Sara C. Bronin's The Quiet Revolution Revived: Sustainable Design, Land Use Regulation, and the States revisits the age-old, American democratic debate of finding the right balance between local control and imposition of a statutory regime for the greater public good. Fundamentally, I agree with the article's premise that state policy powers are generally underutilized in the land use reform context and could be used productively to advance implementation of local green building design and construction.

The focus of much dialogue and debate in the public eye over climate change and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) tends to focus on industrial emissions of pollution for manufacturing or the production of electricity. Emissions from transportation sources (like trains, planes, and automobiles) and from the heating, cooling, and lighting of buildings themselves are less readily visible, yet each constitutes roughly a third of America's total greenhouse gas emissions.

In her article, The Quiet Revolution Revived: Sustainable Design, Land Use Regulation, and the States, Sara Bronin argues that after almost four decades since the publication of The Quiet Revolution in Land Use Control by Fred Bosselman and David Callies, it is time to revive some predictions about that "quiet revolution." Bronin uses the green building example as the basis for reconsidering the necessity for "extralocal" land use controls and the interplay between state and local land use functions and authority.

The first panel at this conference discussed standing to invoke federal court review, and related doctrines that limit access to the courts. That a standing panel should begin the day's discussion of the relationship between constitutional and environmental law is fitting in three respects. First, establishing standing is the initial step in pressing a claim in federal court. Second, standing was the issue in one of the first U.S. Supreme Court cases of the modern environmental era, and it remains the most persistent constitutional quandary for environmental law.

I. The Senate Filibuster

I think Richard Lazarus was right when he said that the biggest constitutional impediment to environmental law in the United States may be Article I, §5 of the U.S. Constitution, which provides that each House of Congress may make its own rules. We see that clearly in the "Sacred Quest for 60," as we try to craft a climate bill that can make it through the U.S. Senate.

Bruce Myers: I'm fortunate to be moderating a panel with three very distinguished experts. Bob Irvin is Senior Vice President for Conservation Programs with Defenders of Wildlife here in Washington, D.C. Bob leads Defenders' Conservation Programs, including field conservation, conservation policy, international conservation, and litigation. Prior to joining Defenders, Bob held a range of posts at major environmental nongovernmental organizations and in the federal government, including service as senior counsel for fish and wildlife on the Majority Staff of the U.S.

I am honored to moderate and participate in today's panel, "New and Emerging Constitutional Theories and the Future of Environmental Protection." My charge is to introduce our esteemed panel speakers, and then to provide preliminary remarks outlining the landscape at the intersection of constitutional and environmental law in general and the political question doctrine in particular. My role is largely provocateur. In short, I'm to raise questions that challenge constitutional order as it applies to environmental protection.

It may seem paradoxical to suggest that property law can shape constitutional doctrine, let alone that it can do so in a pro-environmental direction. As every law student learns, constitutional law trumps "ordinary" law such as property law. Yet, constitutional doctrines have to operate on facts--and those facts may be legal ("Has the government invaded the plaintiff's property rights?") as well as physical. Changing the legal facts can change the constitutional result. If we cannot directly persuade the U.S.

Environmental law poses many intriguing questions of constitutional law, including issues involving separation of powers. Separation-of-powers questions stemming from environmental law disputes have affected significantly the allocation of authority among the three branches of the federal government to determine the appropriate degree of restrictions to place on government and private conduct with the potential to harm the environment. The implications of judicial resolution of constitutional issues in environmental disputes are not confined to the environmental law arena, however.

There is a law. In fact, there are three laws that, jointly and severally, should have anticipated and provided measures to prevent and cope with the explosion of the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon. Instead, we have 11 deaths, 17 serious injuries, the release of an American record 2.6 million gallons of oil, an equivalent record for chemical dispersants, months of Mutt `n' Jeff responses, enormous corporate losses, and the ensuing pain of the Gulf Coast region.