Environmental Justice, by Eileen Gauna, Catherine A. O'Neill, and Clifford Rechtschaffen. White Paper 505, March 2005.

State courts are an emerging venue for victims of climate-change-induced harms to hold corporate polluters accountable. Read the news release over CPR's November 2019 Climate Justice report.

Given the scope of the damage from climate change, individuals, organizations, and specific jurisdictions have turned to litigation to hold industry accountable for past and continuing behavior. Such litigation is the only way those who have suffered climate-related damage can seek recourse for loss of homes, livelihoods, health, and the death and injury of loved ones. It could also have an important impact on climate change policy in the United States. Read CPR's November 2019 report on the trend toward state-based litigation.

In an op-ed in the Roanoke Times, CPR's David Flores describes the real-world impact of President Trump's push to roll back safeguards against environmental disasters.

Letter to Chairman Raúl Grijalva and Rep. Donald McEachin of the House Committee on Natural Resources offering support and comments on a proposed statement of principles for environmental justice legislation, from CPR's Richard Murphy, Sidney Shapiro, and James Goodwin, August 24, 2019.

As hurricanes expose inequalities, civil courts may be ‘great equalizer,’ by Martha McCluskey and Sidney Shapiro, October 16, 2018, The Hill 

CPR Perspective: International Environmental Justice and Climate Change. CPR's Perspectives Series is a set of monographs by CPR Member Scholars on timely and important health, safety, and environmental topics. Each Perspective provides a thumbnail sketch of the competing arguments concerning a substantive or procedural principle for developing appropriate health, safety and environmental policies, and closes with the Member Scholar-author's proposed approach to the issue.

Sarah Krakoff's February 26, 2020, testimony before the House Natural Resources Committee's Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States on harm done to tribal cultural sites during construction of President Trump's southern border wall.

On CPR's April 29, 2020, webinar, participants will hear from leading experts on pandemics, public health, and climate change, as part of our series of Climate Justice webinars. Dr. Monica Schoch-Spana is an expert in epidemic and disaster management, with decades of experience advising federal, state, and local officials on health security. Dr. Aaron Bernstein brings experience as a pediatrician on the front lines and cutting-edge expertise on the intersection of public health and climate change. Finally, seasoned environmental lawyer and CPR Member Scholar Daniel Farber offers expertise in legal and policy tools, such as the Stafford Act, that may be used to help protect vulnerable communities from bearing the greatest burden of the pandemic.

CPR joined dozens of environmental and social justice organizations in writing to Congress urging that legislation responsive to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic account for environmental justice concerns.

In April 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruled in favor of Hawaiian environmentalists who had waged a 12-year battle to ensure that sewage discharged into the Pacific Ocean via groundwater was subject to a Clean Water Act permit. CPR’s Member Scholars played important roles in convincing the Justices that we need a more scientifically relevant conception of the Clean Water Act’s coverage, and they joined key participants in the litigation in a May 28, 2020, webinar on the topic.

On June 3, 2020, CPR and Fair Farms hosted a webinar discussion with Maryland and Virginia farmers and organizers on supporting sustainable agriculture during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Coastal communities in the United States are largely unprepared for the projected effects of the climate crisis, including more intense storm surges, sea level rise, increased precipitation, and other drivers of coastal and inland flooding. That flooding is damaging enough on its own, but in recent years, chemical spills triggered by extreme weather, such as hurricanes, have become more frequent, exposing nearby communities to toxic chemicals and hazardous waste in the midst of natural disaster. In this web article, CPR's Darya Minovi discusses the danger and offers recommendations.

CPR's June 2020 fact sheet describes the threat of toxic floodwaters resulting from more and more severe weather events combined with a concentration of industrial facilities subject to flooding in the Hampton Roads region. Such toxic floodwater events would have a particularly severe impact on low-income and minority communities in the region.

October 2020 Webinar: High-risk chemical facilities and other hazardous industrial sites are disproportionately located near communities where Black, Brown, and low-wealth families live, learn, and play. In 2012, floodwaters from Superstorm Sandy submerged some of these facilities, carrying chemicals and heavy metals into people’s homes. On October 20, 2020, CPR hosted a webinar featuring experts on the topic.

Writing for WBUR, Shalanda Baker observes that "communities of color are disproportionately subsidizing an energy system that is killing them," and calls for a national policy to end utility shutoffs until we can effectively combat the coronavirus.

With the nation approaching a pivotal election, 19 CPR Member Scholars contributed to a series of white papers proposing policy solutions for a just transition from carbon-based energy to renewables, with a particular focus on the environmental justice implications.

Our current pollution prevention policies are static in a time of great and rapid disruption driven by the climate crisis. The growing risk of harm from climate-driven industrial pollution and chemical disasters demands a just, innovative policy response. In our November 18 toxic floodwaters webinar, participants learned about the legal and policy challenges to addressing these hazards, as well as litigation and regulatory solutions proposed by leading experts and practitioners.

In an op-ed published in The Hill, CPR Member Scholars Shalanda Baker and Alice Kaswan offer recommendations for moving from rhetoric to reality when it comes to delivering climate and energy justice to America's communities.

CPR joined the Choose Clean Water Coalition and other allies in a joint letter to the House of Representatives, urging members to cosponsor the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021).

CPR joined the Choose Clean Water Coalition and other allies in a joint letter to the Senate, urging senators to cosponsor the Environmental Justice for All Act (S. 872).

CPR joined dozens of public health, environmental, and other public interest organizations in urging the Biden White House and the EPA to strengthen air pollution standards for ozone and particulate matter. Both substances can cause or worsen a wide range of serious health problems, including asthma, other lung diseases, and cardiovascular conditions.

On August 3, 2021, CPR Member Scholar Rebecca Bratspies presented testimony to the New York City Racial Justice Commission. She commented on environmental injustices in New York City and offered five recommendations for reforms that would help ensure that all New Yorkers can breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live in healthy, thriving neighborhoods.

A few weeks ago, the Army Corps of Engineers made a startling announcement: It would give Sharon Lavigne and her neighbors in St. James Parish, La., a chance to tell their stories. The fact one of the world’s largest chemical companies has fought for years to keep Lavigne quiet tells you how commanding her stories are. Those stories may stop this particular company from building a multi-billion dollar chemical plant surrounding her neighborhood. for this, we can thank a simple law, signed by President Nixon in 1970, called the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Unlike other environmental laws, NEPA doesn’t tell agencies what choices they must make — like where to erect a levee or whether to permit a plastics plant. But it does insist their choices be informed. So, before the Army Corps can approve a company’s wetlands development permit it has to study whatever effects that chemical plant might have on the health of people in that community and on the properties they own. Corporate polluters recognize the power of process, too. For decades, they have waged a stealthy campaign to rig key procedural rules in their favor. Not surprisingly, NEPA is one of the main targets in this campaign. Corporate interests are using fast-moving infrastructure legislation as a vehicle for dismantling crucial procedural safeguards afforded by NEPA, wrongly claiming that the law stands in the way of a green energy grid, expanded mass transit, and other aspects of a green economy.

Darya Minovi of the Center for Progressive Reform joined leaders and experts from other public interest organizations in a letter to the House Natural Resources Committee in support of the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021).

The Center for Progressive Reform joined with partners at the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform and others to submit comments on the Council on Environmental Quality's climate and economic justice screening tool.

Center for Progressive Reform Policy Analyst Catalina Gonzalez and Member Scholar Alice Kaswan submitted comments on California's 2022 Draft Scoping Plan Update on climate change and net-zero carbon emissions. These comments promote a vision and implementation strategies that embrace the urgent need for action and more explicitly foster improvements in well-being for the state’s frontline communities.

The Center for Progressive Reform joined dozens of public interest organizations in a letter supporting the Environmental Justice for All Act (H.R. 2021). The bill would begin to remedy the long history of environmental racism and injustice in communities around the country that have been forced to endure the disproportionate negative impacts to their health, environment, economic stability, and quality of life.