Bruce Myers

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

Expertise

• Climate Change: adaptation; agricultural emissions
• 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—wetlands;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 legal and policy research centers on industrial agriculture, constitutional environmental law in the courts, protection of water resources, and chemical regulation. 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 the TMDL programs. He has also studied 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 nearly ten years of experience with the Institute. He practiced law at a large Washington, DC, law firm, and he served as a law clerk to Senior Judge Edward Rafeedie of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, at Los Angeles. He is admitted to practice law in California and Washington, DC, and 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

Linda Breggin, Bruce Myers, and Zach Jylkka, Subsidies with Responsibilities: Placing Stewardship and Disclosure Conditions on Government Payments to Large-Scale Commodity Crop Operations, Envtl. L. Inst. (June 2012). [Updated and modified version to be published as an article in the Harvard Envtl. L. Rev. (forthcoming summer 2013).]

State Constraints: State-Imposed Limitations on the Authority of Agencies to Regulate Waters Beyond the Scope of the Clean Water Act, 50-state study, Envtl. L. Inst. (May 2013) (lead researcher, drafter).

Linda Breggin, Bruce Myers, and Meredith Wilensky, It’s Time to Put a Price Tag on the Environmental Impacts of Commodity Crop Agriculture, 43 Environmental Law Reporter 10130 (Feb. 2013).

Bruce Myers and Paul Locke, “Modernizing U.S. Chemicals Laws: How the Application of Twenty-First Century Toxicology Can Help Drive Legal Reform,” 20 N.Y.U. Envtl. L.J. 35 (2012).

The Clean Water Act Jurisdictional Handbook, Second Edition, Envtl. L. Inst. (May 2012) (lead researcher and drafter).

Bruce Myers, The Adverse Effects of Animal Husbandry, ELI Report—Research Brief, The Environmental Forum (May/June 2012).

Paul Locke and Bruce Myers, “A Replacement-first Approach to Toxicity Testing Is Necessary to Successfully Reauthorize TSCA,” ALTEX (Nov. 2011).

Bruce Myers and Jay Austin, “Chapter 2: The Commerce Clause: Foundation for U.S. Environmental Law” in Principles of Constitutional Environmental Law, jointly published by the American Bar Association and Environmental Law Institute Press (2011).

Paul Locke and Bruce Myers, “Implementing the National Academy’s Vision and Strategy for Toxicity Testing: Opportunities and Challenges under the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act,” Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, 13:2, 376-84 (June 2010).

Liberian Forestry Development Authority, Implementing Regulations for the National Forestry Reform Law (2007) (co-drafter, reviewer).

Bruce Myers and Jay 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).

Republic of Liberia, National Forestry Reform Law of 2006 (2006) (co-drafter, reviewer).

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).