Fall 2024
Earthjustice Program Report
Each legal matter that Earthjustice takes on is a commitment to our clients and partners — a promise to fight alongside them for however long it takes. And it can take quite a while.
But over years, or sometimes decades, our relentless pressure makes real change: We break through bureaucratic inertia, combat undue influence from industry, enforce laws against individual polluters, and secure durable wins for climate, public health, and biodiversity.
Recently, we’ve been celebrating a wave of favorable decisions in long-running cases.
Climate & Clean Energy
There is still time to address the climate crisis, but to do so we must overhaul our energy systems. We are working to accelerate the clean energy transition while ensuring that all communities benefit and no one is left behind.
Fighting for the Right to Inherit a Healthy World
Two years ago, 13 Hawaiʻi youth represented by Earthjustice and Our Children’s Trust brought a lawsuit against the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation (HDOT), the Governor, and the state of Hawaiʻi for entrenching the use of fossil fuels in transportation — already the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state.
In June 2024, we secured a landmark settlement based on children’s right to a life-sustaining climate and the defendants’ duties to reduce climate pollution under the Hawaiʻi Constitution.
The agreement is a best-in-class, replicable model that will overhaul the state’s transportation system and take meaningful steps to slow the climate crisis. Among other things, it requires the HDOT to:
- Develop and implement a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan within a year to decarbonize Hawaiʻi’s transportation system by 2045.
- Make investments in clean transportation infrastructure, including completing the pedestrian, bicycle, and transit networks in five years, and dedicating a minimum of $40 million to expanding the public electric vehicle charging network by 2030.
- Establish a dedicated lead unit to coordinate agency-wide action on climate mitigation and adaptation and a volunteer youth council to advise HDOT on its climate commitments.
Addressing Cryptomining that Extends Reliance on Fossil Fuels
The growth of proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining threatens to keep polluting coal- and gas-fired power plants active, strains the power grid, and risks raising electricity rates.
Working federally and in key states where cryptomining takes place, Earthjustice is deploying its legal and legislative tools to limit these harmful outcomes.
In New York, we struck yet another blow against the Greenidge Generation gas plant, which burns fracked gas around the clock to mine Bitcoin. The latest ruling holds that Greenidge’s operations are inconsistent with the greenhouse gas emissions limits of New York’s climate law, setting a strong precedent that should apply to other cryptomining operations in the state.
Stopping the Rubberstamping of Fossil Fuel Infrastructure
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved almost every single methane gas project proposed by industry.
We challenged FERC’s approval of a massive expansion of a methane gas pipeline system that would run through Pennsylvania and Maryland to provide additional gas supply to New Jersey.
A court ruled in our favor, finding that FERC approved this project despite New Jersey’s assertion that it did not even need additional gas capacity. The court also found that FERC failed to weigh the project’s climate harms. FERC now must rethink the entirety of its decision.
This is a vital win for New Jersey, which is actively working to limit its emissions. And it’s an important step toward our goal of getting FERC to reform its review process and criteria for project approvals.
Challenging Fossil Fuel Extraction
While the Biden administration has for the most part sharply limited onshore oil and gas leasing in the lower 48 states, Wyoming has sometimes been an exception.
In June 2022, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) offered less than 10,000 acres for sale across five states combined — while also offering nearly 120,000 acres of leases in Wyoming.
We challenged this sale, and in March 2024, a federal court found that the BLM’s decision violated the law. The court found that the agency had not grappled with how drilling on the leases would harm wildlife such as the imperiled sage grouse, threaten groundwater, and accelerate our climate crisis.
The BLM will now be required to reevaluate the environmental impacts of the sale.
In May 2024, the Biden administration also announced it would end coal leasing in the Powder River Basin, the largest coal-producing region in the U.S. and one of the largest pools of carbon in the world. The decision is the result of nearly a decade of advocacy by Earthjustice and our partners, and it represents a historic shift in federal management of coal in the area.
It’s a clear indication that the market has shifted away from coal as states and companies seek out cleaner and more affordable energy sources.
These are just two of many examples of how we pushed the Biden administration to take bold action. And as for the Trump administration, no organization filed more lawsuits to protect the environment from its deregulatory actions. We won 85% of those cases that have been decided. Regardless of the tides of politics, we exist to be a relentless advocate for our natural world.
Making Energy Systems Cleaner and More Cost-Effective
Florida
After 10 years of work, we secured a huge win that will help 100,000+ low-income Floridians to conserve energy through measures like insulation and weather stripping. These are cheap, simple steps we can take to reduce fossil fuel use.
That’s good for our climate and good for Floridians who have some of the most expensive electricity bills in the U.S.
West Virginia
FirstEnergy’s coal stockpiles were reaching an unsafe size, so it burned coal even when buying power from the grid was cheaper. This put ratepayers on the hook for millions of dollars in extra costs.
We reached a settlement requiring the utility to review its strategy to avoid repeating this issue and to maintain better financial records that will help advocates in future cases.
California
In another decade-long matter, we pushed Southern California’s air regulator to adopt a rule to fine power plants, refineries, and other major polluters for ozone (smog) emissions. Without any financial consequences, many polluters felt they had a free pass to violate national air quality standards until now.
This rule may collect $25 million or more each year and disincentivize fossil fuel combustion.
Healthy Communities
We all have some degree of exposure to toxic chemicals and pollution. But certain communities, including immigrants, Black and brown communities, and people with lower incomes, are disproportionately targeted by industry for the worst of these harms. We’re fighting to ensure that every person can have a safe, healthy life.
Ensuring Clean Air for All
In nearly every U.S. national park, haze from burning fossil fuels is a major concern.
Haze doesn’t just limit scenic views: Those same air pollutants also cause serious health consequences in downwind communities, including premature death, heart attacks, aggravated asthma, decreased lung function, and other respiratory problems.
This air pollution also harms nature and sensitive ecosystems on public lands. Because of these impacts, the EPA created a rule requiring states to submit plans to eliminate haze at national parks.
But the EPA failed to approve, deny, or partially approve the plans in 32 states.
Now, as a result of our litigation, a court has set deadlines for the EPA to issue decisions for these plans. After over a decade of Earthjustice and our clients urging the EPA and state agencies to protect clean air in and around public lands, the EPA now must act.
In another major win for clean air, the EPA in spring 2024 finalized a historic suite of new standards for fossil-fueled power plants. These facilities are among the worst contributors to climate change and pollution, and we and our partners engaged with the EPA for years to clean up the power sector.
Among other things, these rules will establish stricter limits on toxic air emissions and better protect our waterways and groundwater from coal ash and wastewater from coal- and oil-burning power plants.
The standards also include the first-ever limit on carbon pollution from new gas and existing coal-burning power plants. The EPA estimates this alone will cut annual carbon emissions by the same amount as taking 328 million gas cars off the road.
Defending Communities from Lead
After a legal battle spanning 14 years, we reached a settlement with the EPA to force it to finally follow through on its commitment to take action on our request to regulate lead wheel weights.
These small metal pieces attached to tire rims are intended to help balance vehicle wheels. However, the weights often fall off and are ground into particles that end up in pedestrian paths, indoor spaces, waterways, and soil. The EPA estimates that annually 12.5 million pounds of lead wheel weights are uncontrolled or unmanaged in the environment.
There are safer alternatives available, and we will build on this milestone decision to work toward our end goal of totally banning lead wheel weights.
Lead is also a serious health threat internationally.
One of the world’s most polluted places is the city of La Oroya in Peru. A metal smelter within the city, in operation since 1922, has polluted the air, water, and soil with toxic pollutants and extreme amounts of lead. When the level of lead was tested in the blood of children ages 0-3, the average was over 10 times the level at which urgent public health intervention is required.
Nearly 27 years ago, Earthjustice began working with partner non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including the Inter-American Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), to address this issue.
After decades of legal battles, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights finally ruled in March 2024 that the Peruvian government violated the people of La Oroya’s human rights, including the right to a healthy environment.
The Peruvian government must now make reparations to the people who have been harmed by its inaction. Measures include preparing an environmental remediation plan for contaminated air, water, and soil; updating air quality standards; providing compensation and free medical care to residents with symptoms and illnesses; and more.
This is the first time that the Inter-American Court has held that industrial pollution can harm human rights. And this opens a path to justice for communities in other so-called “sacrifice zones” overburdened with industrial pollution.
Regulating “Forever Chemicals” in Plastic Containers
PFAS are a class of almost 16,000 extremely toxic and persistent chemicals found in food packaging, clothing, nonstick pans, and many other household items. They are also found in the blood of almost everyone in the U.S. and have been linked to cancer, among other serious health effects, even at very low levels of exposure.
We represented a coalition of environmental and health advocates that petitioned the EPA to regulate PFAS found in hundreds of millions of plastic containers that hold various products, including household cleaning products, fuel, and pesticides.
The EPA granted the petition and will now start a crucial rulemaking process to regulate these chemicals. This is another pivotal win in our long campaign against PFAS, with each victory serving as a building block for a PFAS-free future.
Biodiversity & Ecosystems
We fight every day to protect ecosystems and habitats, keep the web of life intact, and to return species to a state of abundance.
Protecting Wolves and Grizzly Bears
In March 2024, an Idaho District Court ruled to halt the state from authorizing wolf trapping and snaring — which harms ESA-protected grizzly bears as well as wolves — during grizzly bears’ non-denning periods between March 1 and November 30.
This ruling marks a big change from the year-round trapping season previously allowed on private lands in Idaho and reduces the trapping season on public lands by up to four months depending on location.
Our relentless work yielded a huge win for wolves, grizzly bears, and wildlife in Idaho, demonstrating the continued power of the ESA. We continue to fight in federal court to protect this important victory.
Three Wins That Protect Irreplaceable Marine Species
Cook Inlet Beluga
Four years after we began the work to challenge an offshore oil lease sale in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, a federal court found in our favor and suspended the sale.
This area is home to the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale (of which only around 300 remain) and sea otters protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
Sardines
After the population of Pacific sardine collapsed by more than 98% between 2006-2020, we sued the National Marine Fisheries Service to force it to curb fishing and rebuild the population.
The court ruled that NMFS must now set science-based, binding catch limits that will return sardine populations to healthy levels.
Salmon
On behalf of the Puyallup Tribe, we secured a win for salmon and other ESA-protected fish with a court ruling to remove part of the Electron Dam in Washington.
This will remove a lethal obstacle for threatened salmon (a keystone species) and restore the Puyallup River’s natural flow for the first time in 100+ years.
Safeguarding Our Environment from Supreme Court Decisions
In May 2023, the Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA severely weakened the Clean Water Act and eliminated protections for more than half of the remaining wetlands in the lower 48 states.
Wetlands are essential to us all. They provide critical habitats for wildlife, purify polluted waters, and protect communities from destructive floods and storms.
← Wetlands and streams most at risk of harmful development and pollution
→
Wetlands and streams with some protections from harmful development and pollution
Scale based on current state water protections, state legislative limits to clean water safeguards, and federal data on quantity of streams and wetlands in states. (Map graphic by Earthjustice)
Since the Sackett decision came down from our nation’s highest court, states have been taking action.
In Colorado, we joined a coalition of community and conservation groups to provide key legal support as the coalition drafted, negotiated, and advocated for a bill to reinstate protections for all wetlands and seasonal streams in the state. We also had to defeat a dueling industry-sponsored bill and fend off attempts to add harmful amendments. At the end of this intensive process, a strong bill that preserved our bottom-line priorities became law in May 2024, making Colorado the first state to respond to the Sackett decision. The fight for stronger wetland protections continues in Colorado, where we will engage in a rulemaking to implement the bill, as well as in other states and at the federal level.
Strategic Legal Advocacy and Defense
The U.S. Supreme Court is advancing an anti-environment agenda that weakens fundamental rights, kneecaps government agencies, and seizes unprecedented power for unelected officials. In 2021, Earthjustice launched a program to proactively respond to this changing legal landscape.
The Strategic Legal Advocacy and Defense team monitors trends in the courts and guides our Supreme Court strategy.
By building our internal Supreme Court and appellate expertise, this team is able to prepare other Earthjustice attorneys with the most effective litigation strategies and coordinate with our peer environmental organizations to shape the legal path forward for the movement.
For as Long as It Takes
We are in it for the long haul, because our clients, partners, and supporters are too.
Together, we are collectively achieving truly historic, unprecedented wins for our environment. The Earth still needs a good lawyer, and with supporters like you by our side, we’ll be here for as long as it takes.