Publications and Public Filings
Illinois' Billion-Dollar Blind Spot
How Flawed Laws And Data Gaps Leave Residents Bearing The Environmental, Health And Financial Costs Of Inactive Oil Wells
This report, developed in collaboration with ClientEarth USA, reveals how laws and regulatory systems in Illinois allow companies to dump cleanup costs onto the state, leaving tens of thousands of wells at high risk of desertion and exposing Illinois to over a billion dollars in potential cleanup liabilities.
Based on extensive public records analysis and Freedom of Information Act responses, this report presents the most comprehensive assessment yet of Illinois's unplugged well crisis, revealing how statutory shortcomings, regulatory flaws, and basic data gaps have set a billion-dollar environmental and fiscal time bomb without adequate oversight or accountability. It also presents a range of immediate steps regulators can take to address this problem and legal reforms that could more fundamentally fix the state’s legal and regulatory system to ensure the oil industry pays to cleanup after its operations.
View the Report (pdf)
Comments on the City of Chicago’s Draft Green Infrastructure Plan
July 10, 2026
Representing longtime EAC client the Southeast Environmental Taskforce and on behalf of a broader coalition of community groups and environmental non-profits, the EAC submitted extensive comments on the City of Chicago’s “Green Infrastructure Strategy.” The comments pushed the City to convert a summary of constructive work and important values into an actionable plan that will result in real reductions in harms related to stormwater management – like flooded basements – in the communities most burdened by and vulnerable to the intersectional impacts of stormwater problems.
Morse v. Illinois Department of Natural Resources & Winnetka Park District
Filed January 28, 2026
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources issued a permit to the Winnetka Park District to build a fence into Lake Michigan so that a neighboring property owner could effectively privatize the beach next to their home. But, Illinois law does not allow for fences to be built out into the Lake and the public trust doctrine forbids building on public natural resources to benefit private interests. When a local resident sued the government by herself and reached out for help, the EAC stepped in to represent her, filing an amended complaint that lays bare the problems in the Department’s permit – including its remarkable conclusion that the shoreline of Lake Michigan is somehow not navigible!
Prairie Rivers Network, et al. v. Tennessee Valley Authority
Filed December 18, 2025
When the Tennessee Valley Authority (“TVA”) announced that it was decarbonizing its electricity generation profile, climate change advocates were encouraged. When the TVA proposed to expand its coal mine in Southern Illinois and then sell it to a private coal company as a way to decarbonize its own holdings, the EAC sued on behalf of Prairie Rivers Network and Sierra Club to force the federal agency to realistically reconsider its options. You can read EAC’s Complaint and brief in opposition to TVA’s motion dismiss.
Illinois Pollution Control Board Environmental Justice Docket
October 31, 2025
The EAC filed a 40+ page brief on behalf of the Chicago Environmental Justice Network (“CEJN”) to provide the most comprehensive explanation of how existing Illinois statutory law can be used to advance environmental justice and address cumulative and disparate impacts of pollution. The Illinois Pollution Control Board docket – which requested input on steps the Board should take to better address environmental inequities – remains open for Board action based on CEJN’s comments and others.
Amicus Brief on Standing under the Illinois Administrative Review Law and Public Trust Doctrine
October 14, 2025
The public’s ability to obtain judicial review of Illinois state agency decisions has been handicapped by problematic and anti-participatory appellate court decisions for years. In the fall of 2025, on behalf of the Sierra Club and Openlands, the EAC submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Illinois appellate court based in Chicago explaining that problem and showing why the right of the people of Illinois to obtain judicial review of agency decisions is particularly indispensable in cases involving natural resources that the state holds as trustee for the people – like the shores of Lake Michigan.
Safe Drinking Water Act Petition to U.S. EPA to Protect People Incarcerated in Illinois State Prisons
April 15, 2024
People incarcerated in Illinois state prisons have complained for decades about the inhumane drinking water conditions that they are forced to live with. Without the freedom to take steps to protect themselves like using filters or bottled water, people suffer from acute illness associated with contaminated drinking water as well as long-term health threats. Representing a coalition of environmental organizations, community groups, and criminal justice system advocates, the EAC filed a petition in April of 2024 with the United States Environmental Protection Agency, asking the federal government to step in and require action from both the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Corrections.
Comments on the Trump Administration’s Deregulatory Agenda
On behalf of the Chicago Environmental Justice Network, EAC has submitted comments opposing the Trump Administration’s rollback of emissions standards for cars and trucks, rules on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, and limits on mercury and air toxics emissions from power plants.
On behalf of teams of researchers from Northwestern, the EAC has authored and submitted comments opposing multiple proposed regulatory changes that would politicize and undermine our system for federal grantmaking that supports scientific research and subject federal grantmakers to being fired for political reasons.
