Law Commons^™

The Exoskeleton Of Environmental Law: Why The Breadth, Depth And Longevity Of Environmental Law Matters For Judicial Review, Sanne H. Knudsen

Articles

Environmental law is pragmatic, inevitable, and intentional. In the aggregate, the numerous federal environmental statutes are not simply a patchwork of ad hoc responses or momentary political breakthroughs to isolated public health problems and resource concerns. Together, they are a group of repeated, legislatively-backed commitments to embrace self-restraint for self-preservation.

Self-restraint and discipline are the essence of environmental law. Indeed, if one studies the patterns and repeated choices in environmental law 's many statutory texts, one can start to appreciate environmental law 's indispensable role in society: it serves as an enduring "exoskeleton," a sort of protective armor created over …

What Would Congress Want? If We Want To Know, Why Not Ask?, Danieli Evans

Articles

Judges often disagree about which interpretation of a statute is most faithful to 'legislative intent.' If judges are concerned about adhering to democratic preferences when interpreting statutes, why not ask Congress what it would prefer? I propose a procedure that would enable the Court, in a case where Justices are divided over the meaning of a statute, to submit both sides' reasoning to Congress, and Congress may choose to vote on its preferred of the alternative rulings the Court puts before it. Congress's preferences would be evidentiary only; they would not bind the Court to make one decision or another. …