Mailman, by then married to former professional baseball player David Mailman, leaned on her own experiences as a woman to advocate for the bills. “‘Identification’ replaced the biological reality that we have been living our entire lives—that I am particularly 32 weeks into living right now,” she said on a stage in West Virginia, visibly pregnant with her second child. Her blitz through the state “was terrifying to watch,” says Khadijah Silver, director of gender justice and health equity at Lawyers for Good Government. “She did an incredible job of flooding legal and political environments, partnering with the right groups, to normalize a regressive and anti-scientific and extremely unfeminist analysis of gender—and make it pretty hard to break through that messaging.”

The U.S. EPA’s revised definition of “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act would reduce permitting needs for waste facilities, but raises new questions, experts say.

The SELC started the official rematch by filing a federal lawsuit in October, joined by Lawyers for Good Government, the Conservation Law Foundation, and the Lawyers Committee for Rhode Island, to reverse what they call the administration’s “illegal termination” of the program. The government has 60 days to respond to the filing (Dec. 5 at the latest).

Khadijah Silver, the supervising attorney for civil rights at Lawyers for Good Government, told HuffPost the dissent unfolding right now at the lower courts is a “real act of civil service.”

“They aren’t just saying what’s happening now is wrong. They are spelling out for the sake of the public and posterity what the law is in a way that is so crystally clear and lovingly crafted. And really, it’s written not just for the opposition, not just for people who brought the case, but for the country,” Silver said.

Lawmakers join growing backlash as legal challenges mount to restore the $7 billion program designed to deliver solar access and bill relief for low-income households.