Bruce Myers

Senior Attorney
202-939-3809
202-939-3868
myers@eli.org

Expertise

• Forestry: forestry law
• Industrial Agriculture: water pollution, climate, and human/animal health and welfare
• International: intranational foreign laws—Liberia
• Law: Clean Water Act jurisdiction; constitutional environmental law; federal chemical regulation
• Water: water resources—Clean Water Act jurisdiction, pollution permitting, and water quality/TMDLs

Profile

Bruce Myers works on the Institute’s U.S. and international programs. His domestic research centers on constitutional environmental law in the courts, protection of water resources, industrial agriculture, and chemical regulation. Specifically, he has examined constitutional challenges to environmental statutes, cooperative federalism, and citizen participation. He has researched federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act and technical aspects of the federal pollution permitting and TMDL programs. He has also studied the federal toxics and pesticide statutes.

His international focus is in Africa, where he has played a key role in the Liberia Forest Initiative, which is working to reform that post-conflict nation’s forest sector through implementation of a comprehensive program of legal and institutional reforms. He has trained representatives of nongovernmental organizations, government, and industry in South Africa and Kenya on environmental advocacy.

Myers has over seven years of experience with the Institute. He practiced law at a large Washington, DC, law firm, and he served as a law clerk to a senior judge of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, at Los Angeles. He speaks French.

Education

• J.D. (Dillard Scholar and Order of the Coif), University of Virginia, 1996
• B.A. with Highest Distinction (Phi Beta Kappa), International Relations and French, University of Virginia, 1993

Selected Publications

Bruce Myers & Jay E. Austin, Anchoring the Clean Water Act: Congress’s Constitutional Sources of Power to Protect the Nation’s Waters (Envtl. L. Inst. 2007) (republished as Issue Brief of the American Constitution Society, 2007).

Bruce Myers, Roxanne Thomas, & James M. McElfish, Clean Water Act Jurisdictional Handbook (Envtl. L. Inst. 2007).

Brief of Environmental Law Institute as Amicus Curiae (co-author), Rapanos v. United States and Carabell v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Nos. 04-1043, -1384 (U.S. filed Jan. 2006).

Bruce Myers, Republic of Liberia, National Forestry Reform Law of 2006 (2006).

Bruce Myers, A Toolkit for Environmental Advocacy in Africa (Envtl. L. Inst. 2004).

Bruce Myers, Halting the Invasion: State Tools for Invasive Species Management (Envtl. L. Inst. 2002).

Bruce Myers, Opportunities for Advancing Environmental Justice: An Analysis of U.S. EPA Statutory Authorities (Envtl. L. Inst. 2001).