The Volokh Conspiracy
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Constitutional Limits on Environmental Law -- Call for Papers
The Pacific Legal Foundation and Catholic University Law Review are co-sponsoring a symposium on environmental law's constitutional constraints;
The Pacific Legal Foundation and Catholic University Law Review have posted a call for papers for a symposium on "Searching for Constitutional Limits on Environmental and Natural Resources Law." Here is the write-up:
Even in its most flattering light, the modern administrative state coexists uneasily with the core constitutional principle that the federal government possesses only limited enumerated powers, while the States and the people retain the remainder. "The Framers could hardly have envisioned today's vast and varied federal bureaucracy and the authority administrative agencies now hold over our economic, social, and political activities," as famously observed by Chief Justice Roberts.
Nowhere is our contemporary regulatory apparatus more pervasive than in the realm of environmental and natural resources policy. Several prominent statutes—including the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act—routinely reach intra-state and non-commercial activity lacking any apparent nexus with interstate commerce. The federal government, moreover, exercises absolute power over 30% of all land, including 46% of the contiguous eleven western States and 61% of Alaska.
At some point, the growing tension between the Framers' design and modern reality must breach the Constitution's boundaries.
Accordingly, they are seeking "papers that explore the limits of Congress's regulatory authority over environmental and natural resources policy."
Papers will be presented at a symposium in Spring 2026 and published in the Catholic University Law Review. Full details are here.
