The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) is a Washington, D.C.–based environmental nonprofit organization that advocates for more effective enforcement of environmental laws. The organization was founded in 2002 by former

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on De ...

(EPA) attorneys Eric V. Schaeffer and Michele Merkel. EIP is known for its

legal Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a Socia ...

and investigative efforts to reduce air and water pollution from

coal-fired power plants Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is a type of ...

, oil and gas facilities, factory farms, and other sources including

incinerators Incineration is a waste treatment process that involves the combustion of substances contained in waste materials. Industrial plants for waste incineration are commonly referred to as waste-to-energy facilities. Incineration and other high ...

and waste water treatment plants. The group also focuses on

environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement that addresses injustice that occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit. The movement has gene ...

and pollution in the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Ea ...

. EIP is headquartered in

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

, and it has another office in

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

, and staff in Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Georgia. In 2013,

Charity Navigator Charity Navigator is a charity assessment organization that evaluates more than 230,000 charitable organizations based in the United States, operating as a 501(c)(3) organization. It provides insights into a nonprofit's financial stability, adh ...

, an independent charity evaluator, rated EIP as a four-star charity organization. EIP maintains Ashtracker.org, a website that provides records about groundwater contamination at coal ash dumps. The site relies on industry-reported data from state and company records.

Mission

The Environmental Integrity Project’s objectives are as follow: # To provide objective analysis of how the failure to enforce or implement environmental laws increases pollution and affects the public's health; # To hold federal and state agencies, as well as individual corporations, accountable for failing to enforce or comply with environmental laws; # To help local communities in key states obtain the protection of environmental laws.”

References

{{Authority control Environmental law in the United States Environmental organizations based in Washington, D.C.

Mission

See also

References