Prerequisite: None

Exam Type: In Class

This course updates and overhauls the classic environmental law survey course in response to the extraordinary challenges environmental law faces today: climate change, the Roberts Court, a deadlocked Congress, and a series of whipsawing presidencies capped off by the return of Donald Trump in 2025. The first part of the course surveys the emergence and subsequent evolution of modern environmental law in the United States and highlights the fundamental reasons why environmental lawmaking is inherently so hard to make. The second part considers the many ways in which the constitutional underpinnings of environmental law are being questioned by a series of recent and anticipated cases before the United States Supreme Court, with profound implications for the ability of both national and state governments to address pressing environmental issues in a timely manner. The third part of the course combines a close examination of several statutes – especially the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act – with a more general review of the basic operation of other laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. All the statutes serve as illustrations of different regulatory approaches to environmental problems: “command and control,” information disclosure, and market-based instruments. Finally, the course places special emphasis on the challenges presented in making law to address climate change, persistent toxic “forever” pollutants, and the needs of environmental justice communities.

The course is designed for any student interested in the practice of environmental law, but is deliberately not limited to those students. The course more broadly teaches the skills necessary to master any complex area of regulation as well as to engage in constitutional litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court today. For this reason, the course can be a great class both for those interested in environmental law in particular and for those more generally interested in the challenges of crafting a legal regime to address a politically, economically, and scientifically complex public policy problem. It is hard to imagine a more demanding, exciting, and important time to master environmental law’s intricacies and the skills of Supreme Court advocacy.