ATTORNEY GENERAL RAOUL RECOGNIZES EARTH DAY, CONTINUES TO PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT FROM UNLAWFUL FEDERAL ACTIONS

ATTORNEY GENERAL RAOUL RECOGNIZES EARTH DAY, CONTINUES TO PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT FROM UNLAWFUL FEDERAL ACTIONS

April 21, 2026

Chicago - With Earth Day approaching, Attorney General Kwame Raoul today highlighted his office's work to protect the environment, advance clean energy solutions, and sound the alarm about the Trump administration's unprecedented attempts to illegally dismantle programs and rescind regulations that protect clean air, clean water, clean energy, the climate, and public health and safety.

"Since taking office in January 2025, the Trump administration has attempted to undermine or eliminate important and often longstanding environmental protections at an alarming pace," Raoul said. "My office is working hard to combat these unlawful actions every step of the way. As we celebrate Earth Day, I maintain my commitment to protecting our environment and natural resources. All Illinois residents and future generations deserve clean air; clean water; access to reliable, clean energy; and to live free from exposure to toxic chemicals."

Raoul has partnered with his fellow attorneys general across the country to launch several legal challenges against the administration's unlawful actions that will harm the environment.

Protecting Clean Water and Clean Air
On his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order declaring an unlawful "national energy emergency," which directs the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to use emergency authority to issue hundreds of Clean Water Act construction permits for energy facilities like pipelines and mines without ensuring the projects' safety. This unlawful order requires federal agencies to ignore the law and fast-track approval of activities that may damage Illinois' waterways, wetlands, critical habitats and endangered species. Raoul and a coalition of attorneys general filed a lawsuit challenging this executive order in May 2025 and expanded the lawsuit in February.

Building on the executive order, beginning in December 2025, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) began issuing "emergency orders" that would halt the retirements of several costly coal units at fossil fuel power plants across the country. These facilities were all slated for retirement due to their age and state of disrepair. Extending operations beyond their planned retirement dates increases pollution, harms the public's health and welfare, damages ecosystems and contributes to climate change.

Attorney General Raoul filed a lawsuit earlier this month challenging the orders halting the retirement of R.M. Schahfer (Schahfer) power plant in Wheatfield, Indiana and F.B. Culley (Culley) generating station in Newburgh, Indiana.

Coal burned at Schahfer and Culley creates significant amounts of pollution, including nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, carbon dioxide and others. The Schahfer plant is located immediately southeast of Chicago, near the shore of Lake Michigan, and the Culley plant is located on the shore of the Ohio River, immediately upstream of southern Illinois.

Raoul has also filed lawsuits challenging similar emergency orders forcing a Michigan coal plant and a Pennsylvania methane gas- and oil-powered plant to remain in operation.

In March 2026, Raoul led a coalition of state and local governments filing a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's rollback of updated standards for emissions of hazardous air pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants. Those pollutants include toxic metals, such as mercury, arsenic and lead, as well as acid gases such as hydrogen chloride and formaldehyde.

While mercury and other hazardous air pollutants disproportionately harm people who live near fossil fuel power plants, the emissions can also travel great distances and be deposited into other states. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that poses serious dangers to public health, especially for pregnant women and children. Exposure to mercury also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and autoimmune dysfunction in adults. Mercury emissions from power plants are also a major contributor to mercury contamination in U.S. waterways, including parts of Lake Michigan in Illinois.

Combating Climate Change
In March, Raoul and a coalition of state and local governments filed a lawsuit challenging the EPA's unlawful attempt to rescind its 2009 Endangerment Finding, the agency's seminal determination that greenhouse gas pollution causes climate change, endangering public health and welfare.

The rescission ignores decades of peer-reviewed scientific evidence and will endanger hundreds of millions of Americans, particularly communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harms, and cause unprecedented disruption to the regulatory landscape with catastrophic consequences for industries, natural resources and public investments.

Already, climate change is harming the well-being of Illinois' residents, natural resources and economy. For instance, climate change has made floods more intense and more frequent, causing dramatic damage to lives and property. In 2019, flooding in Illinois and other midwestern states killed three people and caused a total of $7.6 billion in property damage. In Cook County, multiple severe storms and flooding events in June and July 2023 caused $500 million in property damage. And in August 2025, severe flooding again struck the Chicagoland area, damaging over 5,500 homes.

To make matters worse, the administration has attempted to unlawfully withhold federal funding administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coerce Illinois and other states to cooperate with the administration's sweeping immigration enforcement efforts. Congress approved and funded these national grant programs that are intended to support recovery from natural disasters and emergencies, and to address the effects of climate change, such as flooding. Last year, Illinois received more than $122 million in FEMA funding to prepare for, protect against, respond to and recover from catastrophic disasters. After filing a lawsuit challenging these coercive conditions on funding, Raoul's office secured a court order preventing the administration from holding these critical federal dollars hostage.

In July 2025, the office also successfully took action to prevent the administration from attempting to shut down FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program, which funds proactive community efforts to protect against natural disasters before they strike. Illinois has used FEMA BRIC funding across the state to support natural disaster mitigation projects that reduce the risk of harm from flooding and safeguard critical resources, like water treatment plants and regional hospitals.

Ensuring Access to Reliable, Clean Energy
Through litigation, Raoul has protected clean wind energy projects and the development of Illinois' electric vehicle charging infrastructure. His office's legal successes will help ensure Illinois remains a clean energy leader and stays on track to meet the state's clean energy goal of 1 million electric cars on the road by 2030.

On his first day in office, President Trump issued an executive order to halt funding for research and development of clean energy solutions. Pursuant to this directive, the DOE compiled a "hit list" of energy and infrastructure projects and has been working to withhold or terminate those grants, including grants to the University of Illinois aimed at transformative scientific research around climate and energy.

In February, Raoul and fellow attorneys general filed a lawsuit challenging these politically motivated and illegal attempts to summarily terminate or withhold billions of dollars of clean energy and infrastructure awards mandated by Congress.

Illinois is a top state in the country for producing clean energy from wind, and even more wind power developments are planned in Illinois for the near future. On his first day in office, President Trump issued a memorandum that, among other things, indefinitely halted all federal approvals necessary for the development of offshore and onshore wind energy projects pending federal review. Pursuant to this directive, federal agencies stopped all permitting and approval activities. In May 2025, Raoul and a coalition of state attorneys general filed a lawsuit challenging the directive. In December, Raoul announced that the attorneys general won their case and a federal judge had vacated the administration's actions, ruling that they were arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law.

In August 2025, Raoul sued to block the DOE from imposing a new funding cap that would have slashed support for vital state-run energy programs. In Illinois, the cap would have endangered long-running programs promoting energy resiliency and efficiency. After Raoul and the coalition of states secured a victory in federal court, the DOE rescinded its unlawful policy earlier this month, bringing the case to a close.

In October 2025, Raoul and fellow attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the EPA for illegally ending a $7 billion program to bring solar energy to more than 900,000 households in low-income and disadvantaged communities across the country.

In May 2025, Raoul joined fellow attorneys general in filing a lawsuit seeking to stop the federal government from illegally terminating billions of dollars Congress approved to fund electric vehicle infrastructure. The Federal Highway Administration withheld $117 million dollars it granted to Illinois to develop electric car charging infrastructure. In January, Raoul announced that a federal judge issued a final ruling, finding that the Trump administration illegally withheld around $1 billion in funding from Illinois and the other states in the lawsuit.

In December 2025, Raoul and a group of attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for unlawfully suspending two bipartisan grant programs for electric vehicle charging infrastructure that would reduce pollution, expand access to clean vehicles and create thousands of green jobs. The funding includes $130 million in competitive grant funding that the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded Illinois to support new electric vehicle charging stations across the state, including the Chicagoland area, Springfield, the Metro East and the Quad Cities.

Raoul's office has also submitted dozens of comment letters to federal agencies opposing unlawful and dangerous proposed administrative rule changes that would strip federal protections and leave Illinois residents and the environment in danger. Raoul's office also files amicus briefs in support of other cases challenging unlawful actions by the administration that will harm the environment.

In addition to these efforts to defend environmental protections at the federal level, the office's Environmental Enforcement Division and Environmental Crimes Bureau enforce the state's environmental laws by both civilly and criminally prosecuting polluters and holding them accountable for causing harm to residents' health, the environment and the state's natural resources. The office's Environmental Enforcement Division has recovered millions of dollars from polluters and has required companies to undertake environmental projects in communities impacted by pollution.