The Environmental Justice Committee (EJC) of the National Lawyer's Guild (NLG) is a network of law students, legal workers, attorneys dedicated to providing assistance to impoverished communities and communities of color which are exposed to the disproportionate impacts of environmental hazards while at the same time denied access to environmental benefits.

The EJC recognizes the general failure of mainstream environmental law and policy bodies in meaningfully addressing the unique environmental and legal challenges facing many impoverished communities and communities of color. Such community challenges often include disproportionate exposure to facilities which pose significant public health and safety risks and continued siting of hazardous facilities in such communities. The EJC is committed to challenging the inadequate responses of governmental bodies and mainstream environmental organizations in addressing existing environmental, public health and safety concerns in environmental justice communities, including lax responses to the cleanup of hazardous military, industrial, and natural disaster sites.

The EJC also focuses on the interplay between infringement on civil liberties and environmentalism, including governmental attacks on the rights of environmental and animal rights activists.

Members of the EJC are currently engaged in structuring several projects to connect law students, legal workers, and attorneys in directly assisting environmental justice communities with legal representation, lobbying, research, organizing, education and direct community action.

Membership is open to all members of the NLG community. There will be no arbitrary exclusion from membership on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender presentation or identity, sexual orientation, disability or age.

1. Development of a comprehensive response to the environmental justice concerns following the Katrina Hurricane, including support for the development of a permanent Guild office in New Orleans. The project includes collaborations with other legal organizations in the Gulf Region, such as Loyola Law Clinic, Common Grounds, Stanford Environmental Law Clinic, Columbia Law Clinic, the Hurricane Relief Network, the NRDC, and others.
   
   
2. Providing assistance to tribal nations facing difficult environmental issues arising from the devastation of Native American tribal lands from Katrina and other natural disasters.
   
   
3. Development of Guild involvement in working towards a greater federal response to the much needed clean up of abandoned military bases on Native American tribal lands. This work will include a possible legal response to federal inaction in cleaning up the sites and lobbying Congress for greater appropriations towards cleanup.
   
   
4. Strengthening relationships between the Guild and Environmental Law Clinics. Current developing projects include working relationships with the Columbia Environmental Law School clinic and a student run Katrina environmental justice response team at Vermont Law School.
   
   
5. Development of a NLG Committee Reading Syllabus and Brief Bank, to provide a pathfinder for Guild members working on issues of environmental justice
   
   
6. Working with such public-interest science organizations as Sciencecorps, (http://www.sciencecorps.org/org/), Physicians for Social Responsibility and Union of Concerned Scientists. OMB Watch. Working with labor groups including unions (IAFF, AFL-CIO, TWU - health and safety offficers). Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility etc.
   
   
7. Joint ventures with Labor and Employment, Maurice and Jane Sugar Law Center, the United People of Color Caucus (TUPOCC) International and other NLG Committees and Projects.
   
   
8. Outreach to lapsed NLG members that are active environmental lawyers, ex. NRDC, Puerto-Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.
   
   
9. Position papers and public comments on current environmental justice issues including participating in federal environmental rule-making procedures
   
   
10. Advancement of the use of Commando Law including citizen action suits, pro-active lawyering, acting as catalysts for proper governmental action and guerilla testing; utilization of Labor, ADA, Civill Rights laws, regs and common law.
    
    
11. Working directly withe local groups such as Lowndes Citizens United for Action [Alabama]. The EJC assisted this group in 2004 at the Birmingham Convention in blocking the placement of a waste dump along the FreedomTrail.
    
    
12. Developing a meaningful and organized response to the “Green Scare” - Federal and state attacks on the civil liberties of environmental and animal rights activists. We believe that targeting and labeling these groups as terrorists often used as a scare tactic to create a chilling efffect within activist organizations.
    
    
13. NLG Environmental Justice Committee Research Team at Vermont Law School - Jeff Thomson - coordinator