Since 2008, the Northeast Regional Office has engaged in groundbreaking work to address the impacts of pollution and climate change in one of the most densely populated parts of the country. That work includes fighting for environmental justice and civil rights, advocating for clean water, stopping fossil fuel and coal development, and pushing for a just and equitable transition to clean energy.

Earthjustice’s office in New York also serves as headquarters for our Sustainable Food and Farming and Toxics Exposure and Health programs. The Northeast Regional Office collaborates closely with our Biodiversity Defense, Clean Energy, Community Partnerships, and Tribal Partnerships programs on local and national casework to enhance our litigation, advocacy, and rulemaking expertise.

Learn about a few highlights of the Northeast Regional Office’s work.

New York’s Climate Law

After years of work helping to secure the development and passage of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), Earthjustice is working with environmental justice groups and many others in New York towards robust implementation. The law is both protective and affirmative; it can be used to stop massive fossil fuel projects, for example, and it can be used to spur proactive measures to reduce health-harming and climate-altering emissions like those from buildings and transportation, which are the top two emitting sectors in New York State.

Earthjustice is working aggressively to push every New York agency, including the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the New York Department of Transportation and the New York Public Service Commission (PSC), to comply with the CLCPA, and to make climate justice a factor when issuing permits, allocating funding, and greenlighting projects. We are pushing, too, for proactive policies to electrify buildings and transportation.

Earthjustice is working to create a body of legally enforceable laws and policies rooted in the CLCPA, and we’ve had early wins, including:

• Stopping a gas plant in Astoria, Queens. Working with No Astoria NRG and the PEAK Coalition, along with public officials and community leaders who have long opposed the gas plant, we successfully proved to DEC the necessary permits must be denied and successfully defended the decision over the next year. As of May 2023, the gas plant is closed forever, and the site will transition to wind energy. The Astoria case was part of years-long strategic efforts and adept community organizing by our partners and clients, who packed public hearings, rallied local officials, and protested across the city. The impacts of this decision will benefit environmental justice communities everywhere.
• Bringing clean, electric school buses and trucks to New York streets. Thanks to Earthjustice and our partners’ advocacy, in 2022, New York became the first state in the country to require a fully zero-emission school bus fleet. All school buses in the state will be electrified by 2035. The school bus mandate comes on the heels of New York adopting the Advanced Clean Trucks rule, an effort to usher in a new era of electric trucks, instead of diesel. We are now working with various state agencies to support implementation of the state’s school bus mandate, by pushing for equitable distribution of a $500M fund to help school districts electrify and by urging the PSC and electric utilities to ensure there is sufficient charging infrastructure and grid capacity to electrify depots.
• Securing bold action to make clean energy and electrification the norm across the state for residential and commercial buildings as well as industrial facilities. Earthjustice served an instrumental role in the adoption of laws to ensure new construction statewide is all-electric. With greenhouse gas emissions from residential and commercial buildings as the single largest source of carbon emissions in New York and a serious health concern, we are building upon these wins to advocate for policies that will move the state away from our dirty and expensive gas system at a neighborhood scale.
• Ensuring New York’s Climate Law protects Frontline Communities and avoids fossil fuel industry-favored false solutions. Earthjustice engages in gas planning proceedings and represents environmental justice and community-based organizations in utility rate proceedings to oppose proposals that would require New Yorkers to pay for polluting infrastructure that would prolong the gas system, advance false solution such as alternative combustion fuels, or reproduce existing injustices in our energy system.

NYC Congestion Pricing

New York City has the worst traffic of all large cities in the United States. Every year, more than 1,000 NYC residents die prematurely from air pollution produced by motor vehicle traffic alone. In addition to the local pollution, motor vehicles are the city’s second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Thanks to years of advocacy by transit riders, unions, and clean air activists, state legislators passed congestion pricing legislation in 2019. Several agencies of the state and federal government studied options, social, economic and environmental impacts, and prepared to implement an historic project by June 30, 2024. This first-of-its-kind program in the U.S. was carefully designed to ease some of the nation’s worst traffic, improve air quality, and raise about $1 billion a year for fixing the city’s mass transit system. The pricing plan would have reduced traffic by charging drivers for entering traffic-heavy zones.

Weeks before the program was to start, NY Gov. Kathy Hochul announced an “indefinite pause” on the program, leaving New Yorkers stuck with poor air quality, greenhouse gas emissions unabated, and the public transit system with a huge hole in its budget. Representing Riders Alliance, Sierra Club, and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, Earthjustice sued Gov. Hochul and the state of New York, arguing that blocking the congestion pricing plan is a violation of the CLCPA and the constitutional right to clean air. In September, we won the first round, and the court denied the state’s motion to dismiss our case.

Getting Fossil Fuels Out of Homes

Most New Yorkers use fossil fuels to heat their homes and for cooking. But burning fossil fuels indoors is New York City’s largest source of greenhouse gases and accounts for almost a third of the state’s emissions. Studies have found that indoor fossil fuel combustion can cause and contribute to health impacts such as asthma, cancer, and learning deficits in children. We have advocated for and helped draft cutting-edge legislation to reduce indoor fossil fuel combustion, including New York City’s Local Law 154 and New York’s first-in-the-nation law ensuring all new construction is all-electric. Now we are aiding in the defense of those laws in court against gas industry attacks. We represent and partner with community-based and environmental justice groups to advocate before the Governor, Legislature, and Public Service Commission for downsizing the gas system, transitioning to clean and health-protective electric appliances, and preventing false solutions like burning alternative fuels. Alongside a large and diverse coalition, Earthjustice is pushing for passage of the NY HEAT Act, which will save New Yorkers money on their energy bills while giving the state the necessary tools to move homes and businesses away from the dirty, expensive gas system at a neighborhood scale.

Last-Mile Warehouse Pollution

“Last-mile” refers to the final stage of delivery from a hub to the consumer — and last-mile facilities generate three to four times as much truck traffic and pollution as a traditional warehouse.

Millions of square feet of e-commerce warehouses have been planned or developed in New York City, clustered within Brooklyn, The Bronx, Staten Island, and Queens. This explosive growth has been worsened by a lack of comprehensive planning. These facilities are allowed “as of right,” meaning there are no regulations or public review process in place.

As a part of the Last-Mile Coalition, Earthjustice is working alongside The New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, The Point CDC, UPROSE, El Puente, Red Hook Initiative, and Newtown Creek Alliance to develop rules for last-mile logistics facilities so that these facilities are no longer clustered in overburdened communities.

We are also working with a statewide coalition of transportation, labor, and environmental advocates to develop statewide rules to mitigate emissions from mega-warehouses across New York State. The Clean Deliveries Act would create the first statewide “indirect source rule” to address air and climate pollution from the unregulated mega-warehousing sector, to ensure these facilities do not disproportionately burden environmental justice communities and do their part to help meet the state’s climate law.