A Different Kind of Republican Moment in Environmental Law

Abstract

The purpose of this Essay is to propose and discuss the possibility that the nation currently faces another, albeit very different, republican moment that may well test the future of environmental protection laws in the United States. This new moment has as its modifier an uppercase Republican rather than a lowercase republican. While the latter republican invokes the political tradition referred to as civic republicanism, the former Republican refers instead to the current National Republican Party. The moment facing environmental law is the virtually unprecedented ascendancy of the Republican Party in all three branches of the federal government