Introduction

This symposium was conceived as a way of asking how much, and in what ways, environmental law had changed since its beginnings some twenty years ago. Except for Samuel Hays, a prominent historian of the environmental movement, none of the participants addresses those questions directly. By indirection, however, each one provides an answer. Far from fading away, environmental law has become institutionalized, an accepted and significant enterprise both for government and for attorneys.

It was not always thus. Twenty years ago, there was probably not a single lawyer in the United States who devoted any significant part of his or her working day to the environmental problems associated with coal mining. Today, John Dernbach works for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as one of a staff of full-time professionals devoted to enforcing the state and federal mine reclamation law. The same is true in other states, and in the federal government.