Over the last 30 years, we have made great progress in curbing the most obvious pollution largely due to effective enforcement of federal and state environmental statutes. Now, however, there is increasing skepticism of the efficiency and even the constitutionality of our bedrock environmental laws from all branches of the federal government, including the courts.
This book is the result of lively debate at the conference “Alternative Grounds: Defending the Environment in an Unwelcome Judicial Climate,” held on November 11, 2004, and co-sponsored by the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law and the Environmental Law Institute. Topics ranged from U.S. Supreme Court trends in environmental law jurisprudence, to innovative federal and state constitutional and statutory arguments that defend environmental protections, to federal provisions most vulnerable to attack on federalism, takings, and separation-of-powers grounds. This thought-provoking and insightful collection of essays provides smart, realistic solutions to the profound and complex legal challenges facing defenders of our environmental protections.
With contributions by: Richard J. Lazarus, Sean H. Donahue, Paul Boudreaux, William W. Buzbee, Robert L. Glicksman, Alyson C. Flournoy, Christopher H. Schroeder, Douglas T. Kendall, Susan George, J.B. Ruhl, Donald W. Stever, and Mary Jane Angelo.
"In this important book, Professor Michael Allan Wolf has asked a star-studded cast of environmental law scholars to contemplate the prospect of sustained hostility toward existing environmental statutes by all three branches of the federal government and to suggest appropriate directions for environmental law and effective roles for environmental lawyers who continue to support the protective goals that motivated society to demand the enactment of those statutes. The result is an easily accessible and thought-provoking collection of realistic ideas for advancing protective societal goals through environmental law in a relatively unsympathetic judicial climate."
- Thomas O. McGarity
W. James Kronzer Chair in Trial and Appellate Advocacy University of Texas School of Law
President, Center for Progressive Reform