SELC attorneys then blocked or deferred companies’ plans to construct seven new coal-burning units across six states, helping to retire one-third of the existing coal plant capacity in the region.
[5] SELC's years-long campaign to stop utilities from storing coal ash in unlined, leaking pits next to rivers has led to the largest ever cleanup of industrial pollution in the Southeast.
Its suit challenging TVA's Gallatin plant resulted in the first time a federal court ordered a utility to excavate its coal ash.
SELC successfully challenged six key pipeline permits, halted construction, and secured a precedential ruling in favor of environmental justice in Virginia.
[10][11] The SELC is one of three environmental groups which filed suit against the United States Fish and Wildlife Service which "they say should have blocked the planned extension of the N.C. 540 highway across southern Wake County" because it would "threaten the existence of two endangered species of mussels that live in a creek the road would cross.
"[13] An environmental justice lawsuit brought by SELC compelled a federal court to overturn a permit for a pipeline compressor station in Buckingham County,[14] Virginia's, historic community of Union Hill.
The organization's Protect Our Coast campaign helped persuade the Obama Administration to remove the South Atlantic from seismic exploration and the federal offshore leasing plan in 2016.
[19] SELC works alongside 300 local, state, national, and international partner organizations to help converse in ideas and knowledge of environmental activism.