COEJL’s Environmental Policy Platform is formulated through a consensus process among the 13 national and 122 local Jewish public affairs agencies comprising the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA).

The organized Jewish community's agenda for environmental stewardship and justice are derived from both traditional and contemporary principles:

• Stewardship: The diversity of life is sacred and should be protected because of its intrinsic value and its contributions to the well-being of humankind. Humankind’s unique place in the natural order enables us to transform the natural world to pursue human development and requires us to safeguard ecological systems so that the diversity of life can thrive.
• Environmental Justice: All people have the right to live, work, study, and play in environments free of dangerous air, water, or land pollution.
• Responsibility to Future Generations: Humankind has a solemn obligation to future generations to live within the ecological limits of the earth.
• Prevention of Harm: Regulations should cautiously and prudently err in favor of protecting human life and health.
• Public Involvement in Decision-Making: All citizens have a right to be actively involved in decision-making that affects their health or the quality of their environment.
• Citizens' Right to Know: Government and industry have an obligation to regularly inform the public of known and suspected dangers to their health from industrial and governmental facilities and from food, water, air, household supplies, and other consumer products.
• The Common Good: Government has an obligation both to regulate the use of private property in the interest of the common good and to provide transition assistance to those who lose their livelihood due to changes in environmental policies.
• Energy Independence: In order to protect American economic independence, avoid military conflict, and protect the environment and public health, the U.S. should adopt policies which wean the U.S. economy from its reliance on fossil fuels.
• Equitable Distribution of Responsibility: Individuals, corporations, governments, and nations that cause pollution or the destruction of ecosystems must bear responsibility for remediation and restoration.
• Governmental Compliance: Federal and state governments must be held to the same environmental standards as the private sector, except when national security unambiguously requires a strictly limited exemption.
• U.S. Leadership: The United States should take a leadership role in protecting the global environment.
• Moral Leadership: As environmental issues are matters of personal and societal morality and ethical responsibility, faith communities have an obligation to provide leadership regarding the necessity of protecting all creation.

COEJL supports a comprehensive and precautionary approach to protecting all members of the public from environmental health threats.

• Equal Protection from Pollution and Degradation: COEJL affirms the right of all people to live and work in environments with clean air, land, water and food and calls on government to protect public health by establishing ensuring sufficient regulations and facilities to safely minimize, manage, and dispose of toxic, nuclear, and other hazardous wastes. COEJL calls on government to ensure that all communities have equal access to environmental clean up programs and equal protection from environmental hazards and the placement of waste disposal facilities, regardless of income, race, or ethnicity (“Statement of Principles on Environmental Justice,” 1995 JCPA Plenum).
• Product Testing and the Right to Know: COEJL supports mandatory pre-market testing of potentially harmful commercial, industrial, and agricultural products and processes that may have the potential to harm the environment or public health before approval for production and use (“Energy and Environmental Priorities,” 2001 JCPA Plenum.). COEJL supports the mandatory labeling of consumer products regarding their toxicity and the provision of information about the toxicity of the chemicals emitted by industrial and commercial facilities (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs, 1998-1999).
• Pollution Prevention: COEJL favors measures that impose the cost of pollution remediation on polluters; provide incentives for pollution prevention; and promote the development of non-toxic alternatives to hazardous materials (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 2000 – 2001).
• Public Health Research: COEJL supports the establishment of comprehensive registries for both disease and environmental exposure that will provide data for identifying environmental causes of disease. COEJL supports funding for research into the interactions between the genetic and environmental causes of disease (“Energy and Environmental Priorities,” 2001 JPCA Plenum). All feasible actions to ensure that personal health information is kept strictly confidential must be required by law and their implementation carefully monitored. (“Resolution on the Environment’s Impact on Public Health,” 2003 JCPA Plenum).
• Nuclear Waste: COEJL supports the isolation of commercial and defense nuclear wastes in a manner that protects public health and the environment (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 1999-2000).
• Regulatory Procedures: As cost-benefit analysis cannot adequately assess the “value” or quality of life, COEJL does not support its use as the primary tool for evaluating regulations and standards. Rather, the effectiveness of regulations for protecting the vulnerable, preventing harm, and safeguarding creation should serve as the primary evaluation criteria for regulations (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 1999-2000). COEJL opposes routine provision of compensation for loss of profits as a consequence of environmental or other regulation. (“Environmental Laws and Regulations,” JCPA Executive Committee resolution, 1995)

COEJL supports the development of a comprehensive national energy policy that increases U.S. energy independence by reducing dependence upon fossil fuels – particularly oil from the Middle East – through energy efficiency and the development of environmentally clean affordable alternative energy sources and technologies.

• Domestic Energy Production: The U.S. should not seek to increase energy independence by drilling for oil or gas in environmentally sensitive areas, particularly those that are unique natural areas or critical habitats for threatened species (“Energy and Environmental Priorities,” 2001 JCPA Plenum).
• Energy Conservation and Clean Energy Technologies: COEJL supports policies to effect the rapid adoption of clean and renewable energy sources and technologies, including solar, wind, fuel cell, and natural gas, and the phasing out of reliance on fossil fuel technologies which contribute to air pollution, respiratory illness, global warming, and the degradation of ecosystems (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 2000 – 2001). COEJL supports significant increases in vehicle fuel economy standards. COEJL supports increased development and use of mass transit (“Energy and Environmental Priorities,” 2001 JCPA Plenum). COEJL supports keeping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve filled to capacity (JCPA Joint Program Plan, 1993-1994).
• International Agreements on Global Climate Change: COEJL supports U.S. leadership in global efforts to address climate change. COEJL supports the goals of the Kyoto Protocol and urges that the U.S. and other developed nations should achieve a majority of greenhouse gas emission reductions required under international agreements through direct domestic action. International agreements addressing climate change must protect those most vulnerable: poor people, those living in coastal areas, and those relying on subsistence agriculture (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 1999 – 2000).
• Domestic Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions: COEJL supports the creation of mandatory domestic emissions reductions programs under the legislative authority provided by the already ratified Rio Treaty (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 1999 – 2000). COEJL supports adding carbon dioxide to pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act.
• Economic Displacement: COEJL supports federal programs to provide retraining and economic transition assistance to the workers and industries most negatively affected by changes in energy policies (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 1999 – 2000). Congress should generously fund the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and other programs to reduce the negative impact on poor people of energy policies that increase the cost of energy (“Energy and Environmental Priorities,” 2001 JCPA Plenum).
• Market Incentives: COEJL favors policies which provide market-based incentives to adopt clean energy technologies, including taxation of pollution (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 2000 – 2001).
• Utility Regulation: Changes in the regulation of utilities should be done in a manner that promotes significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions, including the elimination of subsidies to fossil fuel industries so that environmentally friendly energy production will become increasingly competitive (“Energy and Environmental Priorities,” 2001 Plenum).

COEJL supports a comprehensive approach to preserving and restoring biological diversity at home and abroad.

• Public Lands: COEJL supports management of both public and private lands to preserve and restore biological diversity. COEJL supports the establishment of a system of interconnected, strictly protected biological preserves on land, in fresh water, and in the sea (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 2000 – 2001). Government should remove subsidies for logging, mining, or grazing on public lands, especially in old growth forests (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 1999-2000). COEJL supports generous and permanent funding for the acquisition and protection of sensitive land and water habitat (“Energy and Environmental Priorities,” 2001 JCPA Plenum).
• Endangered Species: COEJL supports reauthorization of a strengthened Endangered Species Act – overdue for reauthorization since 1993 (“Energy and Environmental Priorities,” 2001 JCPA Plenum). COEJL supports protection of species on public and private lands based on current science, erring on the side of protecting species when scientific authorities differ. The federal government should conduct sufficient biological research to make timely decisions regarding species protection. Governments should work proactively to prevent dangerous declines in species populations and create recovery plans for all endangered and threatened species (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 1999 – 2000). Government should protect and restore sufficient habitat to secure viable populations of declining species throughout their present ranges. Congress should amend the Endangered Species Act to prohibit the federal government from granting permits (“incidental take permits”) to destroy habitat that is scientifically demonstrated by peer review to be essential to the recovery of endangered species. The Administration and Congress should devise, fully fund and aggressively publicize positive incentives to encourage private property owners to protect and recover endangered and threatened species and the habitat upon which they depend (“Strengthening Protections for Endangered Species and Habitats,” 1997 JCPA Plenum).

• COEJL calls on the Israeli government to address the rapidly deteriorating environmental conditions in Israel (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 2000 – 2001).
• COEJL supports the passage of legislation in Congress which would allocate previously undesignated funding for the implementation of the U.S./Israel Memorandum of Understanding on environmental cooperation (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 2004-2005).
• COEJL supports educating the Jewish community about the severity and urgency of the environmental crisis in Israel and urging our members to make tackling this issue a priority in the upcoming year (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 2004-2005).
• COEJL supports working in coalition with both faith-based and environmental organizations to help bring American expertise and resources to bear on the environmental problems in Israel (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 2004-2005).
• COEJL supports encouraging JCPA agencies and communities to aid in the search for research grants that address these issues (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 2004-2005).

• International Sustainable Development: COEJL supports increased foreign aid for environmental protection, sustainable economic development, and family planning in developing countries. COEJL urges the Administration to take a leadership role in ensuring that international institutions, including the World Trade Organization and the World Bank, actively work to protect the global environment (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 2000 – 2001). The U.S. should actively address environmental degradation and resource shortages in regions where such developments might lead to either mass migration or armed conflict. COEJL supports the inclusion of provisions to protect the environment in trade agreements (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 1999 – 2000).
• Urban and Community Planning: COEJL supports the provision of incentives for the revitalization of cities through environmentally responsible “Brownfields” programs. COEJL supports land-use and transportation policies which would contain urban sprawl, promote the redevelopment of cities, and protect open spaces (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 1999 – 2000).
• Conservation of Natural Resources: COEJL supports policies—based on pricing, taxation, and other incentives—that lead to the reduction of the level of U.S. per capita consumption of energy, paper, metals, and other resources. COEJL calls on all households and communal organizations to adopt internal conservation and waste-reduction policies including recycling, the use of recycled and energy-efficient products, and the elimination of hazardous pesticides and cleaning supplies (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 1999 – 2000).
• Agriculture: COEJL supports comprehensive testing of all genetically engineered products for their capacity both to disrupt ecosystems and to cause illness. COEJL supports policies which promote sustainable agricultural practices—including soil conservation, minimized use of pesticides and fertilizers, and maintenance of the genetic diversity of food crops (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 2000 – 2001). In addition, governments should protect agricultural lands and public health through programs to safeguard groundwater, regulate chemical and animal waste runoff from farms and livestock facilities, and promote organic agricultural practices (JCPA Agenda for Public Affairs 1999 – 2000).