Created by and for state legislators, the Caucus serves as a resource on environmental issues through legislative research, organized events, and by facilitating collaboration between lawmakers working on similar issues.
The National Caucus of Environmental Legislators’ mission is to empower a nonpartisan network of legislative champions to protect, conserve, and improve the natural and human environment.
NCEL’s vision is state leadership that advances a clean and healthy environment for all.
We believe that the key to advancing sound policy in the states is well-informed legislatures with strong champions who can advocate on behalf of the environment, coordinate strategies, and collaborate with their peers across the country on shared learning and action. NCEL does not lobby for the enactment or defeat of any state or federal legislation.
NCEL was founded in 1996 by Maryland Delegate Leon Billings, who was the chief author of the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. The Caucus, which began as a bipartisan informal network of environmentally focused state legislators, was formalized in September 1999 as a project of the Edmund S. Muskie Foundation and became an independent 501(c)(3) organization in 2007. Today, NCEL is governed by a board of sitting legislators and coordinates over 1,200 state legislators around regional and issue-specific projects.
NCEL’s staff and board are deeply committed to incorporating the principles of justice and equity into our work. We are working with legislators, grassroots advocates, peer organizations, and philanthropic partners to develop a formal equity statement to help guide this process.
Environmental justice is intertwined with all environmental issues and NCEL works to incorporate environmental justice principles into all the work we do.
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The NCEL Team is here to serve as your remote environmental staff and are ready to assist you.
NCEL Team
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