By Keemia Soltani-Zhang
Ruth Bell ’67 and her husband Joseph Bell have committed $500,000 over five years to fuel the mission of Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) and broaden its impact.
The renowned lawyers’ gift establishes the Joseph and Ruth Greenspan Bell Climate Action Fund, which serves as the foundation for the Bell Core Incentive Challenge. The Bells hope to inspire another $500,000 in support of CLEE’s efforts and to share their excitement about the center’s essential leadership that provides depth, analytic reflection, and objective guidance to accelerate the work of policymakers to address some of today’s most important issues.
Ruth says CLEE is led by people “who combine both the analytic chops and deep experience in government, giving them a unique perspective on how nonpartisan, outside support can advance policy initiatives” in climate and energy, water, sustainable land use, and oceans.
That deep engagement — which includes timely research, valuable data, technical assistance, and language drafting — has shaped California environmental policy in several key areas. Last year alone, CLEE delivered pivotal guidance for new laws centered on housing, greenhouse gas emissions, and cap-and-trade systems to control carbon emissions. Its staff has quadrupled over the past decade.
The Bells’ gift comes at a moment when, as Ruth says, “the stakes for climate couldn’t be higher.” It also provides what CLEE Executive Director Louise Bedsworth calls the “most rare and important” type of support: flexible, less-restricted funding that project-specific grants usually exclude.
Describing their gift as a vote of confidence in CLEE, the Bells wanted to give the center’s leaders greater discretion as they navigate a rapidly changing landscape. This is their second major multi-year commitment to Berkeley Law; previously, they supported a scholarship program for students with demonstrated interests in environmental and social justice careers.
Underscoring the significance of this commitment, Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky says the gift “will make an enormous difference in our work to protect the environment. We are so proud of our alumni like Ruth, who have spent their careers using law to make our society and our world better.”
Enabling flexibility
Most of CLEE’s research is supported by restricted grants that advance work in specific areas. But the Bells point out that the climate policy world is one of rapid changes and often unpredictable needs. One notable example they highlight is the recent dismantling of federal climate programs.
“Unrestricted money is the most valuable money to the survivability of a nonprofit and its important work,” says Joe, whose career focused on helping low-income countries manage their natural resources. “You have to have a structure. You have to plan for the future. You have to have people running the organization … tasks that are less visible and less understood by funders. And you have to pay for that.”
Their commitment partially emerges from their own experiences as board members for numerous NGOs that have encountered and weathered the challenges of restricted funding. Ruth says it also recognizes the unique role California plays when the federal government abdicates its responsibilities.
“Since the 2024 election, with the power that comes with being the world’s fourth largest economy, California has again had to step forward as a climate policy pathfinder,” she says. “California relies on CLEE to provide the expert capacity to defend and advance its ambitious climate commitments.
“The center provides part of the intellectual infrastructure for picking up the burden. That’s one of the big reasons we’re making this commitment to CLEE — because it isn’t going on at the federal level. To have smart minds there working on these issues, it’s just incredibly important to keep that going.”
A decades-long Berkeley connection
The Bells’ academic and professional ties span the East and West Coasts. After spending his 2L year at Berkeley Law, Joe, a Coloradan, returned to Yale Law School. Ruth, raised in California and surprised to find herself living on the East Coast after law school, made a conscious effort to give back to Berkeley Law.
“I was so grateful for such a great law school experience at practically no cost,” she recalls. “The gift of a top-level law school! Frankly, I felt guilty that I wasn’t contributing as a California taxpayer, so I made voluntary contributions and I also stayed connected.”
Her experience reflects a different era of public education. For decades, the California legislature provided over 80% of the law school’s operating budget. Today, the fiscal reality has shifted dramatically, with state funding plummeting to about 7%. CLEE itself is a self-supporting entity, receiving no direct funding from UC Berkeley or the law school.
A leading environmental law scholar and former director of the World Resources Institute’s U.S. Climate Policy Objective, Ruth has written extensively on climate change and related issues in top publications and worked to improve systems of global environmental protection. She happily serves on CLEE’s Advisory Board, finding purpose and community in being a part of the center’s work.
“I’m loving every minute of it,” she says. “The work we’re doing has always been important. But the urgency has definitely ramped up with an administration in Washington that’s so hostile to environment and climate issues.”
Resisting a short-sighted approach
Ruth is currently examining the climate crisis from a behavioral and psychological angle, where humans are fighting their evolutionarily designed instincts to prioritize immediate threats over dangers that can only be understood intellectually. In a double bind for climate policy initiatives, she explains, people also tend to prioritize the present over the future — making it difficult to sell programs like climate change that require investments now with benefits sometimes in the far future.
The Bells say these perceptions make CLEE’s work even more important, highlighting that the center is staffed by a dedicated, accomplished team committed to the long view and to acting on data and science.
Another notable aspect of their commitment: a desire that it be offered as an incentive grant.
Even amid CLEE’s community of shared values and interests, Ruth sees “room for growing the commitment to build a social norm of collective giving.” The Bells hope more members of that community will consider joining them in valuing CLEE’s role in securing a safer future for everyone.
“People have come together over the last year — finding their courage, finding their people, finding their community, and increasingly speaking out,” Ruth says. “It’s that cumulation of community that builds a kind of mutual strength and allows people to be increasingly more assertive and more courageous.”
This article was made possible by support from the Erin Ziegler Fund, an endowment for the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment within Berkeley Law.