People
Richard Lazarus
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Andrew Mergen will lead the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law
January 3, 2023
Former Department of Justice chief and appellate lawyer Andrew Mergen will join Harvard Law School as director of the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic.
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Breyer’s legacy: A centrist, pragmatic problem-solver and defender of the court’s reputation
December 7, 2022
In nearly three decades on the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen G. Breyer routinely found himself on the losing side of contentious issues but managed to…
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How inflation act may help rescue greenhouse-gas goals of repealed Clean Power Plan
November 16, 2022
Harvard Law School professors Richard Lazarus and Jody Freeman discuss the importance of the Inflation Reduction Act in light of the Supreme Court’s decision to block the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.
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How inflation act may help rescue greenhouse-gas goals of repealed Clean Power Plan
November 16, 2022
The Supreme Court delivered a major blow to U.S. climate change efforts in June when it struck down the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which had…
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You thought the Supreme Court’s last term was bad? Brace yourself.
October 18, 2022
The cataclysmic Supreme Court term that included the unprecedented leak of a draft opinion and the end of constitutional protection for abortion would, in the…
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You thought the Supreme Court’s last term was bad? Brace yourself.
September 30, 2022
The cataclysmic Supreme Court term that included the unprecedented leak of a draft opinion and the end of constitutional protection for abortion would, in the…
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Justice Alito’s Crusade Against a Secular America Isn’t Over
August 29, 2022
Some baby boomers were permanently shaped by their participation in the countercultural protests and the antiwar activism of the nineteen-sixties and seventies. Others were shaped…
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Harvard Law School experts weigh in on the Supreme Court’s final decisions.
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In this installment of “Cases in Brief,” Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus ’79 discusses the landmark citizen-suit case, Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (1992), which hindered the ability to bring environmental citizen suits for much of the 1990s.
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Inspiring change
April 22, 2022
On Earth Day, we highlight some of the work being done by Harvard Law students, scholars, clinics, and programs to address some our most pressing environmental issues.
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If climate change were a disaster film, it would likely be accused of being too over-the-top: wildfires reducing entire towns to ashes, hurricanes swamping cities, droughts draining lakes and withering fields, and raging oceans redrawing the very maps of our coasts. And now, many cities and states are asking, who's going to pay for all of this? ... Richard Lazarus, who teaches environmental law at Harvard, said, "The scope of the problem is one that requires really a national approach. Cities and counties and states are being the ones left with the problem when the federal government doesn't step up to the plate." Lazarus said even if the cities and states prove the fossil fuel companies deceived the public about climate change, it doesn't necessarily mean they will win: "They've done a really good job of showing that the oil and gas industry, I think, engaged in fraudulent activity. The challenge will be causation, to prove that their fraudulent behavior is what prevented the United States from passing the laws we needed to reduce those greenhouse gas emissions."
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Supreme Court hints at constraining Biden on climate
March 3, 2022
The Supreme Court looks likely to limit the executive authority to issue sweeping climate rules without new legislation, but it's unclear if they'll unite around broader limits on regulatory power. Catch up fast: The high court held arguments Monday in related cases about now-defunct regulations to curb carbon emissions from the electricity sector, the second-largest U.S. source of heat-trapping gases. A few takeaways: 1. New limits appear likely. Harvard Law professor Richard Lazarus said there appear to be six votes to "align" the case with recent rulings against the federal eviction moratorium and vaccine mandates. That would prompt the court to "sharply cut back on EPA’s authority to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal-fired power plants," he said via email.
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In EPA Supreme Court case, the agency’s power to combat climate change hangs in the balance
February 28, 2022
President Biden’s ambitious plans to combat climate change, blocked by an uncooperative Congress, face an equally tough test next week at the Supreme Court. With the court’s conservative justices increasingly suspicious that agencies are overstepping their powers, the case’s outcome could not only reshape U.S. environmental policy but also call into question the authority of regulators to tackle the nation’s most pressing problems. ... Biden’s team has yet to issue its own plan for the power sector. For that reason, environmentalists took it as an “earthquake” when the Supreme Court accepted the case last fall, said Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus. It appeared to signal a move on the part of the court’s conservatives to delineate — and probably trim — the EPA’s powers before there were even regulations to review. ... The policy that sparked this battle — the Clean Power Plan — is now moot, since the market has done what regulators could not. “The targets were achieved way in advance, more than a decade before they would have been required,” said Carrie Jenks, executive director of Harvard’s Environmental & Energy Law Program.
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Supreme Court Will Hear Biggest Climate Change Case in a Decade
February 28, 2022
In the most important environmental case in more than a decade, the Supreme Court on Monday will hear arguments in a dispute that could restrict or even eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to control the pollution that is heating the planet. ... “If the court were to require the E.P.A. to have very specific, narrow direction to address greenhouse gases, as a practical matter it could be devastating for other agencies’ abilities to enact rules that safeguard the public health and welfare of the nation,” said Richard Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard. “It would restrict the enactment of regulations under any host of federal statutes — OSHA, the Clean Water Act, hazardous waste regulation. In theory it even could limit the Fed’s authority to set interest rates.” ... “The regulated industry itself is saying that they are not fighting the authority of E.P.A.,” said Jody Freeman, a lawyer at Harvard and former climate official in the Obama White House. “The court will be attentive, I think, to what the industry says,” she said, noting that in a recent case over the Biden administration’s Covid vaccine mandate for large employers, the Supreme Court blocked the mandate except in the case of health care workers, who requested the regulation.
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Justice Stephen G. Breyer has a mild temperament, and he writes cautious opinions. But his questions from the bench can be wild flights of fancy, enlivening the proceedings with musings about marshmallow guns, aspirin fingers, tomato children and the Pussycat Burglar. In an affectionate tribute issued soon after Justice Breyer announced last week that he planned to retire, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. noted this striking aspect of his colleague’s work. ... “Breyer’s unique signature at oral argument — which challenged and often befuddled lawyers appearing before the bench — was the sheer length of his questions,” Richard J. Lazarus, a law professor at Harvard, wrote in an essay published on Friday.
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Judges Increasingly Demand Climate Analysis in Drilling Decisions
January 31, 2022
A judge’s decision this week to invalidate the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in the nation’s history, on grounds that the government had failed to take climate change into consideration, shows that regulatory decisions that disregard global warming are increasingly vulnerable to legal challenges, analysts said Friday. ... “This would not have been true 10 years ago for climate analysis,” said Richard Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard University. He said it is “a big win” that courts are forcing government agencies to include “a very robust and holistic analysis of climate” as part of the decision-making when it comes to whether or not to drill on public lands and waters.
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Pragmatic Justice
January 27, 2022
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer ’64, who focused on the consequences of his judicial decisions, has announced that he will step down after more than a quarter century on the Court.
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On the Court, Breyer had a ‘deeply thoughtful, learned, humane, and pragmatic approach’
January 27, 2022
In the wake of the news that Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer ’64 will retire at the end of the current term, Harvard Law School faculty members offer their thoughts on his tenure, legacy, and how the nation’s highest court could change after his departure.
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Justice Stephen Breyer — a passionate pragmatist
January 27, 2022
Richard Lazarus ’79, a Supreme Court advocate and the Howard and Katherine Aibel Professor of Law, reflects on Justice Breyer's "striking pragmatism" — and passion — during his 28 years on the Court.
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Weighing President Biden’s first year
January 18, 2022
In this series, Harvard Law experts turn a critical eye to the Biden administration’s efforts on health care, the economy, criminal justice reform, and other areas important to Americans — and share their thoughts on its agenda for the future.
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Weighing President Biden’s first year: The environment
January 13, 2022
Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus says Biden has ‘quickly and effectively’ reversed many of former President Trump’s executive orders on the environment, but Congress ‘presents a major obstacle’ to the new administration.