Club EJ Director Leslie Fields Tapped for Obama Administration Post

Leslie Fields, the Environmental Justice and Community Partnerships Director for the Sierra Club, has been appointed by President Obama to the Board of Directors of the Mickey Leland National Urban Air Toxics Research Committee.

"I'm honored to have been appointed," says Fields, who will remain in her position at the Club. "Hopefully we can bring an environmental justice perspective to the administration based on the Sierra Club's great EJ and partnerships work. We're the only mainstream environmental group that has a dedicated, robust EJ program that's embedded in communities all across the country. The Club has made a commitment to environmental justice and it's paying off in benefits for the communities we work with, and for the Sierra Club itself."

Read about some of Fields' recent exploits with the Sierra Club here and here.

The Mickey Leland National Urban Air Toxics Research Center (NUATRC) was authorized by the U.S. Congress in the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 and incorporated in 1991. It is named after the late Congressman Mickey Leland, whose efforts on behalf of public health contributed significantly to the passage of key amendments to the Clean Air Act. NUATRC is a research facility that has been specifically charged to sponsor and gather scientific information on the human health effects caused by exposure to air toxics.

The Center's research program, developed collaboratively by experts from academia, industry, and government, seeks to fill the gaps in scientific data that are required to make sound environmental health public policy decisions. Its objectives are to study the health effects of exposure to air toxics; develop new approaches and methods for assessing the potential risks resulting from exposures to air toxics; and provide sound, peer-reviewed scientific data for regulatory purposes.

Fields was formerly the International Director of Friends of the Earth and she is currently an adjunct law professor at Howard University School of Law. She serves on the Joint Center for Economic and Political Studies' Commission to Engage African Americans on Climate Change, the American Bar Association's Environmental Justice Committee, and on the board of Horn Relief.