Richard Lazarus – Page 16 – Environmental and Energy Law Program

Bio

Professor Lazarus teaches environmental law, natural resources law, Supreme Court advocacy, and torts at Harvard Law School. He has represented the United States, state and local governments, and environmental groups in the United States Supreme Court in 40 cases and has presented oral arguments in 14 of those cases. He served as the Executive Director of the National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill as well as on the Biden Transition Team for the U.S. Justice Department.

Faculty Profile

Latest

In the Media
Bloomberg

Big Environmental Term for Supreme Court? Too Soon to Tell

Harvard Law School professor Richard J. Lazarus said the outcome of the case could have impacts in other contexts, including a set of cases from state and local governments seeking to hold energy companies responsible for the effects of climate change.

October 3, 2019

In the Media
New York Times

Trump Administration Rolls Back Clean Water Protections

Richard J. Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard Law School, said that meant that opponents of the Trump administration would focus their challenges in states they perceived as friendly.

September 17, 2019

In the Media
Salon

Republicans seek to weaken environmental appeals board

“This is outrageous,” said Richard Lazarus, an environmental law professor at Harvard. “Individuals in communities will lose a way to seek relief from pollution that has historically been very effective. But industry will still be able to seek relief to pollute more.”

September 10, 2019

In the Media
SFGate

Here’s why lawyers suing oil companies are following the opioid cases

“A loss on the public nuisance theory in the Oklahoma opioid public nuisance theory would have been a potentially devastating state court precedent for the climate change public nuisance cases now pending in state courts,” said Richard Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard.

September 5, 2019

In the Media
The Hill

Climate policy is expensive, but so is climate change

Harvard Law School Professor Richard Lazarus points out that “the actual cost of pollution controls have . . . almost always proved to be less than those industry projected in initially opposing their imposition.”

August 5, 2019

In the Media
CNN

New York Times: EPA to limit ability to oppose pollution permits

Patrice Simms, a former staff lawyer for the agency’s appeals board who now works as an environmental attorney, and Richard Lazarus, an environmental law professor at Harvard, told the paper that the potential changes could give companies “a broader role in influencing the EPA to issue more lenient pollution permits,” and could be especially harmful to “poor and minority communities, which are statistically more likely to be located near polluting sites.”

July 23, 2019

In the Media
CNN

John Paul Stevens: justice and Jedi Master

Justice John Paul Stevens was remarkable in so many ways that even his death at the age of 99 comes as a surprise. He had published only two months earlier his biography, teasingly titled “The Making of a Justice: My First 94 Years.” And for those of us who practiced before the Supreme Court, it did seem like he might well live forever. After all, he was still swimming in the ocean every day and regularly playing tennis and golf well into his nineties.

July 23, 2019

In the Media
New York Times

E.P.A. Plans to Curtail the Ability of Communities to Oppose Pollution Permits

July 14, 2019

In the Media
E&E News

Justices to decide major Superfund case

Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus said he was surprised by the Supreme Court’s decision to take the case against the administration’s recommendation.

June 11, 2019