For Immediate Release: September 22, 2003

Environmental Law Institute® Program Highlights Effort to Weaken Environmental Protection

Washington, DC — The Environmental Law Institute® (ELI) today launched Endangered Environmental Laws, a new program to combat recent trends in judicial decision-making that threaten to unravel three decades of federal environmental law. These trends are the result of a well-organized effort by a group of foundations, think tanks, and individuals over the last two decades to promote legal theories and seek judicial decisions that undermine the ability of citizens and the federal government to protect the environment.

"We are seeing a concerted effort to resurrect antiquated and discredited legal theories to attack federal environmental laws. ELI has spent three decades working to build the basic foundations of environmental law and strengthen the federal state partnership in their implementation," said Leslie Carothers, President of ELI. "We do not intend to sit quietly by while organizations hostile to all federal regulation chip away at a system that has served our nation and our environment well."

Contemporary environmental law is the result of more than 30 years of bipartisan Congressional action, with the overwhelming support of the American public. ELI’s research shows that a small group of ultra conservative legal theorists is working to erode the constitutional underpinnings of federal environmental law. Decisions emanating from federal courts — from the trial court level up to and including the Supreme Court — threaten to weaken the protections provided by environmental law.

According to the organization Media Transparency, over just one three-year period highly conservative foundations gave some sixteen million dollars to support programs at the nation’s top law schools aimed at encouraging deregulation. Another ten million dollars was provided to support anti-regulatory public interest law firms, legal networks, and other activities aimed at influencing judges.

"These and allied activities are having a pernicious impact on the federal judiciary, both on nominees to fill judicial vacancies and on decisions that federal judges render," said Prof. Jeffrey G. Miller of Pace University School of Law. "The public should know that judicial decisions undermining environmental protections aren’t the result of blind justice, but of a carefully orchestrated campaign by conservative extremists."

Endangered Environmental Laws will shine the light on the consequences of the arguments made by anti-environmental legal advocates and activist judges. These arguments would:

• Limit the federal government’s power to set and enforce uniform national standards that protect our air, water, land and public health
• Bar the federal courthouse door to citizens who have suffered harm
• Prohibit states and localities from passing laws more stringent than federal standards
• Require compensation from public coffers for reasonable regulation of the environment and public health and safety

Endangered Environmental Laws will defend the laws of environmental protection through a comprehensive agenda of research, education, and outreach, including opinion pieces, seminars and other public events, and amicus curiae briefs in select cases that raise foundational issues of constitutional and environmental law.

Attached is a background report on Endangered Environmental Laws. For more information, please visit the project’s website at www.endangeredlaws.org.

The Environmental Law Institute® is an independent, non-profit research and educational organization based in Washington, DC. The Institute serves the environmental profession in business, government, the private bar, public interest organizations, academia, and the press. For further information from the Environmental Law Institute, please contact Brett Kitchen at 202-939-3833 or pressrequest@eli.org.
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