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Keri Powell 

Carol Remmer Angle Senior Attorney for Community Health and Air Program Leader

Years of successfully defending clean air protections up and down the East Coast prepared Keri Powell well for her role as leader of SELC’s Air Program. A nationally recognized expert on the Clean Air Act with experience in her own practice, at EPA’s Region 4 office in Atlanta, and with Earthjustice and the New York Public Interest Research Group, Keri has worked at every level to fight air pollution.  

I am so excited about having the opportunity to focus SELC’s talented staff on addressing the most pressing threats to healthy air quality in the region.

Originally from Macon, Georgia, she was drawn by the opportunity at SELC to combine her national expertise with the organization’s place-based mission, rooted in the South.  

“I am so excited about having the opportunity to focus SELC’s talented staff—including creative and hard-working lawyers, communications specialists, geospatial mappers, and legislative advocates—on addressing the most pressing threats to healthy air quality in the region. While achieving clean air for all is made more difficult by the environmental injustices arising from the region’s history of racism, SELC is up to the challenge.” 

As leader of the Air Program, Keri is SELC’s principal spokesperson on regional issues related to air quality and helps the organization develop and implement its clean air goals through cases and other initiatives, with an emphasis on alleviating environmental injustices. Key targets include biomass plants and other industrial facilities that cause toxic air pollution across the South.  

Away from work, Keri finds solace on Georgia’s St. Simon’s Island, where she and her family are captivated by the majestic live oaks, dramatic tides, legions of fiddler crabs waving their claws, and the broad, unspoiled marshland vistas.   

Previous experience

  • Founder, Powell Environmental Law, LLC 
  • Former Senior Attorney for the Clean Air Act, EPA Region IV 
  • Former Staff Attorney, Earthjustice  
  • New York University School of Law, cum laude 
  • Trinity University, cum laude  
  • With SELC since 2023