Celebrating A Half Century of Federal Environmental Law!

Later in this year, we will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the first modern environmental statutes, the Wilderness Act of 1964.  NEPA followed five years later and then in quick succession came the creation of EPA, a slew of laws regulating pollution and toxics, the Endangered Species Act, and reforms of public lands laws.

It’s been a tumultuous half century — think Anne Gorsuch Burford, Newt Gingrich, and Tea Party.  Yet, at the end of fifty years, the major environmental laws are still there, accompanied by thousands of pages of regulations and judicial opinions.  Opponents of regulation may still target EPA but their main fire has been concentrated elsewhere, on the Affordable Care Act.  In the meantime, a burst of new EPA regulations is on the scene, some of them addressing climate change for the first time.

Age is no guarantee of longevity.  But the past five decades suggest that environmental law is here to stay and is likely to keep getting stronger.

 

Reader Comments

2 Replies to “Celebrating A Half Century of Federal Environmental Law!”

  1. Dear Dan,
    Could wishful thinking save us from impending doom? Us old deniers enjoy denying Dan’s prognostications. I wish we could deny obamacare, but that’s not easy like climate change. Deniers get more out of life than doomers, so why not be a denier? The climate doesn’t care and neither do deniers.

Comments are closed.

About Dan

Dan Farber has written and taught on environmental and constitutional law as well as about contracts, jurisprudence and legislation. Currently at Berkeley Law, he has al…

READ more

About Dan

Dan Farber has written and taught on environmental and constitutional law as well as about contracts, jurisprudence and legislation. Currently at Berkeley Law, he has al…

READ more

POSTS BY Dan