On October 1st, Professor Jody Freeman and Visiting Professor Richard Lazarus ’79, director of the Supreme Court Institute at the Georgetown University Law Center, previewed environmental law cases that will be heard by the Supreme Court this term.
“This is a banner year for environmental issues, and the justices aren’t done granting cert petitions yet,” Professor Freeman, director of the Environmental Law Program at Harvard Law School, told the standing room only crowd in Pound Hall. Many of these cases, she also noted, will have broad implications for administrative law.
The two professors discussed several key cases in detail including the highly publicized Winters v. Natural Resource Defense Council, a case on the Navy’s use of sonar and its impact on marine animals; Summers v. Earth Island Institute, a case on the U.S. Forest Service’s management of the public lands; and Entergy v. EPA, a Clean Water Act case which involves questions about the role of cost benefit analysis in the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit process. Lazarus will be arguing for the respondent in Entergy v. EPA, scheduled for argument in December. Both professors also stressed the number of high profile environmental law cases in front of the Court this term.
The event, co-sponsored by HLS’s Environmental Law Program, the Environmental Law Institute, Harvard Environmental Law Society, and Harvard Environmental Law Review, was also webcast live to ELI participants in Washington, D.C. View the webcast here.