Activists protest the environmental consequences of data center expansion outside a data center conference in Washington, D.C., on April 21. File Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
Reducing rampant pollution across the United States was so important that when Congress passed many environmental protection laws, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act, it didn't want to leave enforcement only to the executive branch.
Congress specifically wrote into those laws ways for citizens to enforce them through the courts when the government does not act to address the problem.
Called "citizen suit provisions," those parts of the laws allow regular people and advocacy groups to sue companies they believe are violating the law. Citizens can also sue federal agencies that fail to enforce the laws.
Since the 1970s, those provisions have been used in over 2,000 lawsuits. In fact, a majority of environmental cases are citizen suit cases.
