About the Energy Justice Network:

Mission:

Energy Justice is the grassroots energy agenda, supporting communities threatened by polluting energy and waste technologies. Taking direction from our grassroots base and the Principles of Environmental Justice, we advocate a clean energy, zero-emission, zero-waste future for all.

We aim to empower the grassroots through various tools including community organizing support and advice, student organizing, digital networks, research on corporations and technologies, limited legal and technical guidance, and our mapping project.

Energy Justice Network goes beyond the demands of the traditional state and national environmental groups. We understand that energy issues have profound impacts on many other environmental issues from agriculture to waste, and recognize that low-income communities and communities of color tend to be the most seriously impacted by polluting energy systems. We support a comprehensive, environmental justice approach. Read more about Energy & Environmental Justice.

Energy Justice is the first national organization to advocate a complete phase-out of nuclear power, fossil fuels, large hydroelectric dams and "biomass" / incineration within the next 20 years. We believe that this is possible, affordable and absolutely necessary. What is holding us back is only a lack of political will.

Goals:

1. To enable community activists to defeat polluting industries.
2. To create participant-led grassroots support networks around technologies that community groups are fighting.
3. To bridge the campus-community divide.
4. To bring NIMBY groups to a NIABY analysis (not in anyone's backyard).
5. To reshape the energy and waste industries, eliminating support for false solutions and supporting clean energy and zero waste policies, methods and technologies.
6. To act as a clearinghouse, providing information to the general public and the media.
7. To shift policies of other organizations, including mainstream environmental groups and governmental bodies.

History:

The idea for Energy Justice Network was conceived by Mike Ewall during a presentation by a state-wide environmental justice network at a national Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC) training in Louisiana in 1999. Mike Ewall has been active in student and community organizing since getting involved while in high school in 1990. By 1999, Ewall's experience included successfully stopping a multi-state nuclear waste dump and two incinerators planned for his home state of Pennsylvania, building statewide grassroots community networks and regional student environmental networks, and much more. With his experience in waste issues, and noticing the emerging trend towards the promotion of landfills and incinerators as "green energy" sources, Ewall and his partner, Traci Confer starting bridging into energy issues while building their statewide work into broader national (and even international) networks.

At the time, hundreds of communities across the country were being targeted with natural gas-fired power plants. With fifty to seventy proposals in Pennsylvania alone, our hands were quite full, but the larger goal of connecting community groups nationally around common struggles remained and developed gradually into several issue-based national and international networks, connected primarily via email mailing lists.

Energy Justice Network's agenda is set by the needs of the grassroots community members who contact us for support. We get a constant flow of calls and emails seeking support and we give as much as we can to all who need help. We have directly advised and supported community activists in over 36 U.S. states and a few other countries.

Since 2001, the energyjustice.net website has served as a valuable resource, used by community activists worldwide to obtain critical information on the hazards posed by a variety of harmful energy and waste technologies. Over time, it has expanded to a vast clearinghouse of energy information, with webpages and factsheets on subjects ranging from waste coal to clean energy solutions. Energy Justice specializes in documenting the harmful effects of combustion technologies that are often promoted as clean, green or renewable, such as the burning of toxic landfill gases, "biomass" and biofuels. On topics as obscure as poultry litter incineration, Energy Justice has become the world's leading information source, with a global network consisting of multiple community groups on each of three continents.

Our email lists connect activists fighting specific types of industries, allowing them to share strategies and information specific to their issues. This networking also helps community groups move from a NIMBY (not in my backyard) analysis to a more global NIABY (not in anyone's backyard) understanding. Since the 1970s, grassroots community opposition to nuclear reactors, trash incinerators and gas-fired power plants has stopped 60-90% of the proposed facilities in each of these industries, paving the way for clean alternatives to compete. We aim to extend that history of success into the current waves of damaging energy and waste industry proposals. We currently have email networks to connect community groups around nuclear issues, coal power plants, waste coal, tire incineration, biomass incinerators, power lines, and ethanol biorefineries. We also participate in other national and global networks around liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, cement kilns and incinerators of all sorts. Our oldest email network, NukeNet, dates back to 1995. Our most active and famous one is our newer "No New Coal Plants" list, connecting activists in 36 states.

Energy Justice Network is a project of Action Center, Inc., which was incorporated in August 2002 and is recognized by the IRS as a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization. Action Center also houses our ActionPA project, a state-wide environmental organization in Pennsylvania. Until 2005, our accomplishments were achieved with an all-volunteer staff. Since 2006, Energy Justice has received support from the Energy Action Coalition, which we helped found in 2004, enabling us to expand our staff and scope. The funding is helping us realize a long-time ambition: to develop a web-based mapping and database project to track all of the existing, proposed, closed and defeated dirty energy facilities in the U.S., the corporations behind them, and the community groups opposing them. This database will enable community activists to more effectively share information and connect with others that have experience with similar industrial threats.

In addition to the specific accomplishments below, we have been involved in extensive amounts of student organizing, public speaking and participation in a variety of conferences.

Accomplishments:

1999:

• Wrote a controversial series of investigative articles that nationally exposed the consumer fraud involved in the marketing of "green" electricity products, particularly those by Green Mountain Energy, and pointing out the flaws in the Green-e certification process.
• Exposed the nuclear industry's refusal to shut down their reactors early in order to meet federal deadlines for fixing their Y2K computer problems, in spite of evidence of computer lockups and other malfunctions during testing throughout the year. Initiated the nation's only citizen petition for public disclosure of the nuclear industry's Y2K documents.
• Helped multiple communities form opposition groups to stop proposals for large new gas-fired power plants.

2000:

• In solidarity with our waste activist colleagues in New York City, we got hundreds of community members from Pennsylvania's landfill and incinerator communities to contact the New York City Council – convincing them to adopt various community protections for the transfer station communities in environmental justice communities in New York City as well as for the communities in Pennsylvania and Virginia who are on the receiving end of so much of the city's waste.
• Formed Coalition Against the Incinerator in Harrisburg, PA to seek the closure of the nation's largest dioxin air pollution source – the city's old garbage incinerator (the oldest operating plant in the U.S.), which was a very blatant case of environmental racism.
• A few years after defeating a wood waste incinerator near Philadelphia, and warning our networks about the company, we heard from residents in Minnesota that one of the individuals in the company is now promoting poultry waste incinerators in their state. This began a major research project that grew into our international network to stop poultry litter incineration, with subsequent victories in Delaware, Mississippi, Maryland and the Netherlands.
• Wrote our first exposés on toxic chemicals in "biomass" and landfill gas, and why burning these things ought not to qualify as renewable energy.

2001:

• Developed a statewide network in Pennsylvania to stop the invasion of natural gas power plants. In the following two years, a dozen were defeated by community opposition groups and at least as many were canceled due to changing market conditions.

2002:

• Alliance for a Clean Environment (ACE) – a group we've assisted for several years – defeated a proposed pipeline to move toxic and radioactive landfill gas from a landfill across town to a poly vinyl chloride (PVC) plastics plant. This five-year battle helped change the landscape in the local industries and may have been partially responsible for the subsequent closure of both the landfill and the PVC plant.
• Participated in the historic Second National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit.

2003:

• Wrote the nation's strongest, cleanest Renewable Portfolio Standard legislation and got it introduced in the Pennsylvania Senate – the first of such policies to be introduced in the state. [Unfortunately, a dirtier version of the bill, introduced shortly after ours, ended up becoming the dirtiest in the nation before passing the following year. We nearly stopped it, but lost. However, about half of the many loopholes we pointed out throughout the legislative and subsequent regulatory process ended up being resolved in our favor.]
• We testified on Maryland's Renewable Portfolio Standard law, seeking to eliminate all forms of incineration, specifically poultry litter incineration. We were half-successful, in that several limits were placed on these technologies, even though we failed to get them removed completely.
• Testified in the "scoping" phase of the federal Environmental Impact Statement hearings on the first proposed coal-to-oil refinery planned in the U.S. Our testimony here, and later in the Draft EIS hearings, helping delay $100 million in federal funding for the project for over four years, during which time the project's price tag increased by $182 million.
• Worked in a multi-racial coalition with the association of black clergy in the Harrisburg incinerator struggle. We warned city council that borrowing $125 million to rebuild the city's incinerator (which was finally closed this year due to failure to meet new environmental regulations) would plunge the city into bankruptcy. In spite of the coalition effort, city council approved it and – as events unfold – our warning is coming true.
• Participated in the 2nd international meeting of the Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance (GAIA), held in Malaysia.

2004:

• Prevented Virginia's legislature from moving forward with a plan for what would have been one of the weakest and dirtiest "renewable" portfolio standard laws in the U.S.
• Organized a community group in Pittston, PA that, in short order, stopped a plan for one of the nation's largest trash incinerators.
• Co-founded the Energy Action Coalition, a coalition of over 40 organizations in the U.S. and Canada organizing students and youth around energy and climate change issues.
• Conceived a new legal argument for addressing environmental racism in the courts, after other options have failed. This was attempted by the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, on behalf of the community leaders fighting the Harrisburg trash incinerator. While the case was rejected on a technicality (preventing the case from being ruled on its merits), the argument remains untested and may be able to be used in future cases.
• Initiated organizing against the largest proposed waste coal burning power plant in the U.S. (in Greene County, PA), founding the "Truth About Gob" effort. [This project became the second largest proposed waste coal plant when Dominion planned an even larger one in Wise County, VA two years later.]

2005:

• Initiated the formation of Residents Against the Power Plant (RAPP), a grassroots community group in Washington County, PA that formed to stop a proposal for what would be one of the largest waste coal burning power plants in the U.S. Due to our research, outreach, and advocacy on waste coal burning, two of the three proposals for large new waste coal burning power plants in Pennsylvania had their air permits appealed, which drastically delayed – and may ultimately doom – the financing and development of those projects.
• Initiated the formation of Schuylkill Taxpayers Opposed to Pollution (STOP), a grassroots community group in Schuylkill County, PA formed to stop a proposal for the nation's first coal-to-oil refinery, which would produce so-called "ultra clean fuels." This is a continuation of work we've been doing around this proposed refinery since 1997.
• Initiated the formation of Concerned Citizens Fighting the Boggs Township Dump, a grassroots community group in Clearfield County, PA formed to stop a proposal for a large new landfill.
• Assisted in the formation of the Chester Environmental Partnership, continuing our work to address environmental racism issues in the City of Chester, PA. 2005 saw the closure of Clean Metal, a shoddily run facility that recycled metals out of the toxic ash produced by Covanta's giant trash incinerator in Chester. We had researched and opposed this since 2003 and some of us have been working to support environmental justice for Chester since 1994.
• Supported the Citizens for Safe and Responsible Industry in Corinth, NY in their fight against a second attempt to build the nation's largest trash incinerator in their village, as well as a neighboring proposed facility to ,b>compost municipal solid waste and sewage sludge. As of 2007, we're still supporting this struggle.
• Supported community groups opposing proposals for new landfills in Centre and Schuylkill Counties in Pennsylvania.
• Educated various landfill communities about the hazardous nature of landfill gas, including new research on mercury in landfill gas. This information helped communities groups such as the South DeKalb Neighborhoods Coalition in Georgia, where the largely African-American community is surrounded by eight landfills.
• Began developing a network of community groups fighting ethanol biorefineries, including groups from Oregon to Pennsylvania.
• Began developing a network of community groups in the U.S., Mexico, Canada and First Nations fighting the use of tire-derived fuel (scrap tire incineration). 2005 saw victories against tire incineration in Preston, MN and Newfoundland, Canada.
• Continued development of a network of community groups opposing "biomass" incineration of various sorts. Assisted residents opposing wood waste burners in Arizona, Ohio, Maine and multiple communities in Minnesota and New Hampshire. Assisted groups in Australia, UK, and Scotland in fights against poultry waste incinerators. 2005 saw a victories against a wood waste incinerator in Hinsdale, NH and against a poultry waste incinerator in the Netherlands.
• Traveled to Mexico to present information on the hazards of burning tires and hazardous waste in cement kilns. Starting to strengthen national and global networks among those opposing cement kiln pollution.
• Taught workshops at the Northeastern Climate Conference (Vermont), the True Cost of Coal Conference (Pittsburgh, PA), BioDemocracy 2005, the Philadelphia Beyond Oil Conference, PA Renewable Energy Festival (Berks County, PA) and the Virginia Environmental Forum.

2006:

• Established the "No New Coal Plants" network, which connects over 160 activists fighting coal plants in 36 states, resulting in some amazing examples of cross-country community solidarity efforts.
• Helped form Meigs Citizen Action Now!, a community group in southeastern Ohio organizing around coal issues. Their rural county is surrounded by the nation's worst concentration of existing and proposed coal power plants and numerous other coal industry developments, with four power plants within a ten mile radius of each other and three to five more proposed.
• Wrote an ordinance that was passed in West Reading Borough, PA on July 18th, which set the nation's strictest mercury emissions standard by requiring that any crematorium or medical waste incinerator continuously monitor for mercury, report emissions data real-time to a website, and ensuring that if a single mercury amalgam filling or mercury-containing medical waste is burned, the operator will be fined.
• We were the sole submitters of comments on the expansion of the Sun Oil refinery in southwest Philadelphia. In response, the refinery expansion will now be the first in the nation to be required to use continuous emissions monitors for particulate matter.
• Filed the most extensive public comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for funding the coal-to-oil refinery, planned for Schuylkill County, helping further delay the project's funding. Anticipated costs have ballooned from $612 million to $800 million during the time that they've been seeking the $100 million in federal funds delayed in part by our comments.
• Participated in a coalition that successfully stopped the nation's most urban proposal for a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal, which would have been located in Philadelphia. It was dealt a major blow by city council with the twelve to two passage of strongly worded anti-LNG resolution on Feb 16th. The talks between the city and the oil company have since deteriorated, and no new oil company has expressed interest in taking on the project.
• Helped residents in Luzerne and Schuylkill Counties in Pennsylvania organize to oppose proposed new ethanol biorefineries. The proposal in Luzerne County quickly chose to relocate and in 2007, we organized a group to stop them at their new proposed location.
• We are providing support to numerous other communities struggling against various industries, including those fighting waste coal power plants in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia, incinerators and tire-burning in New York (with a victory that year), poultry waste incinerators in North Carolina and much more.
• Participated in many conferences: spoke at the Heartwood Summit for the Mountains, the Life Beyond Cheap Oil Festival, the Pennsylvania Renewable Energy and Sustainable Living Conference, the North Carolina Climate Challenge Summit, the Philly Beyond Oil 2006 conference (which we helped plan), the Pennsylvania/Ohio/West Virginia Environmental Gathering, the national Green Festival in Washington, D.C., the Think Outside the Bomb conference in New York City, the South Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance's Environmental Health Conference, multiple Energy Action Coalition meetings/trainings, and the Ursinus Clean Energy Conference (which we also helped plan). We also did a lot of student organizing by visiting campuses in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina.

2007:

• 2007 saw the defeat of record numbers of coal power plant proposals, largely brought about by activists connected with each other through our No New Coal Plants network. Among many other victories, our network leader, Nancy LaPlaca of Denver, CO, saw the defeat of the proposed "clean coal" power plant she'd been fighting in her home state.
• Helped stop one of the two proposed Cliffside Coal power plants from being built near Charlotte, North Carolina. We worked with students from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Warren Wilson College, as well as environmental groups Appalachian Voices and the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League to target the North Carolina Utilities Commission since they had the power to deny the proposals in the immediate future. Within a few days of starting the campaign, Warren Wilson had tabled twice in their school cafeteria and over 200 young people told the North Carolina Utilities Commission "No New Cliffside Coal Plants." By the end of the month, the North Carolina Utilities Commission announced a denial of one of the two proposed plants and we continue to work with the community activists to stop Duke from building the remaining unit.
• Kulpmont Borough passed the nation's strongest mercury and dioxin law, using an ordinance we developed that requires real-time continuous emissions testing and reporting of mercury and dioxin emissions, and setting strict emissions standards. The ordinance also requires that any air-polluting industry (anything requiring a DEP air pollution permit) be at least 900 feet from a residential property.
• Helped bring together community members in Curwensville, Pennsylvania to fight an ethanol plant proposed to be built 500 yards from the town's combined elementary, middle, and high school.
• Catalyzed the formation of the Mayfield, Pennsylvania 'No Ethanol' group, which is working to fight an unpopular proposal to site an ethanol plant in the town. Members of the group took over their local government through a slate of write-in candidates, and -- with our policy guidance -- are now poised to make some great changes in their community.
• Wrote a Campus-Community Organizing Guide to help students fight effective solidarity battles in support of community struggles against polluting industries.
• Initiated the formation of the Keep Erie's Environment Protected (KEEP) group in Erie, PA – organized to oppose a plan for the nation's largest tire burning incinerator. One of our student organizers is working with students at State University of New York (SUNY) Fredonia to set up a solidarity campaign to strengthen KEEP's efforts. SUNY Fredonia students are performing an environmental impact assessment of the proposal site and creating a documentary on the dangers of tire incineration.
• Successfully lobbied the 64 campus State University of New York system to implement the creation of a sustainability working group, to vote on a resolution to cut carbon dioxide emissions 80% by 2050 on a SUNY level, and to incorporate anti-oppression trainings into statewide student level legislation.
• Created a network of college campuses involved in solidarity efforts with community anti-coal campaigns in Ohio and Southern Illinois.
• Started an email network for community activists opposing power lines.
• Initiated the formation of the Delco Alliance for Environmental Justice -- to address environmental racism problems in Delaware County, PA (focused around the concentration of polluting industries in the City of Chester).
• Presented workshops at the 3rd international Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance conference in Spain, the Think Outside the Bomb (student anti-nuclear) conference, the Green Party's national convention, the Pennsylvania Renewable Energy Festival, Energy Action Coalition's 5,000+ student Power Shift conference, the New York State Student Assembly conference, the Southeast Precaution Conference and numerous smaller events.

Return to Energy Justice Home