Description

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The unprecedented expansion in environmental regulation over the past thirty years—at all levels of government—signifies a transformation of our nation's laws that is both palpable and encouraging. Environmental laws now affect almost everything we do, from the cars we drive and the places we live to the air we breathe and the water we drink. But while enormous strides have been made since the 1970s, gaps in the coverage, implementation, and enforcement of the existing laws still leave much work to be done.

In The Making of Environmental Law, Richard J. Lazarus offers a new interpretation of the past three decades of this area of the law, examining the legal, political, cultural, and scientific factors that have shaped—and sometimes hindered—the creation of pollution controls and natural resource management laws. He argues that in the future, environmental law must forge a more nuanced understanding of the uncertainties and trade-offs, as well as the better-organized political opposition that currently dominates the federal government. Lazarus is especially well equipped to tell this story, given his active involvement in many of the most significant moments in the history of environmental law as a litigator for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, an assistant to the Solicitor General, and a member of advisory boards of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Ranging widely in his analysis, Lazarus not only explains why modern environmental law emerged when it did and how it has evolved, but also points to the ambiguities in our current situation. As the field of environmental law "grays" with middle age, Lazarus's discussions of its history, the lessons learned from past legal reforms, and the challenges facing future lawmakers are both timely and invigorating.

About the Author

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Richard J. Lazarus is the Howard and Katherine Aibel Professor of Law at Harvard University, where he teaches courses on environmental law and Supreme Court decision-making. Lazarus has represented the United States, state and local governments, and environmental groups in the United States Supreme Court in more than forty cases and has presented oral arguments in fourteen of those cases. His most recent book is The Rule of Five: Making Climate History at the Supreme Court. 

Praise For…

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"This account of environmental law is rooted in the author's expertise as a leading legal scholar in the area, augmented by serious attention to the work of political scientists and historians who have studied the development of environmental law. The Making of Environmental Law will fill a significant gap in the literature, providing an important reference for both environmental historians and legal scholars."
— Daniel A. Farber, author of Eco-pragmatism: Making Sensible Environmental Decisions in an Uncertain World

"A must read for anyone who cares about how we best go about addressing environmental challenges of clean air, clean water, and global warming."
— Carol M. Browner, former U.S. EPA Administrator

"This is a wonderful book. Not only does Lazarus elegantly and comprehensively recount the history of the law's development over the past three decades, but he brings to the story a remarkably well-informed and sophisticated appreciation of how the political/legal system works. Having been in some of the trenches that he surveys, I can attest that he has got it just right."
— Joseph L. Sax, author of Mountains without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks

"There is no better way to understand the complex, multilayered world of modern environmental law than to retrace its history. Richard Lazarus has produced an engrossing account of the evolution of environmental law, weaving together the intellectual forces, constitutional constraints, political competition--and of course the uniquely challenging nature of environmental problems themselves--that have combined to produce the regulatory system we have today. Lazarus, who has been both a participant in and observer of the development of environmental law throughout his career, is uniquely qualified to provide this kind of synthesis. All future attempts to explain the emergence of modern American environmental law will have to start with this account."


— Thomas W. Merrill

"A lively, elegant, and comprehensive account of how environmental law came to be, what makes it distinctive among legal institutions, why it has persisted, and its future prospects."

— Jonathan Cannon

"The Making of Environmental Law provides a short, highly readable history of the enactment and subsequent implementation of the major federal environmental statues in the United States, together with speculation on the reasons for the particular path taken by environmental law in this country, and analysis of key issues that the author believes will face environmental lawyers int he future. . . . There is much to learn from The Making of Environmental Law."—Thomas W. Church, Law and Politics Book Review

— Thomas W. Church

"Lazarus succeeds in filling his book with numerous insights as well as compilations of interesting historical data, providing the reader with a thorough examination of the short history of environmental law."

— New York Law Journal

"Lazarus does a great service . . ."

— Bill McKibben

"Lazarus's highly accessible and enjoyable book should be considered by anyone seeking an introduction to environmental law and policy for classroom use. . . .  [The Making of EnvironmentalLaw] provides a humbling but necessary guidebook for those who seek to re-situate environmentalism within the changing American political landscape."
— Douglas A. Kysar

"Readers focusing on the legal scholarship will find much to like here, particularly the breezy way [Lazarus] renders what might otherwise be arcane jargon into engaging naratives about the past, present, and future of environmental law."
— Craig W. Thomas

"Lazarus's history of environmental law is a welcome relief from  . . . explicitly partisan perspectives on environmentalism. . . . He avoids a myopic academic focus on doctrinal developments and analyzes the decline in salience of national environmental issues."
— Mark van Putten

[The book is] interdisciplinary, covering everything from ecological theory in the opening chapters to the historical, economic, and politcal contexts of environmental law. . . . An engaging and articulate book that strives to reach a broad audience beyond law schools."
— Craig W. Thomas

"A wide-ranging and often fascinating analysis of the evolution of American environmental law. Whether setting the stage in terms of the cultural and scientific background for the US environmental movement or discussing the legislative background . . . Lazarus has written a concise yet immensely interesting view of the various elements that have played major parts in the development of US environmental law."
— Don C. Smith