Environmental Law Commons^™

In Praise Of Parochialism: The Advent Of Local Environmental Law, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article explains the role that local governments have assumed in protecting the environment, explores the means by which they have obtained their authority to do so, and discusses how this enhanced municipal role should influence environmental and land use policy at the federal and state level. Part II reviews federal efforts to control nonpoint source pollution, and identifies the constraints on federal action. Among these constraints is the national understanding that the power to control the private use of land is a state prerogative, one that has been delegated, in most states, to local governments. Part III describes how …