The Supreme Court and the Environment discusses the body of federal
statutory law amassed to fight pollution and conserve natural
resources that began with the enactment of the National
Environmental Policy Act of 1969. Instead of taking the more
traditional route of listing court decisions, The Supreme Court and
the Environment puts the actual cases in a subsidiary position, as
part of a larger set of documents paired with incisive
introductions that illustrate the fascinating and sometimes
surprising give-and-take with Congress, federal administrative
agencies, state and local governments, environmental organizations,
and private companies and industry trade groups that have helped
define modern environmental policy. ? From the author: When one
views the body of modern environmental law-the decisions and the
other key documents-the picture that emerges is not one of Supreme
Court dominance. In this legal drama, the justices have most often
played supporting roles. While we can find the occasional,
memorable soliloquy in a Supreme Court majority, concurring, or
dissenting opinion, the leading men and women are more likely found
in Congress, administrative agencies, state and local legislatures,
nongovernmental organizations, private industry, and state and
lower federal courts. ? What one learns from studying the Supreme
Court's environmental law output is that the justices for the most
part seem more concerned about more general issues of deference to
administrative agencies, the rules of statutory interpretation, the
role of legislative history, the requisites for standing, and the
nature of the Takings Clause than the narrow issues of entitlement
to a clean environment, the notion of an environmental ethic that
underlies written statutes and regulations, and concerns about
ecological diversity and other environmental values. When we widen
the lens, however, and focus on the other documents that make up
essential parts of the story of the Supreme Court and the
environment-complaints by litigants, briefs by parties and by
friends of the court, oral argument transcripts, the occasional
stirring dissent, lower court decisions, presidential signing
statements and press conference transcripts, media reports and
editorials, and legislative responses to high court decisions-we
discover what is often missing in the body of Supreme Court
decisions. --Michael Allan Wolf
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