"The unprecedented expansion in environmental regulation since 1970 -- at all levels of the government -- signifies an extraordinary transformation of our nation's law. How environmental law emerged, why it has since evolved in the way that it has, and what are the challenges presented as environmental law moves now into its middle age, is a fascinating and revealing story, which The Making of Environmental Law
(University of Chicago Press 2004) seeks to tell. The story shows how fashioning pollution control laws presents special challenges both because of the nature of pollution itself and the known means of pollution control and because of our nation’s varied processes for lawmaking and the ways those processes relate to important cultural norms. Many of these challenges relate to the varied, complex, and uncertain spatial and temporal dimensions of pollution itself, factors which resist simple redress. The Making of Environmental Law describes these challenges, relates them to actual events which occurred during the past three decades, and discusses what lessons can be gleaned from those decades to meet those same challenges today and in the future."

Professor Richard Lazarus

Professor Lazarus teaches environmental law, natural resources law, and torts at Georgetown University. He previously worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, in both the Environmental and Natural Resources Division and the Solicitor General’s Office, where he was assistant to the Solicitor General. Professor Lazarus has represented the United States, state and local governments, environmental groups, and individuals in the U.S. Supreme Court in approximately 37 cases, many of which raised natural resources and environmental law issues. Click here for Professor Lazarus' faculty link.

Praise for The Making of Environmental Law

“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 EPA administrator>

“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>

“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>

“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, coauthor of Property: Takings>