Environmental justice embraces the principle that all people deserve equal access to environmental protection and enforcement while acknowledging the fact that, both historically and still today, this fails to play out in reality. Recognizing that the legal system has contributed to an unequal distribution of environmental burdens and benefits, ELI is committed to providing research and educational tools to help alleviate the harm faced by environmental justice communities across the nation. In this episode, Arielle King, ELI’s Environmental Justice Staff Attorney, shares with listeners some of the tools ELI is developing to eliminate the harmful impacts of environmental injustice.
Congress' climate inaction puts spotlight on the courts
ClimateWire (by Lesley Clark)
December 23, 2021
Courts in the United States and abroad served as flashpoints on climate change this year as governments struggled to address the growing threat.
Ocean Policy Guru Takes Helm at Environmental Law Institute
Greenwire (by Pamela King)
January 3, 2022
The Environmental Law Institute yesterday welcomed Jordan Diamond as its next president. Diamond has recently held leadership positions at her alma mater the University of California, Berkeley, where she has overseen initiatives related to climate, energy and marine policy. She replaces former EPA general counsel Scott Fulton, who served for about six years as president of ELI, a leading nonpartisan voice on environmental education, policy and law. “For over 50 years, ELI has been an unassailable source of leading insight on environmental law and policy.
Last November, as the world focused its attention on the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, high school students in Dane County, Wisconsin, co-sponsored and moderated a climate action conference of their own that connected COP26 to local climate initiatives and progress. Rebecca Kihslinger, a Senior Science and Policy Analyst at ELI, talks to four of the student organizers — Daphne Wu, Claire Neblett, Kirshna Elwell, and Felicia Zheng — to learn more.
Interest and urgency in advancing environmental justice has gained new momentum. The Biden-Harris Administration has placed an unprecedented federal focus on environmental justice using a whole of government approach. Meanwhile, a growing list of states continue to develop, implement, and enforce EJ-focused legislation, accelerated by the intensity at the federal level. Will this momentum carry into the new year? In this episode, Stacey Halliday of Beveridge & Diamond talks to two EJ leaders at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Charles Lee, Senior Policy Advisor, and Matthew Tejada, the Director of the Office of Environmental Justice – to find out what’s in store for 2022. This episode is part of the Groundtruth series created in partnership with Beveridge & Diamond, one of the nation’s leading environmental law firms.
Top U.S. environmental regulator to visit Houston neighborhoods where Black and Latino residents bear brunt of pollution
Texas Tribune (by Erin Douglas)
November 16, 2021
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan will visit Houston on Friday as part of a weeklong tour of neighborhoods across the South where pollution has impacted people’s health — predominantly for Black and Latino residents. In Jackson, Mississippi, on Monday, Regan said he would discuss what people deserve from the federal environmental agency and the disproportionate impact pollution has had in historically marginalized communities. . . .