The Endangered Environmental Laws Program tracks court cases that target the structure and foundations of environmental law. When judges accept the kinds of anti-regulatory, “federalism,” and “property rights” arguments advanced in these cases, the resulting damage to the legal framework for environmental protection can be far-reaching—and difficult, if not impossible, to repair.
Typically, these cases involve one or more of four conceptual “pillars” on which environmental protection in the United States stands. Enshrined in federal and state law for over three decades, these pillars have been built through bipartisan legislation, implemented by Democratic and Republican presidents alike, upheld at every level of the federal courts, and supported by a steady majority of the public. Today, property-rights advocates and anti-regulatory crusaders wield a variety of legal doctrines and theories to attack the environmental values these pillars support.
Click below on any of the four pillars—or on one of the legal doctrines or theories used to threaten that pillar—to see the most important recent and pending cases:
1. National Laws that Establish Minimum Standards to Address Nationwide Problems
Commerce Clause Challenges to Congressional Authority
2. Cooperative Sharing of Federal Power with the States
3. Ample Latitude for State and Local Governments to Experiment and Innovate
Expansive Preemption of State Law by Federal Law
Avoiding Judicial Review through the Political Doctrine Question
Arguing that State Action Is Preempted by Federal Foreign Policy Prerogatives
Invoking the Compact Clause or Treaty Power to Bar State Action
Wielding the “Dormant” Commerce Clause to Hinder State Law
Claiming that Regulations Cause a “Taking” of Private Property
4. Citizen Participation in Environmental Decision-Making and Enforcement
Challenging the Standing of Environmental Plaintiffs to Assert Environmental Claims (Generally)
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