Introduction – Lawyers, Swamps, and Money: U.S. Wetland Law, Policy and Politics

Abstract

This paper is the table of contents and introduction to Royal C. Gardner, Lawyers, Swamps, and Money: U.S. Wetland Law, Policy, and Politics (Island Press 2011). The book is an accessible guide to the complex set of laws governing America's wetlands. After explaining the importance of these critical natural areas, the book examines the evolution of federal law, principally the Clean Water Act, designed to protect them.

Readers will first learn the basics of administrative law: how agencies receive and exercise their authority, how they actually make laws, and how stakeholders can influence their behavior through the Executive Branch, Congress, the courts, and the media. These core concepts provide a base of knowledge for successive discussions of:

the geographic scope and activities covered by the Clean Water Act; the curious relationship between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency; the goal of no net loss of wetlands; the role of entrepreneurial wetland mitigation banking; the tension between wetland mitigation bankers and in-lieu fee mitigation programs; enforcement issues; and wetland regulation and private property rights.

The book concludes with policy recommendations to make wetlands law more effective.

Keywords: Administrative Law, Clean Water Act, Wetland Migration Banking, In-Lieu Fee Mitigation, Dredge and Fill, Regulatory Takings, Army Corps of Engineers, Rapanos v. United States, No Net Loss, Watershed

JEL Classification: K10, K19, K23, K32