Environmental Supreme Court Review
PANEL DESCRIPTION
The Supreme Court continues to play a decisive role in shaping the future of environmental law. From regulatory authority to property rights and climate policy, its decisions have far-reaching effects on how environmental protections are applied and enforced. This panel reviews the most significant recent cases and explores their implications for law, policy, and practice. Panelists will examine key rulings, emerging trends, and the legal reasoning driving the Court’s approach to environmental issues. The discussion will also consider how these decisions influence ongoing and future litigation, regulatory strategy, and the balance between environmental protection and economic interests. This conversation includes a discussion about recent Supreme Court decisions including City of San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency, Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, and Environmental Protection Agency v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, LLC.
Moderated by Billy Hennessy.
JOHN CRUDEN, BEVERIDGE & DIAMOND
John provides strategic counsel on high-stakes environmental and natural resources litigation, civil and criminal enforcement, and compliance. Working with clients makes the practice of law worthy and valuable to him as they advance strategic needs while protecting human health and the environment.
For more than two decades, John served as a senior leader on environment and natural resource matters at the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), where he supervised some of the department’s most significant litigation, including the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Love Canal, and Bunker Hill litigation. As the Senate-confirmed, Assistant Attorney General, ENRD, John worked on the most high-profile environment cases, and personally negotiated the multi-billion dollar resolutions of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the Volkswagen emissions scandal. These cases required a great deal of coordination, expert assistance, and sophisticated management of numerous players to reach successful outcomes. This experience has given John insight into the workings of large corporations, as well as into the challenges that major companies face in lawsuits.
As the former President of the Environmental Law Institute, the former Chair of the American Bar Association (ABA) Section on Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources, and the immediate past President of the American College of Environmental Lawyers, John has led each of the premier environmental organizations in the United States. In addition, he was the first government attorney to be elected and serve as the President of the District of Columbia Bar, now the largest bar in the nation.
BOB PERCIVAL, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Professor Robert Percival joined the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law faculty in 1987 after serving as senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund. While in law school, he served as managing editor of the Stanford Law Review and was named the Nathan Abbott Scholar for graduating first in his class. Professor Percival served as a law clerk for Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White. He also served as a special assistant to the first U.S. Secretary of Education. Professor Percival is internationally recognized as a leading scholar and teacher in environmental law. Since 1992 he has been the principal author of the most widely used casebook in environmental law in the U.S., Environmental Regulation: Law, Science & Policy, now in its ninth edition (http://www.erlsp.com). He is the author of more than 100 publications on topics that include environmental law, federalism, presidential powers, regulatory policy, and legal history. Professor Percival taught as a visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School in 2000 and 2009 and at Georgetown University Law Center in 2005 and 2011. He received the University System of Maryland Board of Regents’ Faculty Award for Collaborative Teaching in 2005, and in 2007 he was named the University of Maryland, Baltimore Teacher of the Year. In 2014, he received the Senior Distinguished Environmental Law Education Award from the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law in recognition of his outstanding teaching and contributions to the field of environmental law (http://www.iucnael.org/en/academy-awards/environmental-law-education-awards/218-2014-environmental-law-education-awards). In 2019, he received the award for Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy from the American Bar Association’s Section on Environment, Energy and Resources Law. Professor Percival has taught Environmental Law, Global Environmental Law, Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, Torts and Toxic Torts. In 2022 the University of Maryland named him a Distinguished University Professor, the highest appointment bestowed on a tenured university professor.
During the spring semester 2008 Professor Percival taught as a J. William Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. In 1994, he taught as a Fulbright scholar at Comenius University Law School in Slovakia. Professor Percival is a highly popular guest lecturer who has given hundreds of guest lectures, paper presentations, and workshops in 36 countries on six continents. In 2009, he represented the U.S. Department of State on a lecture tour of China. He has delivered guest lectures at 50 U.S. academic institutions, at 32 Chinese universities and before numerous professional associations and government agencies. He has served as the Natural Resource Law Institute Distinguished Visitor at Lewis & Clark College of Law, as a visiting professor of law at the University of Chile where he helped establish South America's first environmental law clinic, and as a high-level visiting foreign expert at Shanghai Jiaotong University’s KoGuan Law School. He has taught summer courses at Shandong University, Vermont Law School, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.
Professor Percival has played a leading role in conceptualizing the field of global environmental law. His website and blog on this subject are at www.globalenvironmentallaw.com. Professor Percival has led more than a dozen environmental law student field trips to China, the Middle East, and Africa. He is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law and one of the founding members of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law. In 2009, he delivered Pace Law School's Lloyd K. Garrison Lecture. In 2015, he delivered the Wallace Stegner Lecture at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law, and in 2016, he delivered the Distinguished Environmental Lecture at Florida State University College of Law.
Professor Percival is a member of the board of regents of the American College of Environmental Lawyers. He has served on the board of directors of the Environmental Law Institute and as co-chair of the steering committee of the D.C. Bar's Section on Environmental, Energy and Natural Resources Law. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and the American College of Environmental Lawyers, and the National Committee on U.S./China Relations. He has served as the contributing editor for Environment and Natural Resources for the Federal Circuit Bar Journal, as a special master for the U.S. District Court of Maryland, and as a member of the state of Maryland's Environmental Restoration and Development Task Force.