Environmental Law
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Description
In the United States, as in other nations, environmental law is a new field that has mushroomed over the past 30 years in response to rising public and political concerns over environmental degradation. The field is comprised of three basic components: control of pollution, wastes, and other side-effects of industrial processes and products; management of natural resources; and regulation of land use, infrastructure, and development. While the basic goals of environmental protection have enjoyed broad public support, the means for achieving them have proved controversial. The United States has a highly developed and complex system of environmental law. Over 35,000 United States lawyers specialize in environmental law. United States environmental law relies heavily on administrative regulation, a strong federal government role, and the use of procedural formalities, public participation, and court review to control administrative decision-making and ensure that legislative mandates for environmental protection are carried out. The growth of United States environmental law has been stimulated by important legal innovations, including environmental impact assessment, the use of rule-making procedures that rely on public comment to help develop administrative standards and regulations, sweeping liability programs to deal with toxic wastes and oil spills, and the grant by courts, statutes, and regulations of broad rights to environmental advocates to participate in agency decision-making procedures and obtain judicial review. Many of these innovations have been followed by other nations. United States environmental programs have made considerable progress in protecting health and the environment. At the same time, they have been strongly criticized in recent years as overly legalistic, excessively costly, unduly rigid, and productive of conflict and litigation rather than cooperative problem-solving. There is increasing recognition of the limits of the dominant ‘command and control’ system of centralized regulation, and growing interest in the use of alternative approaches, including economic incentives for environmental protection.
Source Publication
Fundamentals of American Law
Source Editors/Authors
Alan B. Morrison
Publication Date
1996
Recommended Citation
Stewart, Richard B., "Environmental Law" (1996). Faculty Chapters. 1258.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1258
