Our Work

Environmental Justice

EELC provides legal counsel to environmental organizations and community groups focused on reducing and mitigating the environmental burdens disproportionately imposed on historically marginalized communities. EELC believes everyone deserves to live, work and play in communities that are safe, clean, and healthy.

Our work has included reducing air pollution in port communities, land use issues faced by Native Americans, and work for Newark’s Ironbound Community Corporation, currently focused on contamination at an illegally built housing development and on safety issues from warehouse development.

Open Space & Sustainable Development

EELC works with a coalition of environmental groups to support enhanced environmental protections for the state’s streams and rivers. We represent such groups as the New Jersey Highlands Coalition, The Watershed Institute and the Raritan Headwaters Association to support increased buffers for headwaters and upgrades to stream protections. EELC is also assisting the New Jersey Conservation Foundation in its advocacy for enforcement of Green Acres restrictions on protected open space.

Clean Energy

Environmental organizations represented by EELC are vigorously engaged in NJ’s Board of Public Utilities’ (BPU) proceedings on proposed infrastructure and rulemaking for electric plug-in vehicles, solar and wind power, and energy efficiency. Four new clients, GreenFaith, Isles, Work Environment Council of New Jersey, and the Tri-state Transportation Campaign have joined our ongoing clients, the NRDC, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the NJ League of Conservation Voters in engaging with initiatives under the clean energy mandate at the BPU.

EELC represents such clients as NY/NJ Baykeeper, Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch, and the Surfrider Foundation in opposing fossil-fuel pipelines, many of which are being proposed to support an export market for natural gas because domestic demand is being met. EELC has challenged the granting of permits to the Southern Reliability Link pipeline which is being built through the Pinelands, and commissioned an expert report by Synapse Energy Economics, a nationally regarded firm that provides rigorous analysis of the natural gas sector, that played a significant role in the consideration of alternatives to the NESE pipeline, which was proposed to bring fracked gas from the Appalachians through NJ to energy markets in New York City. Permits for the pipeline were denied in May 2020.