Harvard Law Today with yet more depressing news form the US Supreme Court
The current conservative bent of the U.S. Supreme Court threatens to erode environmental law and reverse a series of important protections secured over the past fifty years argued Richard Lazarus, one of the nation’s foremost experts on environmental law, at a recent Harvard Law School event.
Lazarus cited two recent cases that represent a reversal of protections: the 2022 Clean Power Plan case, which limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate power plant emissions, and the 2023 Sackett v. EPA case, where the court dramatically curtailed the Clean Water Act of 1972 that governs water pollution.
Lazarus also expressed concern that Congress has not passed a significant environmental law since 1990: “If you wait too long, a species is gone. You wait too long, and the glaciers melt. If you wait too long, then the ocean currents change direction.”
