Richard Lazarus

Last April, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler, proclaimed at an auto show here that he would soon roll back President Barack Obama’s stringent fuel efficiency standards. That, the administration contends, would unleash the muscle of the American auto industry. It would also virtually wipe away the government’s biggest effort to combat climate change. Nearly a year later, the rollback is nowhere near complete and may not be ready until this summer — if ever. “They look like they’re headed to a legal train wreck here,” said Richard Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard University...“If the costs to the economy exceed the benefits, and there are no environmental benefits, the courts would classically look at this as an arbitrary and capricious policy,” said Mr. Lazarus, who specializes in environmental law at Harvard. “That makes it very vulnerable to being overturned.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stood stiff and tight-lipped, no hint of a smile, as President Trump stopped to shake hands Tuesday evening in the House chamber, just prior to his State of the Union address. ... Harvard law professor Richard Lazarus, a Democrat and a friend of Roberts’ since law school, who sometimes teaches a class with him during the court’s summer break, said, “Perhaps not surprisingly, I think he did an excellent job under perilous conditions.” “Would I personally prefer to see Donald Trump convicted by the Senate? Yes,” Lazarus said. “But that was not the chief’s job. That was the Senate’s job. And the chief did his job well. The Senate did not.”

With an oath of impartiality, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Thursday became only the third American sworn to preside over a presidential impeachment trial. How he fulfills that pledge will have obvious consequences for President Trump. But it also will shape the public image of the nation’s 17th chief justice, and it holds ramifications for the Supreme Court and federal judiciary he leads. He portrays both as places where partisan politics have no purchase. “And now he crosses First Street, where it’s all about partisan politics,” said Harvard law professor Richard Lazarus, referring to the roadway in Washington that separates the Supreme Court from Congress. There are obvious risks for Roberts, but Lazarus said he doesn’t believe the chief justice will be particularly “risk-averse.” “I don’t think he’s going to look like a potted plant,” said Lazarus, who has known Roberts since law school and has taught summer courses with him after he became chief justice. “He’s not going to erode the stature of the chief justice and the Supreme Court in the process by looking like an insignificant person.”

Unexpected dynamics in a Nov. 6 Supreme Court oral argument might add pressure for parties to settle a high-stakes water pollution case, but the mayor of the Hawaii county involved in the dispute says that’s not an option. Several of the court’s conservative-leaning justices asked questions during the argument that indicate they may not see the litigation through a strictly ideological lens. The case, County of Maui v. Hawai’i Wildlife Fund, asks whether Clean Water Act permits are required for pollution that passes through groundwater or another intermediary before reaching a federal waterway...Harvard Law School professor Richard J. Lazarus said “it’s no longer a sure thing” the court will side with the county, a dynamic that might pressure Maui’s mayor to revisit a settlement plan he previously rejected. Referring to the law firm representing the county, he said, “If I were counsel for [Hunton] Andrews Kurth right now, I’d at least owe my client a phone call.”

When the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Andrew Wheeler, accused California of allowing “piles of human feces” on city streets to contaminate sewer systems, leaders of the agency’s West Coast region hastily convened an all-hands meeting of the San Francisco staff. At that meeting, E.P.A. officials informed staff members that Mr. Wheeler’s torrent of allegations about the state’s water pollution were exaggerated, according to five current and former E.P.A. officials briefed on internal discussions... Critics of the Trump administration have accused E.P.A. officials in Washington of clamping down on environmental standards in California while averting their gaze from similar or worse situations elsewhere. “There’s no question here that the administration is targeting California, because, ironically, California has played an outsize role as an aggressive regulator of environmental pollution,” said Richard Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard University.

The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist was a busy man on Jan. 20, 1999. The impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton was in its second week, and Rehnquist had to stop presiding over an oral argument at the Supreme Court, cross the street, and preside over the Senate. One of the lawyers arguing before the high court that day was John Roberts. Once one of Rehnquist's law clerks at the high court, Roberts could be juggling the same two jobs as his former boss soon. ... Restraint might be difficult in the current political environment, however. Richard Lazarus, a Harvard Law School professor and Roberts' roommate when both were students there in the 1970s, says Senate Democrats and Republicans worked together to set rules for the Clinton trial. That may be harder this time around. “He knows that when he crosses First Street, he's going to be putting himself right in the middle of the workings of the political branch," Lazarus says. "He’s going to work hard to keep above the fray.”

The Supreme Court’s environmental docket is still in flux just days from the launch of its new term, which begins Oct. 7. ...Harvard Law School professor Richard J. Lazarus said the outcome of the case could have impacts in other contexts, including a set of cases from state and local governments seeking to hold energy companies responsible for the effects of climate change. Rhode Island, and several cities and counties in California, Colorado, Maryland, New York, and Washington state have made claims against fossil fuel companies under their respective state common law systems—not under federal law. If the Supreme Court reads the CERCLA savings clause narrowly and determines that the federal statute trumps the landowners’ state-law arguments, energy companies would have fresh ammunition to argue the Clean Air Act preempts state-level claims involving climate liability. “So we will pay a lot of attention to what the court says on the meaning of the provision here because that’s very much like the language of the Clean Air Act,” Lazarus said during a Sept. 26 Environmental Law Institute event previewing the Supreme Court’s term.

The Trump administration on Thursday announced the repeal of a major Obama-era clean water regulation that had placed limits on polluting chemicals that could be used near streams, wetlands and other bodies of water. The rollback of the 2015 measure, known as the Waters of the United States rule, adds to a lengthy list of environmental rules that the administration has worked to weaken or undo over the past two and a half years. ...  Under the provisions of the Clean Water Act, legal challenges must be heard in Federal District Court, which is based at the state level, rather than federal appeals court. Richard J. Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard Law School, said that meant that opponents of the Trump administration would focus their challenges in states they perceived as friendly. “It’s going to be chaos,” Mr. Lazarus said. “We’re going to see suits brought all over the country.”

Republicans are trying to weaken a federal board that helps minority and low-income communities challenge how much pollution can be released in their neighborhoods by power plants and factories. ... “This is outrageous,” said Richard Lazarus, an environmental law professor at Harvard. “Individuals in communities will lose a way to seek relief from pollution that has historically been very effective. But industry will still be able to seek relief to pollute more.”

The Supreme Court has another big environmental case on its docket, as the justices today agreed to review a Superfund fight that could affect cleanup efforts across the country. The court will hear Atlantic Richfield v. Christian, a battle over an old copper processing site in Montana. At issue in the case is whether landowners can go to state court to seek money for restoration when EPA is already overseeing an effort under the Superfund law, officially known as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)...Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus said he was surprised by the Supreme Court's decision to take the case against the administration's recommendation. "That the U.S. Supreme Court nonetheless granted review is not good news for the respondents and strongly suggests that the minimum of four Justices who favored review are currently inclined to rule in favor of Atlantic Richfield," he said in an email to E&E News.

A key utility industry advocacy group represented by Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP has disbanded in the face of Congressional scrutiny over the identity of its members, and similar groups that rely on anonymity are getting pressure from some courts about whether they have standing to fight energy and environmental regulatory actions. The Utility Air Regulatory Group — which for four decades lobbied and litigated on federal air pollution issues on behalf of utility companies who largely kept their names under wraps — disbanded on Friday. It is one of scores of similar ad hoc groups — with opaque membership rolls unlike traditional trade associations — that have played leading roles in challenging federal energy and environmental rules. ...“Judge Pillard’s apparent invocation of the kind of tougher Article III standards often promoted by business interests to seek to persuade courts to deny environmentalists Article III standing is, to say the least, ironic,” Harvard Law School environmental law professor Richard Lazarus said. “If Judge Pillard’s suggestion at argument ends up having judicial legs, it may well prompt a healthy reform of the practice of organizations like UARG that for too long have declined to reveal their members.”

Lawyers in love shouldn’t behave like lawyers, according to advice from one of six married couples from Harvard Law School’s class of 1979. All six couples met while first-year students in Harvard’s Section 3, which is similar to a homeroom period, the New York Times reports. ...The article prompted Harvard Law professor Richard Lazarus to alert the Times to a bigger romantic feat: Six couples from Section 3 of the Class of 1979 had not only married; they remain married to this day. He dubs the section the “love section.”

After our article on Jan. 19 about three marriages from a Harvard Law School section, Richard J. Lazarus wrote The Times. Professor Lazarus, who also teaches first-year law students at Harvard, applauded the newlyweds and his friend and colleague Jon Hanson, the head of that featured section (1L, Section 6).  But as a member of the Class of 1979 and as someone familiar with all things Harvard Law, Professor Lazarus also wanted to alert us to an even higher romantic bar set by 1L, Section 3: Six couples not only married from that section, but — drum roll please — they are all still married. “I am happy to report that, 40 years later, all six couples are still intact,” said Professor Lazarus, who refers to that section as “the love section.” (Professor Lazarus was a student in Section 4 that year.)

From tax return processors to food inspectors, the Trump administration this week ordered tens of thousands of federal employees back to work – many without pay – at agencies involved with the most politically sensitive of issues. More than 40,000 IRS employees were told to report for work after criticisms that tax returns would not be processed in time – a development that assuredly would have sparked outrage among taxpayers. ... "There's nothing in the statute that I'm aware of, or any regulations that have interpreted the terms of the emergency exception, to include a 'Really Important Things That We Think the Government Should be Doing and Would be Really Unpopular if They Don't Do Them' exception," says Richard Lazarus, law professor at Harvard University. "I don't know how that possibly fits – but they know there will be hell to pay if people don't get their tax refunds."