December 03, 2024

Howard A. Learner

Putting ELPC’s Money Toward Our Post-Election Environmental Protection Commitment

ELPC will keep fighting for clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and to protect communities against toxic threats. To succeed, we'll need more talented, effective ELPC staff to work with our coalition partners and clients. And we will!

The election happened, and we’ll soon be dealing with the new reality of the incoming Trump administration. We have a good idea of the challenges ahead to protect our core environmental values in the Midwest and nationally. ELPC’s post-election strategic plan is: (1) stepping up our offense to achieve more environmental progress in our Midwest states and (2) preparing for vigorous defense against Trump administration attempts to roll back federal protections. ELPC will keep fighting for clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and to protect communities against toxic threats. To succeed, we’ll need more talented, effective ELPC staff to work with our coalition partners and clients. And we will!

The State Landscape Across the Midwest

The fundamental difference going into Trump II in 2025 versus Trump I in 2017 is that we now have a different trifecta alignment in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin – four pro-environmental Democratic Governors, four Democratic Attorneys Generals, and four Democratic majority State Supreme Courts. That’s quite different from the situation in 2017 when we dealt with Gov. Bruce Rauner in Illinois, Gov. Rick Snyder in Michigan, and Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin, and there was an overall less favorable lineup of State AGs and State Supreme Courts.

Our Leadership Teams in Action

The ELPC Senior Management team recently met for 1.5 days to discuss strategically focused and viable programmatic opportunities to staff up and fight back over the next two years. ELPC’s Iowa Advisory Council and Science Advisory Council members are meeting soon to discuss concrete actions to fight back and protect progress.

This is a time for action, not deep contemplation.  We’re rolling up our sleeves, not sitting on our hands.

As New York Times columnist Margaret Renkl said, “…regional organizations, like the Environmental Law & Policy Center in the Midwest and the Southern Environmental Law Center in the South – have experience in using the law to defend the environment from the worst excesses of the Republican obeisance to industry and oil. Pick an organization from a vetted list by Charity Navigator or CharityWatch and help it do the work that none of us is equipped to do alone.

There is no time left to spare. Precious things have been lost already, but not everything will be lost, and we must fight for those things. There is still so much we can save. Including ourselves.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. I am inspired as ELPC’s Executive Director and personally. The entire ELPC team does not back down from a fight, and we have some good opportunities to build on for progress in the Midwest states.

Bottom line

Thank you for all that you are doing and will be doing to help ELPC succeed in our mission and achieve strong results in these challenging times.

Let’s move forward together to protect the planet, our Midwestern people and communities, the Great Lakes, and our vital natural resources.