Raúl García

Vice President of Policy & Legislation

Policy and Legislation Team

Raúl looks directly at the viewer with a friendly, open smile. He's wearing a black suit jacket and a white collared shirt with thin dark blue vertical and horizontal strips. A square metal pin with Earthjustice's globe logo is pinned to his left suit jacket lapel. He's standing in front of a white backdrop.

Bar Admissions

VA

Raúl García

Vice President of Policy & Legislation Policy and Legislation Team

Media Inquiries

Siham Zniber
Associate Director, Policy & Legislation
szniber@earthjustice.org

Raúl García is the Vice President of Policy and Legislation at Earthjustice. He leads a team of advocates who work with policymakers in Congress, federal agencies, and the White House to advance some of the most consequential policy issues around climate, environmental health, and biodiversity. With an emphasis on Earthjustice’s commitment to partnership, the Policy and Legislation team centers the communities most impacted by these issues and advocates for an affirmative vision for more equitable and environment-conscious policies.

Before becoming Vice President, Raúl served as the Legislative Director for Healthy Communities where he worked on Earthjustice’s advocacy strategies to defend and improve federal safeguards for clean air, clean water, and against toxics exposure. Raúl previously served as a Senior Legislative Counsel at Earthjustice with a focus on protecting environmental safeguards and advancing environmental, health, and safety protections in infrastructure development.

Prior to joining Earthjustice, Raúl dedicated his career working for the protection of rights of underrepresented communities, including advocating for voting and civil rights, immigration benefits and labor and employment protections. He credits these experiences with informing his own partnership-centered approach to environmental advocacy. Raúl previously was a practicing attorney specializing in immigration matters.

Passionate about the socio-political advancement of historically underrepresented communities, Raúl has worked for a number of organizations seeking to empower and defend them. He served as a legal clerk at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and worked at the Mexican Embassy, Laborers’ International Union of North America and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement.

Raúl is a native of Mexico City and moved to Chicago at a young age and cites his own lived experience as informing his commitment to justice and equity.

He is admitted to the Virginia Bar and received his JD from American University Washington College of Law. He is also a graduate of Villanova University, where he majored in Global Interdisciplinary Studies, Honors, and Political Science.

Expert Posts & Articles

A BLM-managed forest in Oregon.
May 21, 2025

House Natural Resources Committee Package Delivers Big Windfalls to Polluting Industries and Billionaires

The bill represents one of the most anti-environmental bills ever debated in the U.S. Congress.
The U.S. Capitol building.
March 20, 2024

House Republicans’ ‘Polluter Profits’ Week Continues Putting Corporate Profits Over People

We can’t afford to waste time doubling down on a failed status quo.
President Joe Biden speaks at the House Democrats Annual Issues Conference, Thursday, February 8, 2024, at Lansdowne Resort in Leesburg, Virginia.
March 7, 2024

Celebrating Climate Action and Environmental Justice at the State of the Union while Charting a Better Pathway Forward

While the Biden administration has made incredible progress on addressing both climate change and environmental justices, these crises require us to do more to live up to our obligations.
U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.
July 19, 2023

House Republicans Released Their Interior-EPA Appropriations Bill. It’s Even Worse than We Expected

Congress must reject these poison pill riders and non-negotiable provisions that will harm communities and the environment.
Homes in Washington, D.C.’s Brookland neighborhood were condemned to clear room for a highway in the 1960s. The community fought back.
July 13, 2023

How ‘Freeway Revolts’ Helped Create the People’s Environmental Law

The National Environmental Policy Act is a tool to uplift the people’s environmental voice. Grassroots activists in an iconic Black community paved the way for the law to pass unanimously.
May 31, 2023

Lo Que Usted Necesita Saber Sobre El Techo De La Deuda Y Sus Impactos En La Economía Y El Medio Ambiente

Los republicanos de la cámara baja negociaron un acuerdo peligroso para desmantelar las leyes ambientales y silenciar a las comunidades.

Media Inquiries

Siham Zniber
Associate Director, Policy & Legislation
szniber@earthjustice.org

Bar Admissions

VA

Quoted in the News

May 7, 2025

Washingtonian

Washington D.C.’s 500 Most Influential People of 2025

Working with policymakers to safeguard climate protections, Raúl García sits at the forefront of the country’s toughest climate battles.
May 6, 2025

Politico

What to expect during the big Natural Resources markup

“It is literally a blank check you are handing over to the project sponsor itself.”
March 21, 2025

Tampa Bay Times

How Trump environmental rollbacks could increase pollution in Florida

“People are still thinking (climate change) is happening 10 years from now. This is happening today, and I think few people know this as well as Floridians.”
January 10, 2025

E&E News

Mike Johnson sought EPA environmental justice grant

“The IRA was written because the problems are real. And I can only hope he sees the value in it now, and that he would be so kind to ensure that people outside of his district across the entire country benefit from the investments in the IRA — so as to not roll them back with congressional action.”
May 18, 2023

Wall Street Journal

The U.S. ‘Fast-Tracked’ a Power Project. After 17 Years, It Just Got Approved.

“Cancer clusters, asthma rates, premature deaths: they all tell the story of what can go wrong.”
September 20, 2022

San Francisco Chronicle

Lawsuit threatened over EtO emissions, Council votes for air monitors

“The consequences are very real … because what we are seeing is direct impacts to those communities and to those very children. I think the EPA needs to learn from those communities like the one in Laredo that is standing up for themselves. They need to realize this issue is not going away. The community continues to put pressure on them, and we’ll take them to court if we have to.”

Latest Press Statements

A wide photo of most of the U.S. Capitol building under a dark blue, cloudy sky. The building, with lights on, is reflected in water in the foreground.
July 28, 2025

Earthjustice Statement on Westerman-Golden Permitting Reform Bill

“This proposal will only result in more pollution, poorer health outcomes, and dirty air and water for everyone.” 
The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
May 14, 2025

Earthjustice Statement on Plans to Slash Environmental and Social Safety Net Programs

“While billionaires and polluting industries CEOs reap the benefits, everyday people are left with crumbs.”
May 14, 2025

Earthjustice Statement on House Ways and Means Reconciliation Bill

"The bill locks us into a future of fossil fuels and dirty energy instead of modernizing our grid and cleaning up pollution with cheaper clean energy sources and technologies.”
The White House.
May 2, 2025

Earthjustice Statement on President’s Budget Release

“The President’s Budget robs the American people to pursue a reckless political agenda."
Smog covers the city of Los Angeles.
April 30, 2025

House of Representatives Votes to Repeal States’ Clean Air Standards, Bucking the Law and Congressional Watchdog

Abuse of Congressional Review Act veers far outside norms of the law
Wide shot of the downtown Los Angeles skyline bathed in smog. View from Griffith Park.
April 4, 2025

Earthjustice Reacts to Senate Parliamentarian Reaffirming States’ Rights to Clean their Air

State waivers for stronger tailpipe standards are not subject to the Congressional Review Act