How legal strategy strengthens protections for communities and natural places
At Laumann Legal, impact is measured by what changes on the ground: stronger protections, clearer public processes, and healthier air for communities and natural places. Because much of this work supports clients behind the scenes, organizations are not named here. These examples reflect the types of outcomes Sara helps make possible through strategic legal support across environmental justice communities, coalitions, and public-interest organizations.
Strengthening protections in an environmental justice community
In a Southern Gulf Coast neighborhood long burdened by industrial pollution, residents faced permits with little air monitoring, weak emission limits, a lack of transparency, and limited public engagement.
Laumann Legal supported the community by identifying legal and technical issues in permits and helped advocates prepare effective public comments. This work contributed to stronger permit provisions, improved transparency, and clearer tools for residents to participate in future decisions.
Improving visibility protections in national parks and wilderness areas
National parks and wilderness areas across the country face persistent haze from industrial emissions. Coalition partners needed help navigating highly technical state plans.
Laumann Legal provided legal analysis and comments that highlighted missing emission controls, modeling concerns, and monitoring, recordkeeping, and reporting issues affecting visibility goals. These efforts supported revisions to state plans, which will strengthen long-term protections for numerous parks and wilderness areas.
Addressing nitrogen pollution in fragile alpine ecosystems
High-altitude environments in the Rocky Mountains have been affected by nitrogen deposition from large agricultural operations. Laumann Legal helped partners link scientific findings to Clean Air Act requirements, analyze emissions data, and shape comments to the government agency. This support reinforced efforts to reduce ammonia emissions and increased recognition of nitrogen deposition as an issue of ongoing, unresolved impact and concern.
True impact is measured with cleaner air and stronger communities able to shape the decisions that affect them.
Sara Laumann
Building community capacity where monitoring falls short
Environmental justice neighborhoods often lack adequate air monitoring. Advocates need clarity on ambient levels of air pollutants in their neighborhoods on an ongoing basis. Laumann Legal evaluated multiple years of state monitoring plans and identified gaps in an environmental justice neighborhood, resulting in the government agency installing new air monitoring. The ongoing monitoring data provides much-needed information to this historically underserved area.
Strengthening oversight of complex permitting programs
Community and nonprofit organizations often face highly technical stationary-source permits (e.g., minor source permits, synthetic minor permits, construction permits, major source operating (Title V) permits) that are difficult to interpret or challenge.
Laumann Legal has helped identify deficiencies in dozens of permits, including erroneous emission-control determinations, modeling errors, missing emission limits, incomplete monitoring, recordkeeping, and reporting, failure to include all applicable requirements, and flawed applicability determinations. This work supports stronger permitting decisions, increased transparency, future enforcement efforts, and greater accountability for industrial facilities.
Supporting meaningful participation in rulemaking
Policy changes can move quickly, leaving communities without the tools to participate. Laumann Legal helps partners engage in rulemaking by translating proposed state and federal air-quality rules into easy-to-understand concepts and developing comments that address issues of concern to the community or organization. This work helps ensure that environmental and public-health concerns are recognized and supports meaningful dialog between the public and state and federal officials.
A long-term commitment to clean air and public health
With more than 30 years of experience—including more than two decades at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency—Sara brings deep knowledge of environmental law, permitting, and policy. Her work has helped improve visibility in national parks and wilderness areas, strengthen environmental justice protections, and support advocates working to hold polluters accountable.
Laumann Legal remains committed to helping organizations and communities use environmental law to protect public health and natural resources.
