Illinois

From our hub in Chicago, NRDC champions the right of all people to live free from toxic exposure and fights for communities throughout the Great Lakes region. Given the Midwest’s historic reliance on coal and prevalent role in the oil and gas industry, it is also ground zero for our advocacy efforts to decarbonize our power sector. Together with labor and faith-based groups, farmers, businesses, and state agencies, we’ve worked to harness the region’s abundant sunlight and wind, wide-open spaces, and historic manufacturing sector to build both clean energy infrastructure and its workforce. 

In Chicago, we use litigation as a tool to redress power imbalances between frontline communities that have been demanding environmental justice and a government that’s not always willing to act. Our work with grassroots leaders in the city’s Southeast Side has helped residents call national attention to the rampant dumping of toxic chemicals in their backyards and hold the city accountable for replacing its vast network of lead water service lines. We’ve also helped close a pair of highly polluting coal plants that were spewing their emissions into working-class Latine neighborhoods and compelled ComEd, the largest electric utility in Illinois, to invest in new efficiency measures for commercial buildings. And as part of a broad coalition, we paved the way for Illinois’s landmark Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, which remains one of the most comprehensive pieces of climate legislation ever passed, with a path to 100 percent carbon-free energy by 2045 and an unprecedented focus on workers and equity. 

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