Reflections on the role of the courts in environmental law.
Environmental Law › Vol. 27 Nbr. 2, June 1997
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Summary
US environmental law is a constantly evolving but successful body of statutes in which the courts and judges play key roles. The post-1970 results clearly prove the success and popularity of enviromental protections while underscoring the good works achievable through government. The complexity of environmental laws requires judges to work with government agencies, but courts play a central role in interpreting these laws. Judges must consider the broadest implications and long-term effects of environmental legislation in rendering their decisions.
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Reflections on the role of the courts in environmental law.
Thank you, your honors, and may it please your courts. I am truly honored to have the opportunity to come before you today, not as a litigant in a specific matter, but rather as a litigant in general, pleading the cause of cooperation and common sense in our common purpose of construing and applying our nation's federal environmental laws.
To establish my standing at the outset, let me state that the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorneys' Offices throughout the nation have cases in virtually every federal district court and each court of appeals. So I have injury-in-fact. As for the zone of interest, I am a professor of environmental law at Georgetown University Law Center, where for the past ten years my colleague, Professor Nancy Firestone, and I have tried to unravel the mysteries of some of the environmental statutes you are learning about in this course. As to redressability, each of you will have to judge. The Federal Judicial Center and the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis and Clark College are to be commended for presenting this outstanding seminar. Moreover, each of you is to be commended for coming here, and for talking the time to learn how these laws -- not always models of clarity -- actually fit together and work, so that your decisions will be informed and wiser. I can see from the agenda that you will be spending considerable time and effort on individual statutes and programs. You have already covered the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA),(1) the environmental statute where anyone can play, and the Clean Water Act,(2) the intermediate course in pollution law. You still have coming what I tell my students are the "major leagues" in hard statutes: the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA),(3) the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund),(4) and the Clean Air Act.(5) I am pleased that you are covering some of the laws governing natural resources and wildlife as well. Today, I would like to pull back from the individual programs, and address several issues that cut across all areas of environmental protection. Because I cannot pass up the opportunity, I will have some suggestions for you along the way as well. So fasten your seat belts. When Justice Department attorneys enter our federal courtrooms t...See the full content of this document
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