February Actions

What's At Stake

The first few months of 2023 have seen several environmental challenges on the horizon.  

For example, the Biden administration moved one step closer to permitting the disastrous Willow Project. There was a chemical disaster in East Palestine, Ohio after a train carrying toxic chemical cargo derailed. There’s new movement on the fight to strengthen clean air standards like NAAQS and MATS. Finally, the harmful Cook Inlet lease sale from the Inflation Reduction Act went through and we are advocating that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management reject the bid they received for the Cook Inlet to protect this sensitive ecosystem. But Earthjustice is ready to tackle these challenges head on – and we can’t do it without you.  

To combat the dangerous Willow Project, Earthjustice has launched a public pressure campaign to tell the Biden administration to deny the drilling permits. After a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in Ohio, Earthjustice renewed our calls for the Department of Transportation to better regulate railway and enact stronger safety measures to prevent more disasters like this in the future. Less than a week later, the agency responded and announced their plans to do just that. With your help and advocacy, Earthjustice is pushing the EPA to strengthen clean air standards and is defending Alaska’s Cook Inlet from fossil fuel development.  

Supporters like you who continue to take action, hold leaders accountable, prevent harmful environmental projects from affecting communities, advocate for strengthened regulations and standards to keep our communities safe are critical for the environmental movement. Thank you for your advocacy.  

We’ll need your help to continue this fight – you can do that today by taking action on this page.  

Protect the Western Arctic from oil drilling

The Willow Project is a disastrous Western Arctic drilling plan that would generate an estimated 280 million metric tons of climate pollution, jeopardize the health and traditional practices of nearby Alaska Native communities, and devastate local wildlife.  Join us in urging the Biden administration to deny the permits for the Willow Project. 

 

Tell the EPA to clean up our air

For more than 50 years, the Clean Air Act has worked to significantly cut dangerous air pollution. The National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) program, which sets limits on six common outdoor air pollutants, is an incredibly important pillar of the Clean Air Act. Because everyone has the right to breathe clean air, all areas of the country must meet these standards. These standards are now up for comment so tell the EPA to strengthen the proposed standards.

 

Strengthen the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards

Coal-fired power plants are the worst of the worst industrial polluters. Toxic air pollutants from power plants are linked to asthma, heart disease, cancer, and thousands of premature deaths each year. That’s why Earthjustice has fought for nationwide protections to clean up air emissions from power plants, and we need your help to strengthen this rule.

 

Defend Cook Inlet from oil drilling

Late last year, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) conducted a lease sale for Cook Inlet — a vibrant but sensitive ecosystem in southcentral Alaska that’s home to beluga whales, salmon, and sea otters. Despite the fossil fuel industry’s allies bending over backwards to mandate the lease sale in the Inflation Reduction Act, only one company, Hilcorp, placed a single bid on a single lease tract. Hilcorp has a terrible safety record and cannot be allowed to drill in Cook Inlet.

A natural gas flare from an offshore oil drilling rig in Cook Inlet, Alaska.
A natural gas flare from an offshore oil drilling rig in Cook Inlet, Alaska. (Paul Souders / Getty Images)

Delivery to Bureau of Land Management, Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

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Your Actions Matter

Your messages make a difference, even if we have leaders who don't want to listen. Here's why.

You level the playing field.

Elected officials pay attention when they see that we are paying attention. Read more.

They may be hearing from industry lobbyists left and right, but hearing the stories of their constituents — that’s your power.

Our legislators serve at the pleasure of the people who gave them their job — you.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. When you contact your elected official, you’re putting a face and a name on an issue.

Whether or not you voted for them, they work for you, for the duration of their term.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. (Find your local, state, and federal elected officials.)

Your action is with us in court.

If a federal agency finalizes a harmful action, the record of public comments provides a basis for bringing them into court. Read more.

Throughout each of the public comment periods we alert you to, Earthjustice’s attorneys are researching and writing in-depth, technical comments to submit — detailing how the regulation could and should be stronger to protect the environment, our communities, and our planet.

We need you to join us — your specific experiences, knowledge, and voice are crucial to add to the Administrative Record through the comment periods.

Lawsuits we file that challenge weak or harmful federal regulations rely on what was submitted during the comment period. The court can only look at documents that are in the Administrative Record — including the public comments — to decide if the agency did something improper.

Your actions aid our litigation. Taking action and submitting comments during a comment period is substantively important.

It’s the law.

Federal agencies must pause what they’re doing and ask for — and consider — your comment. Read more.

Many of us may have never heard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but laws like these require our government to ask the public to weigh in before agencies adopt or change regulations.

Regulations essentially describe how federal agencies will carry out laws — including decisions that could undermine science, or weaken safeguards on public health.

Public comments are collected at various points throughout the federal government’s rulemaking process, including when a regulation is proposed and finalized. (Learn about the rulemaking process.) These comments become part of the official, legal public record — the “Administrative Record.”

When the public responds with a huge outpouring of support for environmental protections, these individual messages collectively undercut politicians' attempts to claim otherwise.

What this means is each of us can take a role in shaping the rules our government creates — and ensuring those rules are fair and effective.