Betsy Lawton is a senior staff attorney at the Network’s Northern Region Office, where she provides legal technical assistance, delivers presentations and lectures, and builds connections in many areas of public health law. Before joining the Network, Betsy spent over a decade working to improve water quality as an attorney with Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA) and the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA), where she focused on Clean Water Act implementation and enforcement, reducing agricultural pollution, and preventing drinking water contamination, and represented a broad range of individuals and communities facing water pollution problems. Betsy received her JD, and a Certificate of Environmental Law, from the University of Wisconsin Law School, and her Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame.
Overview 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. EST | November 16, 2021The Network will be launching applications for our Climate Change, Health Equity, and Public Health Law…
Nearly half of the United States is experiencing abnormally dry conditions this year. The public health implications of drought cannot be underestimated: drought can lead to a lack of clean drinking water, food insecurity, poor air quality, water-borne diseases, mental health concerns, wildfire, and poor sanitation. Solutions that prevent non-essential uses of water, increase natural storage of water in the soil and aquifers, or maintain water and lake levels, may help limit the public health impacts of future droughts by increasing the overall supply of useable water.
Overview 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. ET | July 29, 2021While the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public health policy remains to be seen,…
In this Q&A, Betsy Lawton, senior staff attorney at the Network’s Northern Region Office, discusses some of the key elements in the chapter she authored, “COVID-19 Illustrates Need to Close the Digital Divide.”
The following guidance document can help guide stakeholders in developing and implementing declarations as well as thinking through broader issues connected to race and racism.
Overview 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. ET | May 27, 2021Families have experienced unique vulnerabilities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the most…
The digital divide continues to prevent many households and students from accessing online services that can support healthy outcomes. However, federal lawmakers and agencies have recently taken short-term steps to address the largest source of the digital divide—affordability—and some longer-term federal fixes to the digital divide are on the horizon. Permanent federal, state, and local policies and programs must prioritize affordable broadband service for all households and provide regulatory oversight to ensure the digital divide does not exacerbate health inequities now, and in the future.
The Network for Public Health Law is pleased to announce this call for applications from those seeking legal and policy support for efforts to mitigate or adapt to public health impacts of climate change.
Attend this webinar to: learn where such declarations or statements have been issued, hear specific examples of actions that jurisdictions are taking at state and local levels, and obtain practical steps for using racial equity tools to help ensure meaningful implementation that will have concrete real-world impacts.
Renewable energy standards—often called Renewable Portfolio Standards—are important in hastening the transition from fossil fuels to renewable and low-carbon energy sources, slowing climate change and bringing immediate health benefits to communities. This issue brief, produced collaboratively by the Network and the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, outlines how renewable energy standards work and the important role they play in advancing health and health equity.
Solar energy production can reduce public health risks caused by climate change. This Quick Reference resource provides an overview of the legal strategies that have been implemented by communities to promote renewable energy and equitable public health outcomes.
Today, home broadband service can connect people to a wide range of services that support healthy outcomes; however broadband is one of the most unequal essential services in the United States. Individuals who lack high-speed broadband service at home are unable to access their classrooms, jobs and job opportunities, telehealth services, social supports, civic opportunities, and even disaster relief information.
