Panel Discussion: "Global Warming in the Supreme Court: Massachusetts v. EPA"

Wednesday, November 29, 2006, 12:15 – 1:45 p.m.

Georgetown University Law Center
Hart Auditorium – McDonough Hall
600 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20001

On the morning of November 29, 2006, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in its first case directly related to global warming, Massachusetts v. EPA.

Massachusetts and other petitioners are asking the Court to set aside an EPA decision not to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The panel will review and analyze the events of the day.

E. Donald Elliott served as general counsel for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President George H.W. Bush. An adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and Yale Law School, he is the chair of the worldwide environmental law department of Wilkie Farr & Gallagher and a partner in the firm's Washington, D.C., office.

Norman Fichthorn is counsel of record for the Utility Air Regulatory Group, which intervened in the Massachusetts case to defend EPA’s decision. He is a partner at Hunton & Williams, where he focuses on environmental and administrative law with a focus on the Clean Air Act.

Lisa Heinzerling is a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and has published widely on environmental law. She is a Special Assistant Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the lead author of the petitioners' briefs in the Massachusetts case.

Richard Lazarus is a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and co-director of the Supreme Court Institute. He has represented the United States, state and local governments, and environmental groups in the U.S. Supreme Court in 37 cases and has presented oral argument in 12 of those cases.

This event is sponsored by the Georgetown Law Supreme Court Institute and the Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute.

Media interested in attending should contact Kara Tershel at kat5@law.georgetown.edu.