Oceans need a good lawyer too.

From the broad, fertile croplands of the great Central Valley to the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada to the heat-baked depths of Death Valley, California is a remarkably diverse state with abundant natural resources. Learn about some of the office's current and past legal cases.

With staff in San Francisco and our newly opened Los Angeles office, Earthjustice’s California regional office fights for the rights of all to a healthy environment, including:

Protecting Communities & Public Lands From Oil Development

For decades, California has been a top domestic producer of oil. Now, new and more destructive techniques are being used to extract oil from fields thought to have been emptied out. With these more aggressive—and largely unregulated—extraction techniques like fracking and acid well stimulation, oil companies have begun exploring even long untouched wells. But these practices have been implicated in serious health and environmental impacts; fracking has been linked to groundwater contamination and requires large quantities of water in arid regions at a time when California is suffering from extreme drought. Residents around the state are fighting to keep these risky practices, as well as conventional oil drilling, from threatening their communities.

SAFEGUARDING OCEAN ECOSYSTEMS

California’s coast and ocean offer important economic and recreational opportunities for people and crucial habitat for wildlife. Earthjustice works to improve federal fisheries management of Pacific Coast forage fish, to protect keystone species such as sea otters, and to reduce harmful impacts to whales and other marine mammals from military training and entanglement in fishing gear.

ADVANCING CLEAN ENERGY INNOVATION

California is a national leader when it comes to renewable energy and forward-thinking energy policies. Earthjustice is working to promote clean energy as an affordable alternative to fossil fuels, and to clean transportation as the way to ensure clean air and climate change goals. We focus our efforts on state utility commissions and the state and local air agencies, the key arenas where most energy policy is made.

CLEARING THE AIR IN LOS ANGELES AND THE CENTRAL VALLEY

Los Angeles and San Joaquin Valley cities consistently rank among the worst in the nation for air quality. In neighborhoods across Southern California, millions of people are exposed to levels of smog and soot pollution so dangerous that it may be unsafe even for a healthy person to go outside. Partnering with conservation, health, and community groups, Earthjustice is pressuring the EPA and state regulators to do their jobs and give citizens the clean air they deserve and have a legal right to breathe.

OPPOSING HAZARDOUS FOSSIL FUEL TRANSPORT

On the West Coast, industry is rushing to expand its capacity to ship hazardous crude oil by rail car and marine vessels, spurred by the boom in shale oil and gas and tar sands mining, and increasing our reliance on fossil fuels. The risks to communities along transport routes are severe: derailments, spills, and fires from the highly volatile Bakken crude oil have become more frequent. And facilities such as crude oil terminals are also major sources of volatile organic compound emissions—a precursor to ozone air pollution—in areas already suffering from poor air quality and high rates of asthma. Earthjustice is challenging permits for these fossil fuel transport projects, seeking to compel full environmental review and public participation.

FIGHTING Dangerous PESTICIDE USE

California, one of the nation’s top agricultural producers, is also a major user of agricultural pesticides. While the state has adopted some of the strongest pesticide laws in the country, they are inadequately enforced and frequently fail to protect the environment and health of those who live where pesticides are most heavily used. Earthjustice works to phase out the most dangerous pesticides and to impose safeguards on those that remain in use.