Mission Statement
In the absence of federal leadership on climate issues, L4GG’s Climate Change and Environmental Justice Program tackles the causes and effects of climate change by providing legal resources and services to states, local governments, NGOs, and frontline communities to expedite the country’s just transition to a green economy and to directly address environmental racism.
To meet its mission, L4GG is in pursuit of three goals:
Expedite the shift to clean energy at the state and local level.
Help disadvantaged communities obtain federal funding for climate resilience, clean energy, and climate justice projects.
Directly assist marginalized communities to secure access to clean, affordable drinking water.
L4GG has established several key initiatives to implement these goals:
Environmental and Climate Justice Resources
L4GG’s Climate Change Program In the News
A water affordability crisis looms over Benton Harbor, Michigan, according to a new report from the Benton Harbor Community Water Council. The report criticized the state and federal government’s response to the lead crisis that started in 2018 and called for a slate of reforms to prevent and respond to future drinking water issues and to ensure water will be affordable for city residents.
New report says Benton Harbor’s already above-average water rates will need to be raised 20% every year for the next nine years to eliminate an annual operating deficit.
Tucked deep within President Biden’s landmark climate bill sits a seemingly small tweak to IRS rules that, for the first time, lets companies sell their clean energy tax credits.
The change accounts for just a fraction of the 100,000 or so words in the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, which Congress passed in 2022. But experts say that by making clean energy tax credits more accessible, the move will help drive most of the government’s investment in the sector over the next decade and supercharge the industry.
Jillian Blanchard is an attorney helping the NAACP in its intervention. She said the push for the IURC standards would help consolidate the equity responsibilities for utilities.
“Without a centralized order requiring standardized, equitable measures in one place, each individual utility may choose to do their own separate policy through their own what's called integrated review planning process,” Blanchard said.
Indiana is set to receive $100 million in federal funding to expand electric vehicle, or EV, charging infrastructure. The NAACP is in part asking for transparency, commitment to minority business enterprise, ethnically diverse workforce hiring, placing EV infrastructure near minority-owned businesses, and air quality. They are also asking that 40% of the funding be used in disadvantaged communities.
“These decisions are occurring at a time where there’s historic level funding to invest in EV infrastructure, which can either serve to start to tackle climate change and historic decades of environment racism or exacerbate inequities in this state,” Jillian Blanchard with Lawyers for Good Government said.
President Joe Biden’s climate image remains a major political liability going into the 2024 election, new polling suggests, even as states begin to tap hundreds of billions of dollars made available for clean energy and other climate-related projects under a landmark bill that Biden signed into law last year.
Most Americans—some 57 percent—disapprove of Biden’s handling of climate change, according to a new poll conducted jointly by The Washington Post and the University of Maryland. The poll also found that just a quarter of Americans know “a good amount” or “a great deal” about the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature climate law that dedicates about $370 billion to efforts to bring down the nation’s carbon emissions, boost the development of clean energy and reduce the persistent pollution disparities faced by historically marginalized communities.
Under the best of circumstances, citizen-led ballot initiatives are complicated and expensive. How they fit into climate-related advocacy strategies is unclear. However, Jillian Blanchard, director of Lawyers for Good Government’s climate change program, believes: “The less people feel like they can rely on their legislators to make good decisions and pass good laws for them at the state level, the more likely you’re going to turn to these types of ballot measures to try and make sure that money goes into these funds.”
For the third time in just over a month, President Joe Biden will likely be forced to exercise his veto power to save a piece of his embattled environmental agenda. Some analysts say the moment may mark a turning point in Biden’s presidency as he takes a more aggressive position to push his priorities past a divided Congress while seeking a second term.
“It’s this kind of showdown between the executive authority and … Congress,” Jillian Blanchard, director of the climate change program for Lawyers for Good Government, told me in an interview. “This is going to play out again and again, I think, in terms of what it is that executive agencies have the authority to do, and the ways in which Congress tries to use the Congressional Review Act to limit that authority.”
In February, activists criticized the Biden administration again after the Federal Highway Administration rescinded its own guidance directing state transportation officials to consider climate change and equity when spending federal infrastructure dollars on highway projects. Jillian Blanchard said that’s because congressional Republicans were threatening to block the guidance through congressional review, so she was happy to see the White House making an effort on Friday to move the needle back in the other direction. However, she noted, implementation of Biden’s agenda remains key.
“It is the Biden administration doubling down on the importance of environmental justice in federal agency decision making,” Jillian Blanchard said. “It is critical, and (Biden) made it very clear, this is a whole-of-government approach.”
“This memorandum not only shows unnecessary deference to the whims of some in Congress, it signals to the environmental justice community and climate advocates the administration’s move away from its equity and climate commitments,” nearly two dozen organizations, including Lawyers for Good Government, a group of attorneys and activists who advocate for social equality, wrote in a letter to Bhatt on Thursday. “This memorandum sets a dangerous precedent for other federal agencies.”
Volunteer Opportunities
Smart lawyers can make a big difference. L4GG is looking for support across its Clean Energy and Climate Justice initiatives. If you’d like to help, click the “Volunteer” button below and fill out our brief volunteer interest form!
It’s Up to Us - Donate to L4GG
L4GG's climate change and environmental justice programs are funded by donations to our 501(c)3 nonprofit. Make a tax-deductible donation today to help fuel this work.