Office

Policy and Legislation Team

Matt Roth for Earthjustice

1001 G St. NW, Ste. 1000
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 667-4500
eajuspal@earthjustice.org

The original stewards of the lands where the Policy & Legislation office is located were the Nacotchtank people, and later, the Piscataway and Pamunkey peoples. As occupiers of this land, we recognize that a land acknowledgment alone does not sufficiently honor the connection between these sacred lands and the Indigenous caretakers, but provides us a chance to more deeply contemplate the many Indigenous movements for sovereignty and reparations. Learn about our Tribal partnerships work.

Find a Policy Expert

Addie Haughey
Legislative Director, Lands, Wildlife, and Oceans
ahaughey@earthjustice.org
(202) 667-4500

Athena Motavvef
Legislative Representative
amotavvef@earthjustice.org
(202) 797-5255

Auburn Bell
Legislative Representative
abell@earthjustice.org

Blaine Miller-McFeeley
Senior Legislative Representative
bmcfeeley@earthjustice.org
(202) 667-4500, ext. 5225

Brielle Green
Senior Legislative Counsel
bgreen@earthjustice.org
(202) 745-5205

Chris Espinosa
Legislative Director, Climate & Energy
cespinosa@earthjustice.org

Christine Santillana
Legislative Counsel, Healthy Communities
csantillana@earthjustice.org
(202) 667-4500, ext. 4315

Coby Dolan
Legislative Director
cdolan@earthjustice.org
(202) 745-5207

Daniel Savery
Senior Legislative Representative
dsavery@earthjustice.org
(202) 667-4500

Julian Gonzalez
Senior Legislative Counsel
jgonzalez@earthjustice.org
(202) 745-5217

Laura M. Esquivel
Senior Legislative Representative
lesquivel@earthjustice.org
(202) 667-4500

Ranjani Prabhakar
Legislative Director
rprabhakar@earthjustice.org
(202) 667-4500

Stephen Schima
Senior Legislative Counsel
sschima@earthjustice.org
(202) 745-4500

Terry McGuire
Senior Legislative Representative
tmcguire@earthjustice.org
(202) 745-5210

Media Inquiries

Geoffrey Nolan
Public Affairs and Communications Officer
gnolan@earthjustice.org

Legal Assistance Inquiries

Contacto de Prensa

Robert Valencia
Estratega de Comunicaciones y Asuntos Públicos Hispanos/Latinos
rvalencia@earthjustice.org
(212) 845-7376

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The original stewards of the lands where the Policy & Legislation office is located were the Nacotchtank people, and later, the Piscataway and Pamunkey peoples. As occupiers of this land, we recognize that a land acknowledgment alone does not sufficiently honor the connection between these sacred lands and the Indigenous caretakers, but provides us a chance to more deeply contemplate the many Indigenous movements for sovereignty and reparations. Learn about our Tribal partnerships work.

Who We Are

The Policy and Legislation team has experts working with our clients and partners on environmental priorities across all of Earthjustice’s programmatic work. We are fighting for legislation and administrative policy that advances environmental justice, protects our lands, oceans, and wildlife, and secures a 100% clean energy future. Also housed within Policy and Legislation is the Access to Justice team, which defends against legislative and administrative attacks on the public’s ability to seek justice in the courts.

Auburn BellLegislative Representative

Kristin ButlerAssociate Legislative Representative

Coby DolanLegislative Director

Chris EspinosaLegislative Director, Climate & Energy

Laura EsquivelSenior Legislative Representative

Raúl GarcíaVice President of Policy & Legislation

Julian GonzalezSenior Legislative Counsel

Brielle GreenSenior Legislative Counsel

Ebony GriffinSenior Legislative Counsel

Talia HarrisLobbying and Project Manager

Addie HaugheyLegislative Director, Lands, Wildlife, and Oceans

Martin HaydenSenior Policy Advisor

Terry McGuireSenior Legislative Representative

Blaine Miller-McFeeleySenior Legislative Representative

Tierra MimmsPAL Associate and Executive Assistant

Athena MotavvefLegislative Representative

Nathan ParkAssociate Legislative Representative

Ranjani PrabhakarLegislative Director, Healthy Communities

Yosef RobeleLegislative Assistant

Christine SantillanaLegislative Counsel, Healthy Communities

Daniel SaverySenior Legislative Representative

Stephen SchimaSenior Legislative Counsel

Cameron WalkupSenior Legislative Assistant

Our Impact

When Earthjustice wins environmental victories in the courts, the Policy and Legislation team fights back against the anti-environmental interests in Washington, D.C., that try to overturn those court decisions through legislation in Congress.

To solidify the enduring impact of our legal victories, the Policy and Legislation team works with champions in Congress and in the administration to push legislation and policies that support and extends our gains.

Priorities for 117th Congress

  • Power of the law: Seeking justice in court should be a right for everyone, not a privilege for powerful elites and polluting corporations. The Access to Justice team is fighting to reverse restrictive regulatory policies in administrative law that make it harder for the public to participate in government decision-making, promote agency policies and new statutory protections that will throw open the courthouse doors, and advocating to rebalance the courts with a sense of urgency and with a historic diversity of nominees who have a deep respect for science and environmental protections.
  • Building an Equitable and Just Climate Future: We need a bold and equitable transition to a pollution-free, 100% clean energy economy that works for everyone, especially communities most impacted by climate change and toxic pollution. We are working to advance equitable and just climate policy that prioritizes emissions reductions and investments in environmental justice communities, build a zero emissions transportation and goods movement system, support more climate-friendly and systems-based agricultural practices, remove barriers to clean energy, and rethink the role of public lands and waters in fossil fuel development and production.
  • Community-centered Environmental Advocacy: Fixing our Fundamentally Unjust System of Pollution Control: We must fix our fundamentally unjust system of pollution control by improving policies that systematically disadvantage historically sacrificed communities. The Policy and Legislation team is advocating for stronger pollution control standards and decisions that take into account cumulative impacts of longstanding polluting practices, and more to ensure that all people have access to a healthy and safe living and working environment. We are also pressing that the legacy pollution that has harmed these communities for decades finally be addressed.
  • Biodiversity protection: The world is in the midst of a biodiversity crisis that threatens nature and humanity. One million species are at risk of extinction if we do not urgently deploy domestic and international solutions to the primary drivers of this crisis. We are fighting to protect national forests and other public land and biodiversity strongholds, build resilient ocean ecosystems, protect nature from unnecessary mining, and restore and strengthen the Endangered Species Act.

Landmark Victories

  • Strengthening and defending the Worker Protection Standard: In 2015, Earthjustice and our farmworker partners strengthened the Agricultural Worker Protection Standard to protect farmworkers and their families from pesticide exposure and poisoning. Then, in 2017, when the Trump administration attempted to gut these basic protections, we successfully protected the Agricultural Worker Protection Standard along with our partners and secured legislation in 2019 that prevented then-President Trump from weakening nearly all of these protections.
  • Defending access to justice at the U.S. Forest Service: Over the course of the 114th and 115th Congresses, we witnessed a sharp increase in legislation pushed by special interests to restrict people’s ability to use the courts to seek justice. The biggest environmental access to justice threats during the 115th Congress were attempts to limit the public’s access to the courts through the Forest Service. Earthjustice successfully defended against all 17 of these legislative attacks, including a bill that would have eliminated judicial review of the Forest Service by allowing the agency to divert legal challenges of their actions to arbitration.
  • Defeating Big Oil and protecting the Methane and Waste Prevention Rule: In 2016, the Obama administration’s Bureau of Land Management finalized a safeguard to limit methane pollution from oil and gas operations on federal lands. Just months later, under the newly elected Trump administration, the oil and gas industry and their Congressional supporters tried to undo the BLM methane rule using the Congressional Review Act. Earthjustice, in coordination with a broad group of partners, Congressional allies, and thousands of supporters from across the country, successfully defeated Congressional attempts to roll back this important safeguard on the Senate floor.
  • Permanently protecting Paradise Valley, the northern gateway to Yellowstone National Park from Gold Mining: Working in partnership with a wide variety of partners, groups, and businesses opposed to industrial gold mining north of Yellowstone National Park, in early 2019, we passed the Yellowstone Gateway Protection Act as part of a larger package of lands bills in Congress. The passage of the bill, which provides permanent protection for this important landscape came after a large and concerted effort to garner bipartisan support to stop mining in this remote landscape that includes Yellowstone River tributaries and is in the heart of the Paradise Valley, a tourism-based economy that is also precious habitat for endangered grizzly bears, as well as wolverines, lynx, elk, and other species.

Recent News
An old-growth forest in Oregon.
March 14, 2024 Press Release

Climate Forests Campaign Responds to Senator Barrasso Bill Targeting Old-Growth Forests

Bill aims to undermine Forest Service efforts to protect old-growth trees

Trucks haul shipping containers at the Port of Los Angeles, the nation's busiest port. Their emissions create diesel death zones along freight lines and freeways throughout the state. Trucks produce the pollution for 40% of California’s unhealthy smog problem.
March 12, 2024 Press Release

Earthjustice Praises New Zero-Emission Freight Corridor Strategy, Urges Caution on Hydrogen Inclusion

The new strategy will coordinate and increase investments in zero-emission medium and heavy-duty vehicle infrastructure across sectors to achieve a zero-emission freight network by 2040

U.S. Capitol
March 9, 2024 Press Release

Earthjustice Statement on Passage of Government Funding Bill

After months of unnecessary disarray and numerous fiscal cliffs, Congress has finally passed a government funding bill

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