Southern Environmental Law Center is a non-profit environmental public interest law firm headquartered in Charlottesville , Virginia , with offices in Chapel Hill , Asheville , Atlanta , Birmingham , Charleston ( South Carolina ) , Nashville , Richmond , and Washington , D.C . The Southern Environmental Law Center ( SELC ) engages in advocacy through lawsuits and publishing white papers . The SELC is one of three environmental groups which filed suit against the United States Fish and Wildlife Service which " they say should have blocked the planned extension of the N.C. 540 highway across southern Wake County " because it would " threaten the existence of two endangered species of mussels that live in a creek the road would cross . " The Law Center argued the case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit where the court " vacated a key permit granted to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline , " concluding " that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provided no specific limits for the allowable impact on threatened and endangered species . " The group opposed the Trump administration 's rollback of the offshore drilling safety rules put in place after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Southern Environmental Law Center