5 of Our Top Legal Wins From 2025

The arrival of the second Trump administration has brought a wave of brutal attacks on the environment. Our response has been just as relentless. Earthjustice was created to fight for our planet with the power of the law.  Again and again, we are showing up in court and winning.

Pushing back against this administration’s lawless actions is only half the battle. As we close out the year, we are also celebrating the victories that move us toward a more just, sustainable world. Here are some of the year’s biggest wins.

Thousands of convict tangs school in the shallows off Jarvis Island in the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument. (Courtney Couch / NOAA)

1. Protecting Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument

In August, a federal court in Honolulu delivered a major win for the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument. It ruled that the Trump administration’s attempt to open over 400,000 square miles of protected waters to commercial fishing was unlawful.

In April, President Trump signed a proclamation seeking to strip protections from the monument, threatening to destroy a unique and fragile web of life in favor of commercial interests. And later that month, the National Marine Fisheries Service sent a letter to commercial fishing permit holders informing them that the ban on commercial fishing in the area no longer existed. In opening the monument to commercial fishing, the administration did not even follow a semblance of a legal process.

So in May, Earthjustice went to court. On behalf of Kāpa‘a, Conservation Council for Hawai‘i, and the Center for Biological Diversity, we sued the Trump administration. In August, the court issued a decisive ruling in our favor, confirming that commercial fishing remains banned in the monument.

While the court ruled that commercial fishing is still banned for now, our case is ongoing. The Trump administration is pursuing a new strategy to strip protections from the monument, and we are prepared to fight back at every step.

Robert Taylor, with Concerned Citizens of St. John, outside his home in Reserve, Louisiana. (Brad Zweerink / Earthjustice)

2. A Historic Victory in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley

For nearly a decade, residents of St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, have fought tirelessly for the right to breathe clean air. In 2018, the EPA released data showing that the parish held the five census tracts with the nation’s highest cancer risk. They clustered around one highly toxic facility owned by Denka, a multinational chemical manufacturer.

Residents organized, marched, petitioned, sued, and even traveled across the globe to confront the company poisoning their community. Now, they’ve won a long-overdue reprieve.

On May 13, 2025, Denka announced it suspended production at its St. John facility due to mounting financial losses. Denka said it does not intend to restart operations for an indefinite period. Throughout the fight, Earthjustice represented community groups in St. John.

Leah Atwood, Jenaba Kilgore, Lazzlo Jenkins, and Brooke Porter, collective members and leaders of Agroecology Commons, stand together at the organization’s demonstration farm in El Sobrante, California. (Chris Jordan-Bloch/Earthjustice)

3. Restoring Grants That Trump’s Agriculture Department Yanked From Farmers and Community Groups

In August, Earthjustice litigation forced the Trump administration to reinstate multiple USDA grants to farmers and sustainable agriculture organizations.

Early in this term, the Trump administration canceled more than 600 USDA grants, hundreds of which benefited farmers and organizations that work to strengthen rural communities, address food insecurity, advance sustainable agriculture, and more.

Earthjustice, alongside FarmSTAND and Farmers Justice Center, represented several organizations who were owed more than $34 million in grant funding.

In August, the court issued a preliminary injunction that restored funding to our clients while the case plays out in court, where we will challenge USDA’s pattern of unlawfully terminating hundreds of grants. If the judge ultimately rules in our favor, it could provide relief to other groups that lost grants and restore funding that serves farmers and communities. However, a recent Supreme Court decision puts both the preliminary injunction ruling and our ongoing challenge at risk.

Earthjustice lawsuits are also challenging the freezing or canceling of a much bigger pool of grants totaling billions of dollars. This money includes $2.8 billion for a national network of electric vehicle charging stations as well as grants to advance sustainable agriculture, environmental justice, climate resilience, and environmental restoration.

Richards Bay, South Africa. (Hoberman Collection/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

4. Victory in South Africa: Court Overturns Gas Plant Approval

In a major win for our partners at Natural Justice, the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa overturned the environmental approval for a massive gas power plant proposed in Richards Bay. The court found that Eskom, South Africa’s state-run utility, failed to consider renewable energy alternatives, assess cumulative climate impacts, and provide meaningful public participation — especially by neglecting to publish materials in IsiZulu, the region’s primary language.

This was the first legal challenge to a gas power plant in South Africa and the first case we worked on with Natural Justice. Earthjustice attorneys supported our partners in bringing this case, and it became a blueprint for over a dozen other gas plant challenges by Natural Justice. The Court of Appeal’s decision not only sends the Richards Bay project back to square one — it also sets binding precedent for all high courts in South Africa. We’re now strategizing with our partners on how to best leverage this ruling in other gas plant challenges.

A Rice’s whale photographed in the Gulf of Mexico. (Lisa Conger and Beth Josephson / NOAA Fisheries / Permit #21938)

5. Protecting the Gulf of Mexico from Offshore Drilling

A federal court ruled in our favor, holding that the government broke the law two years ago when it irresponsibly put 73 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico up for auction to oil and gas companies.

Oil and gas drilling in the Gulf spikes climate emissions and threatens already-overburdened communities living near oil refineries and other polluting infrastructure. It also imperils many kinds of marine life. In this case, Earthjustice sued the government for failing to adequately consider how the lease sale would harm the critically endangered Gulf of Mexico Rice’s whale and drive climate change. We also raised concerns about public health impacts on Gulf communities.

We are continuing to fight the government’s attempts to sell our oceans to the oil and gas industry. Just last month, Earthjustice sued the Trump administration over its plan to offer up an additional 80 million acres of public waters in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling while blatantly ignoring one of our bedrock environmental laws.

Our new lawsuit aims to stop this sale before it locks in decades of new pollution for coastal communities already overburdened by the fossil fuel industry and risks of catastrophic oil spills. Our lawsuit will also defend endangered sea turtles and the last of the endangered Rice’s whales that call the Gulf home.

Bonus Win: In Settlement of Greenwashing Lawsuit, Tyson Agrees to Stop Making Climate Claims

For years, Tyson Foods, one of the largest meat companies in the United States and globally, had been claiming that it was on a path to “net-zero by 2050” and that it produced “climate-smart beef.” Without backup for these claims, Tyson knowingly capitalized on consumers’ well-intentioned purchases for its own profit and at the expense of our climate.

Thanks to a recent settlement of a lawsuit brought by Earthjustice, along with Animal Legal Defense Fund, FarmSTAND, and Edelson P.C. on behalf of Environmental Working Group, Tyson must stop using this misleading language and refrain from making new climate claims unless and until it can prove to an expert that they are substantiated – a bar we doubt they will ever clear.

Our work doesn’t stop when we win. We continue to support our partners in order to hold on to our progress and stay vigilant against new threats. The onslaught of environmental attacks from polluting industries and their allies in the Trump administration is not slowing down – but neither is the pace of our litigation.