The State of the States on Environmental Health ft. Susan Kaplan

GundxChange

In these weekly talks, hosted by the Gund Institute for Environment, scholars and leaders exchange ("xChange") new research and solutions for people and planet.

This week, as federal protections from pollution and toxic chemicals continue to recede, states are increasingly stepping up. Best practice policies in both red and blue states are reducing pollution, improving health outcomes, and saving money. In this talk, Susan Kaplan will describe groundbreaking state policies ranging from the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Act, to a Texas law requiring every school to reduce use of hazardous pesticides, to California’s air pollution reduction program in which local residents sit at the table with regulators. She will pinpoint keys to these policies’ success and discuss actions that policymakers and advocates in other parts of the country can take to address impediments to progress and build on these advances.

About the speaker: Susan Kaplan is an environmental health lawyer, professor and writer. She has held policy positions in federal and state government, served as assistant director of an energy policy group at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, and taught environmental health policy in the public health programs of the University of Illinois Chicago and Northwestern University. Her book, A Healthy Union: How States Can Lead on Environmental Health, was published in fall 2025 (Island Press/Princeton University Press). She lives in Vermont.