For decades, the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program has achieved historic legal victories that protect the climate, the environment, and public health. During the Biden administration, we worked relentlessly to strengthen the federal standards that undergird our efforts to rein in pollution and protect public lands and waters. We applied legal and political pressure to launch new rulemakings. We delivered technical and legal expertise during their development. We built coalitions and worked behind the scenes to ensure strong standards, and we litigated to defend them.
In 2025—facing a hostile and unpredictable administration—our work became even more critical during a historic moment for our country. Once Donald Trump took office again, it rapidly became clear that executive action would be swifter, more decisive, and more alarming than during the administration’s previous term. The relentlessness of the administration’s approach requires the environmental community to be focused, strategic, and nimble to preserve as much progress as possible and limit the environmental damage caused by these reckless actions.
The Sierra Club’s legal expertise and experience is invaluable as we rise to meet this moment. During Donald Trump’s first term in office, the Sierra Club’s litigation team led many of the most compelling legal victories, filing more than 300 cases against the administration and winning nearly 90 percent of those cases. Now, more than ever, it is crucial to have a broad litigation strategy led by the deep expertise of the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program.
In 2025 alone, we filed and intervened in more than 100 lawsuits, participated in more than 110 administrative proceedings, and submitted more than 80 Freedom of Information Act requests (uncovering more than 3,000 pages of documents so far) as we defended clean air and water, protected vital lands and wildlife, and demanded government accountability and transparency.
We’re fighting back. We’re challenging regulatory rollbacks, fighting to protect public lands and wild places, and working to expand access to affordable clean energy to lower costs and keep us safe. In the face of immense challenges, we continue to secure victories to advance our clean energy transition and fight for affordable energy.
Many of our Environmental Law Program’s biggest wins from 2025 have made headlines this year: our lawsuit against Elon Musk’s DOGE for mass layoffs at National Parks, the Beyond Coal campaign’s legal fight challenging the Trump administration’s 202(c) order to keep dirty, outdated coal plants online in Michigan and elsewhere, our Clean Transportation For All campaign’s lawsuit to release $2 billion in EV-charging infrastructure funding, and a New York Times story on our FOIA work uncovering emails from polluters seeking to violate the Clean Air Act.
With affordability top-of-mind for many Americans facing higher and higher utility bills, our Environmental Law Program also worked to engage with public utility commissions across the country to hold utilities accountable and help protect ratepayers from being forced to pay more for their energy. In Utah, our efforts helped block Rocky Mountain Power’s attempt to raise bills by more than 18 percent, protecting families from rising costs tied to dirty fossil-fuel investments. In West Virginia, we helped drive thousands of members of the public to speak out against a drastic rate increase proposed by AEP. After months of organizing and advocacy by our Beyond Coal Campaign and members of our Environmental Law Program team, the state public utility commission rejected most of AEP’s request, helping cut costs for ratepayers. Across the country, the Sierra Club engaged in more than 120 Public Utility Commission cases, fighting to advance affordable clean energy and save families money.
Here are a few other highlights of our work that we’re especially proud of this year:
- New York City Congestion Pricing win: In 2024, we filed a state lawsuit challenging New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to suspend the New York City “congestion pricing” program, which charges a $15 toll for most drivers entering Manhattan’s “central business district” during peak hours to reduce traffic and emissions. After settlement negotiations, the congestion pricing program went into effect on January 5, 2025 and has been considered a massive success.
- ExxonMobil Pollution win: After a 15-year battle, the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected ExxonMobil’s final appeal in our lawsuit over 10 million pounds of illegal air pollution from its Baytown, Texas petrochemical complex. The $14.25 million civil penalty stands—the largest ever for violations of the Clean Air Act in a citizen-led case.
- Trump Tower win: The Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago will pay a $4.8 million settlement, halt the killing of aquatic life, and bring its cooling water system into compliance with the Clean Water Act—after Sierra Club and its allies sued to stop years of violations.
- Pushing Back on Trump’s Arctic and Offshore Drilling Initiatives: As the Trump administration made unprecedented moves to hold an offshore oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico and expand oil and gas exploration, drilling, and development activities in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge, our Environmental Law Program stepped in. The Sierra Club sued to challenge the Gulf lease and also filed a notice of intent to sue to protect the Arctic Refuge, citing Endangered Species Act violations by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that threaten polar bears.
- Fighting for Transparency and Accountability: Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program has filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to EPA, Department of Interior, Department of Energy, Department of Transportation, Department of Agriculture, the Office of Management and Budget, NOAA, and Elon Musk’s now-dismantled Department of Government Efficiency. We are litigating against six of these agencies aggressively to pursue full transparency, and we will file additional FOIA requests as new issues impacting our advocacy arise. Sierra Club has also publicly released thousands of pages of documents already obtained through this litigation and other requests, and will continue doing so.
