The Making of Environmental Law

The Making of Environmental Law
Author: Richard J. Lazarus
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2008-09-15
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0226470644

The unprecedented expansion in environmental regulation over the past thirty years—at all levels of government—signifies a transformation of our nation's laws that is both palpable and encouraging. Environmental laws now affect almost everything we do, from the cars we drive and the places we live to the air we breathe and the water we drink. But while enormous strides have been made since the 1970s, gaps in the coverage, implementation, and enforcement of the existing laws still leave much work to be done. In The Making of Environmental Law, Richard J. Lazarus offers a new interpretation of the past three decades of this area of the law, examining the legal, political, cultural, and scientific factors that have shaped—and sometimes hindered—the creation of pollution controls and natural resource management laws. He argues that in the future, environmental law must forge a more nuanced understanding of the uncertainties and trade-offs, as well as the better-organized political opposition that currently dominates the federal government. Lazarus is especially well equipped to tell this story, given his active involvement in many of the most significant moments in the history of environmental law as a litigator for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, an assistant to the Solicitor General, and a member of advisory boards of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Environmental Defense Fund. Ranging widely in his analysis, Lazarus not only explains why modern environmental law emerged when it did and how it has evolved, but also points to the ambiguities in our current situation. As the field of environmental law "grays" with middle age, Lazarus's discussions of its history, the lessons learned from past legal reforms, and the challenges facing future lawmakers are both timely and invigorating.

The Making of Environmental Law

The Making of Environmental Law
Author: Richard J. Lazarus
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 462
Release: 2023-02-15
Genre: Law
ISBN: 022669559X

An updated and passionate second edition of a foundational book. How did environmental law first emerge in the United States? Why has it evolved in the ways that it has? And what are the unique challenges inherent to environmental lawmaking in general and in the United States in particular? Since its first edition, The Making of Environmental Law has been foundational to our understanding of these questions. For the second edition, Richard J. Lazarus returns to his landmark book and takes stock of developments over the last two decades. Drawing on many years of experience on the frontlines of legal and policy battles, Lazarus provides a theoretical overview of the challenges that environmental protection poses for lawmaking, related to both the distinctive features of US lawmaking institutions and the spatial and temporal dimensions of ecological change. The book explains why environmental law emerged in the manner and form that it did in the 1970s and traces how it developed over sequent decades through key laws and controversies. New chapters, composing more than half of the second edition, examine a host of recent developments. These include how Congress dropped out of environmental lawmaking in the early twenty-first century; the shifting role of the judiciary; long-overdue efforts to provide environmental justice to disadvantaged communities; and the destabilization of environmental law that has resulted from the election of Presidents with dramatically clashing environmental policies. As the nation’s partisan divide has grown deeper and the challenge of climate change has dramatically raised the perceived stakes for opposing interests, environmental law is facing its greatest challenges yet. This book is essential reading for understanding where we have been and what challenges and opportunities lie ahead.

The Rule of Five

The Rule of Five
Author: Richard J. Lazarus
Publisher: Belknap Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2020-03-10
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0674238125

Winner of the Julia Ward Howe Prize “The gripping story of the most important environmental law case ever decided by the Supreme Court.” —Scott Turow “In the tradition of A Civil Action, this book makes a compelling story of the court fight that paved the way for regulating the emissions now overheating the planet. It offers a poignant reminder of how far we’ve come—and how far we still must go.” —Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature On an unseasonably warm October morning, an idealistic young lawyer working on a shoestring budget for an environmental organization no one had heard of hand-delivered a petition to the Environmental Protection Agency, asking it to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from new cars. The Clean Air Act authorized the EPA to regulate “any air pollutant” thought to endanger public health. But could carbon dioxide really be considered a harmful pollutant? And even if the EPA had the authority to regulate emissions, could it be forced to do so? The Rule of Five tells the dramatic story of how Joe Mendelson and the band of lawyers who joined him carried his case all the way to the Supreme Court. It reveals how accident, infighting, luck, superb lawyering, politics, and the arcane practices of the Supreme Court collided to produce a legal miracle. The final ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, by a razor-thin 5–4 margin brilliantly crafted by Justice John Paul Stevens, paved the way to important environmental safeguards which the Trump administration fought hard to unravel and many now seek to expand. “There’s no better book if you want to understand the past, present, and future of environmental litigation.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction “A riveting story, beautifully told.” —Foreign Affairs “Wonderful...A master class in how the Supreme Court works and, more broadly, how major cases navigate through the legal system.” —Science

Making Law Matter

Making Law Matter
Author: Lesley McAllister
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2008-05-30
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0804758239

Making Law Matter presents the first book-length treatment of an innovative prosecutorial institution, the Brazilian Ministrio Publico, which refashioned itself in the 1980s into a powerful defender of citizen rights in environmental protection, as well as in other areas of public interest such as disability rights, consumer protection, and anti-corruption.

Environmental Law Practice

Environmental Law Practice
Author: Jerry Linn Anderson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Environmental law
ISBN: 9781531005313

Adopted at dozens of law schools, this book is a valuable resource for imparting practical skills. Authors Anderson, Hirsch, Sachs, and Tormey have drawn on their wide experience as environmental law professors and practitioners to develop realistic exercises that teach the craft of environmental lawyering. Readers will learn how to bring a federal enforcement action against a polluter; negotiate a Superfund settlement; prepare documents and strategy for a citizen's suit; counsel a corporation on environmental compliance; navigate the issues that arise in government agency litigation (e.g., limits on discovery, standards of review); comment on EPA rule making; and handle environmental issues that arise in permitting a complex real estate development, as well as many other relevant skills. Updated and expanded, the fourth edition of Environmental Law Practice is comprehensive in scope. It contains problems and exercises under each of the major environmental statutes. In addition, it places readers in the three key roles played by environmental lawyers--government attorney, corporate counsel, and public interest advocate--and provides practice pointers for each of these types of work. The book makes extensive use of original documents such as statutes, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), regulatory preambles, and agency guidance, exposing students to the materials that environmental lawyers use most. This book covers the most significant areas of environmental practice: compliance, enforcement, litigation, permitting, and policy. It gives in-depth treatment of substantive environmental law areas such as the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, CERCLA, RCRA, EPCRA, NEPA, and citizen suits. It incorporates current developments in environmental law, such as recent Supreme Court and circuit court cases. Of the many books on environmental law, Environmental Law Practice is the one to use to develop the skills to become a practice-ready environmental attorney.

The Law of Environmental Justice

The Law of Environmental Justice
Author: Michael Gerrard
Publisher: American Bar Association
Total Pages: 920
Release: 2008
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9781604420838

Environmental justice is the concept that minority and low-income individuals, communities and populations should not be disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards, and that they should share fully in making the decisions that affect their environment. This volume examines the sources of environmental justice law and how evolving regulations and court decisions impact projects around the country.

Environmental Law: A Very Short Introduction

Environmental Law: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Elizabeth Fisher
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2017-10-19
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0192512625

Environmental law is the law concerned with environmental problems. It is a vast area of law that operates from the local to the global, involving a range of different legal and regulatory techniques. In theory, environmental protection is a no brainer. Few people would actively argue for pollution or environmental destruction. Ensuring a clean environment is ethically desirable, and also sensible from a purely self-interested perspective. Yet, in practice, environmental law is a messy and complex business fraught with conflict. Whilst environmental law is often characterized in overly simplistic terms, with a law being seen as be a magic wand that solves an environmental problem, the reality is that creating and maintaining a body of laws to address and avoid problems is not easy, and involves legislators, courts, regulators and communities. This Very Short Introduction provides an overview of the main features of environmental law, and discusses how environmental law deals with multiple interests, socio-political conflicts, and the limits of knowledge about the environment. Showing how interdependent societies across the world have developed robust and legitimate bodies of law to address environmental problems, Elizabeth Fisher discusses some of the major issues involved in environmental law's: nation statehood, power, the reframing role of law, the need to ensure real environmental improvements, and environmental justice. As Fisher explains, environmental law is, and will always be, necessary but inherently controversial. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

International Environmental Law

International Environmental Law
Author: Pierre-Marie Dupuy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 597
Release: 2018-06-07
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108423604

A concise, clear, and legally rigorous introduction to international environmental law and practice covering the very latest developments.