Book Description

Environmental Protection: Law and Policy, widely respected for its intellectual breadth and depth, is an interdisciplinary and international overview of the fundamental issues of Environmental Law, incorporating history, theory, litigation, regulation, policy, science, economics, and ethics. It includes a complete introduction to the history of environmental protection; laws and regulations; regulatory design strategies; policy objectives; and analysis of constitutional federalism and related policy questions concerning the design and implementation of environmental protection programs. Coverage includes the major federal pollution control laws (the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, CERCLA, and more); climate change (a chapter discussing important scientific, policy, and program design questions); natural resource management issues (two chapters focusing on the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act); and national forest management. New to the Eighth Edition: Thoroughly updated coverage, including how various actors—Congress, the President, political and career staff at agencies such as EPA, and regulatory beneficiaries—influence shifts in environmental law and policy, including Trump Administration initiatives that raise novel administrative and environmental law issues that have been or are likely to be addressed by the courts Coverage of evolving agency approaches to the scope of Clean Water Act mandates through repeal of or revisions to the "waters of the United States" rule, and of controversies surrounding the Trump Administration's climate change policies, including repeal of the Clean Power Plan and its announced withdrawal from the 2015 Paris climate agreement to which virtually every other nation is a party Inclusion of new principal cases such as the Supreme Court's decision in Michigan v. EPA, which addressed the role of cost in regulation, and the Third Circuit's decision in American Farm Bureau Federation v. EPA, which involved implementation of the total maximum daily load program under the Clean Water Act Comprehensive treatment of 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act, the first major revisions to a core environmental statute enacted by Congress in 20 years Treatment of compliance and enforcement issues and their importance to the development and implementation of environmental law Coverage of ongoing controversial litigation in courts throughout the country on application of the public trust doctrine to force government action to mitigate climate change through controls on greenhouse gas emissions Professors and students will benefit from: Thorough and nuanced treatment of the history of environmental protection, existing laws, regulations, and cases, regulatory design strategies, and current and developing policy objectives Broad-based international and interdisciplinary approach incorporating science, economics, and ethics Coverage of major federal pollution control laws Landmark and cutting-edge cases Notes and questions Charts and graphics Numerous exercises and problems Distinguished authorship with extensive practical, scholarly, and teaching experience