Clean Air Task Force founding attorney Ann Weeks retires, leaving legacy of cleaner air, healthier people, and a safer climate
BOSTON – After three decades of service, Clean Air Task Force’s founding attorney Ann Weeks, is retiring. Nationally recognized for her work to realize the promise of the Clean Air Act to move technologies that improve public health and the environment, particularly as applied to energy systems, her legal work has been instrumental in efforts to reduce pollution from power plants and address climate change.
“Ann helped build the record for and, as lead counsel or counsel of record, defend the most consequential Clean Air Act regulations of the past 30 years,” said Conrad Schneider, Senior Director, U.S. of Clean Air Task Force. “Ann’s cases included the lawsuits leading to the Mercury Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule, and then that rule’s defense. That work reduced power plant mercury and other air toxic emissions by over 90% and resulted in the clean-up or closure of hundreds of coal-fired power plants, saving tens of thousands of lives and significantly reducing power sector carbon pollution. Ann’s legacy is cleaner air, a healthier population, and a safer climate.”
“Thirty years ago, Ann was a key leader in the uphill but successful effort by environmental advocates to apply the Clean Air Act to bring U.S. coal plants up to modern pollution standards, saving thousands of lives, and she has been an innovative legal strategist at the forefront of every major step forward to curb power plant air pollution since then,” said Armond Cohen, Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force. “Her special sauce is wrangling massive scientific and economic evidence to advance public health through legal tools. She has trained a generation of advocates to carry on that work, a legacy that will long outlast her tenure.”
Since its founding in 1996, CATF has relied on a tenacious team of lawyers who leverage its expertise, and U.S. legal principles to establish and defend clean air regulations and support the development of carbon-free technologies. CATF’s legal and regulatory work, under Ann’s counsel, included efforts to realize the promise for clean air and the climate offered by the then newly enacted 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, particularly as applied to the energy sector.
“Ann is a lawyer’s lawyer: an elegant and persuasive writer, able to master complex scientific and technical records, and a skilled and fierce advocate,” said Shaun Goho, CATF’s Legal Director. “In addition to being one of the leading environmental lawyers in the country, Ann has been the ‘mama bear’ of CATF’s legal team at CATF, training and mentoring generations of lawyers, interns, and paralegals. She has been a role model for the legal team, the rest of CATF, and the environmental NGO community through her courage, tenacity, and integrity.”
Press Contact
Samantha Sadowski, Senior Communications Manager, U.S., ssadowski@catf.us, +1 202-440-1717
About Clean Air Task Force
Clean Air Task Force (CATF) is a global nonprofit organization working to safeguard against the worst impacts of climate change by catalyzing the rapid development and deployment of low-carbon energy and other climate-protecting technologies. With 30 years of internationally recognized expertise on climate policy and a fierce commitment to exploring all potential solutions, CATF is a pragmatic, non-ideological advocacy group with the bold ideas needed to address climate change. CATF has offices in Boston, Washington D.C., and Brussels, with staff working virtually around the world. Visit catf.us and follow @cleanaircatf.
