurance & Climate Change with Hannah Perls, Carolyn Kousky, & Sean Hecht

The past, present, and future of disaster insurance.

May 5, 2023