Gavin Kearney

Deputy Managing Attorney

Clean Energy Program

gavin-kearney_800x600

Bar Admissions

IL

Gavin Kearney

Deputy Managing Attorney Clean Energy Program

Kathryn McGrath
Public Affairs and Communications Strategist
kmcgrath@earthjustice.org

Gavin Kearney is a deputy managing attorney in the Clean Energy Program, helping to advance Earthjustice’s efforts to end reliance on dirty power plants, address toxic coal ash waste, and transition to clean, renewable energy sources.

Gavin has spent his career serving and partnering with impacted communities to address systemic racism and achieve environmental justice.

Prior to joining Earthjustice in 2022, Gavin directed the Equitable Community Development program at Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights where he led multi-faceted, community-driven advocacy to ensure equity in areas such as land use, housing policy, and the clean energy economy. Previously Gavin served as the director of the Environmental Justice program at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest where he worked with community coalitions to address environmental racism and advance sustainability in areas such as solid waste management, power plant siting, and land use.

Gavin received his undergraduate degree from Lawrence University and his law degree, cum laude, from the University of Minnesota Law School.

Kathryn McGrath
Public Affairs and Communications Strategist
kmcgrath@earthjustice.org

Bar Admissions

IL

Quoted in the News

July 13, 2026

Indianapolis Star

Indiana seeks coal ash program as feds move to rollback regulations

“Imagine a concerned community trying to figure out what a permit is actually trying to do and who is responsible for it. It adds up to a lot of confusion and makes it hard for folks to understand if their water is being protected and what to do to address those concerns.”
June 2, 2026

Inside EPA

CCR Rollbacks

"EPA justifies each proposed change with a handful of assertions from industry actors, regularly stating that a proposed change is warranted because Company X claims this or Company Y claims that. Just two years ago, EPA took action to regulate hundreds of coal ash dumps and CCR management units because it documented an exhausted record of harm from them. Now, EPA proposes to deregulate them because industry asked them to."
February 27, 2026

Michigan Live

As toxic coal ash contaminates Michigan water, Trump officials relax cleanup rules

“Companies were free to store coal ash anywhere they wanted to, and oftentimes that just meant digging a hole in the ground and dumping it in.”
March 12, 2024

Energy News Network

Parsing legal definitions, power industry pushes back on EPA coal ash enforcement

“The whole overarching point (of the federal rules) is that groundwater contamination is a big problem; it’s really unsafe, and we have to prevent it. You can’t let water in (to a coal ash impoundment); you can’t let water out; you can’t let water just sit inside the impoundment.”

Latest Press Statements

A man wearing a grey shirt and blue apron stands in front of an electric range top. With one hand, he is holding a white utensil to a steel saucepan. To his left (our right) is a young woman in glasses and a green t shirt. She is holding a jar of something white in one hand and with her other, she is pouring what she scooped out of the jar into the pan. To the man's right (our left) is a young man leaning on the counter beside the stove, smiling at the saucepan. In the background are two other people looking at a chopping board as if prepping ingredients.
August 3, 2026

Federal Court Upholds Village of Oak Park’s All-Electric New Construction Ordinance

Federal judge rules Oak Park ordinance requiring new buildings to be all-electric is not preempted by federal law
The Stanton Energy Center coal plant and coal ash storage located near Orlando, Florida.
July 14, 2026

EPA Floats Plan to Speed Up Its Dismantling of Coal Ash Protections

The scheme would speed up the implementation of EPA’s efforts to gut coal ash protections
Hundreds of sandhill cranes in a coal ash pond at Schahfer Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant.
May 27, 2026

EPA Moves to Establish a Federal Permit Program to Allow More Coal Ash Pollution

Today the EPA dusted off a proposal from the first Trump administration
The now-closed Waukegan Generating Station, on the shore of Lake Michigan in Waukegan, Ill. Beachgoers picnic and play on the sandy shore.
December 11, 2024

Statement on the Supreme Court Denial of a Stay of EPA’s Legacy Coal Ash Rule

The EPA’s Legacy CCR Surface Impoundment Rule extends safeguards to hundreds of coal ash dump sites that had been left unregulated
A close up photo of a smokestack with a large amount of white smoke coming out as one bird flies near it.
June 28, 2024

Federal Court Blocks Attempt by Coal Power Plants to Evade Cleaning Up Coal Ash Contaminating Water

U.S. Court of Appeals affirms that EPA regulations prohibit closing coal ash dumps with ash sitting in groundwater