Environmental Law

printable version

This research guide was prepared for Rick Reibstein's Environmental Law class. The handout distributed during the class presentation and tour is available here.

Sources of Law: A Quick Overview

The U.S. Constitution provides for three branches of government: executive, legislative and judiciary.

Each branch of government produces “law":

The United States system of government is a federalist system. Law making powers are shared between the federal government and the state governments. State systems parallel the federal system, and so do the legal research tools and techniques. This research guide focuses on federal legal research. Selected additional sources, such as tools for non-legal news and public policy information, web resources, and research guides are also provided here.

Legal Research Basics

Most legal research should begin with a review of secondary sources such as legal encyclopedias, books, law review and law journal articles, and legal news. Secondary sources help you frame your questions before you begin researching "the law" and often provide citations to primary sources.

Once you have exhausted secondary sources, you should follow up your research in primary sources: statutes and other legislation, cases, and regulations.

Accessing Electronic Sources

Note that most electronic databases listed on this guide are available anywhere on campus and off campus, unless otherwise indicated. Read Connecting to eResources for information on how to make the connection on and off-campus.

A Word about Legal Citations

Legal citations generally follow The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. Standard Bluebook abbreviations for selected primary sources are provided in this guide. Our Quick Tips for Deciphering Legal Citations provides information on how to find an item once you have a citation.

If you are still having trouble deciphering a legal citation, please consult Bieber's Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations (Law Dictionaries K89 .B53 2001) or talk with a reference librarian.

Secondary Sources

Using secondary sources is a vital first step for any legal research. Not only can they give you background for the law, but they will also provide citations to the law itself: cases, statutes, and regulations.

Legal Encyclopedias

Like their non-legal counterparts, legal encyclopedias offer an A-Z listing of short articles explaining legal concepts. There are two major legal encyclopedias, and each set uses a different major topic for environmental law:

  • American Jurisprudence: See Pollution Control.
  • Corpus Juris Secundum: See Health and Environment.

See our guide for detailed instructions on Using Legal Encyclopedias to Start Your Research.

Books

Use the Boston University Libraries Catalog to locate books and journals. Remember to search the authors/titles of the books or journals, not the titles of articles or chapters within them.
  • Use a word search if you do not have exact information such as an author or title.
  • Find one good source and then use its subject headings to search for related sources.
  • Use a title search if you have found a reference to a book, journal, or newspaper and need to find if the BU libraries own the material.
  • Remember to copy both the location and call number.

If you do not find the materials you require in the B.U. libraries, you can search the catalogs of libraries from around the world through the online catalog Worldcat, then request to borrow the materials through Interlibrary Loan.

  • Most BU students may request Interlibrary Loans via Mugar Library.

Law review & law journal articles

Law review and law journal articles are excellent resources to start your research. They cover narrow areas of law and provide citations to cases, statutes, and regulations. Rather than search a full text articles database, it is better to start your research by using a periodicals index. In the index, search for articles using keywords in the author, title, or abstract.

The following legal periodical indexes cover articles from 1980-present. These databases are available to all BU students in the Pappas Law Library reading room. They are not available remotely to non-law students.

Once you have located references to legal articles, you have various options for locating the full text:

Legal News

One of the best ways to discover "hot topics" for research is by looking at legal news. You may also consult legal newspapers to find out about new or pending legislation, cases, and regulations that may relate to your topic.

  • In LexisNexis Academic, start at the Sources tab at the top of the screen to Browse Sources. Select Area of Law to view materials by topic. Under Filter by Mutliple/Single Source, select Multiple-source Files. Select Environmental Law Newsletters or a broader Legal News file to search by keyword.

Primary Law Research

Statutes and Other Legislation

Statutes are the laws promulgated by the legislature. Federal statutes are chronologically published as Public Laws, then arranged by subject into the United States Code (U.S.C.). The official U.S.C. is unwieldy and generally a few years behind in publication. Instead, use an annotated code to conduct your research in print or online. Annotated codes also provide references to relevant cases, regulations, and secondary sources to help expand your research.

Print Research:

  • Start with the United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.) or the United States Code Service (U.S.C.S.).
  • If you know the name of a statute, e.g. Clean Air Act, use the alphabetical Popular Name Table.
  • If you are researching by topic, search by keyword in the General Index.
  • Either type of search will provide you with a citation in the form of title and section, e.g. 42 § 7641.
  • Go to the law cited and read the text of the law.
  • Review the case law summaries or "notes of decisions" to find the citations to cases interpreting the statute.
  • Check the pocket part or bound supplement for updates to the law and additional case law summaries.
  • Complete your updating by searching for applicable public laws enacted after the publication of the supplement.

Electronic Research:

TIP: Note that searching for statutes in electronic sources is rather difficult without a citation. Use a secondary source to find a citation whenever possible.

  • Check the Environmental Protection Agency website for the full text of major environmental laws.
  • On LexisNexis Academic, start at the LexisNexis Academic Legal Tab. Select Federal & State Codes from the Legal Searches menu on the right side of the screen. Select USCS - Environment - Titles 7, 15, 16, 21, 30, 33 and 42 from the Select Sources menu.
    • search by citation using the search: heading ( title # ) and section (# ).
      For example, search 15 USC 2601 as: heading ( title 15 ) and section (2601)
    • to search by keywords, enter them in the Search Terms box and use appropriate connectors between them.
  • Update your research using LexisNexis Congressional. Search Public Laws for recently enacted laws or use Bill Tracking to check the status of pending legislation.

In addition to locating laws that have already been enacted or pending legislation, you may want to locate legislation that was proposed but never enacted by using Thomas.

  • The main screen allows you to search the current Congress.
  • Use Search Multiple Congresses to find proposed legislation from previous Congresses.

Administrative Law

Administrative law consists of regulations, administrative decisions, and federal executive documents. Regulations are the mandates of executive departments or agencies that implement legislation. They are often called "delegated legislation" because the departments or agencies are empowered by the legislature to regulate on specific topics. Federal regulations are chronologically published in the Federal Register (F.R.), then arranged by subject into the Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.). Unlike the statutes, there is no "annotated" C.F.R., thus it is preferable to find citations to regulations via a secondary source.

Fortunately, most federal agencies are providing many materials on the Internet, including their regulations. Here are some examples pertinent to this course:

You may also locate regulations using print and electronic legal research tools.

Print Research:

  • Search by keywords in the West's Code of Federal Regulations Index (four volume index immediately following the C.F.R.)
  • Use the citation in the form of title and section, e.g. 40 § 204.52, to find the text of the regulation in the Code of Federal Regulations.
  • Update the CFR by using the List of Sections Affected and the Federal Register. See our Federal Regulatory Research guide for a detailed explanation of how to update the CFR.

Electronic Research via LexisNexis Academic:

TIP: Note that searching for regulations in electronic sources is rather difficult without a citation. Use a secondary source to find a citation whenever possible.

  • Start at the LexisNexis Academic Legal Tab. Select Federal & State Codes from the Legal Searches menu on the right side of the screen. Select CFR - Code of Federal Regulations from the Select Sources menu.
    • search by citation using the search: cite (title # CFR section #).
      For example, search 40 CFR 51.123 as: cite (40 CFR 51.123)
    • to search by keywords, enter them in the Search Terms box and use appropriate connectors between them.
  • Update your research with the Federal Register. From the Federal & State Codes page, select Federal Register from the Select Sources menu.

In addition to their regulatory powers, agencies can adjudicate disputes relating to their legislative mandate. Agency decisions are also chronologically published. There is no finding tool for all agency decisions because they are not available from one single source. If your research requires you to locate agency decisions, please see our guide on Sources for Federal Administrative Decisions or talk with a reference librarian.

Finally, the President has the authority to issue documents with legal effect. If your research requires you to locate executive orders or other executive documents, please see our guide on Federal Executive Documents or talk with a reference librarian.

Case Law

What lawyers call "cases" are the written opinions of the judges adjudicating disputes between two or more parties. To understand case law research, you must understand the basic court hierarchy and case law publication:

Trial courts are the courts that first hear the dispute between the two parties.

  • The review of the facts and the decision may be made by a judge or jury.
  • Trial level "opinions" are very selectively published and thus very hard to locate.
  • At the federal level, these courts are called United States District Courts.
  • Federal district court cases, when published, may be found in the Federal Supplement (F.Supp., F.Supp.2d).

Intermediate appellate courts selectively review the decisions of the trial courts for errors in the application of the law.

  • The appellate courts do not review the facts, except as they pertain to the application of the law.
  • The United States Courts of Appeals, also known as Circuit Courts, are the federal intermediate appellate courts.
  • The opinions of the federal courts of appeals are published in the Federal Reporter (F., F.2d, F.3d)

Courts of last resort are the most selective type of courts.

  • This court usually resolves conflicts between the intermediate appellate courts and may hear other cases directly, under limited circumstances.
  • The federal court of last resort is the Supreme Court of the United States.
  • U.S. Supreme Court opinions are published in:
    • United States Reports (U.S.)
    • Supreme Court Reporter (S.Ct.)
    • United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition (L.Ed., L.Ed.2d)

Generally, you will be searching for appellate opinions. Cases are published chronologically in "reporters". Unlike publications for statutes and regulations, reporters are indexed by a separate tool that is not part of the reporter book set.

There are several methods of researching cases. Secondary sources are generally the best tools to locate cases. If you have located a pertinent statute, you may use the "notes of decisions" to get brief summaries of relevant cases and their citations. For more focused case law research, use the following techniques:

Print research using the Digest:

  • Use the Federal Practice Digest to locate citations to federal cases. State digests are also available. Print research technique is the same for federal and state cases.
    • Use the Descriptive Word Index volumes to search by keywords relating to your topic.
    • Use the Table of Cases to search by the name of a participant in the case when you do not know the citation to the case.
    • See our guide: Finding Cases Using the West Key Number Digests for a comprehensive guide on how to use these tools.
  • Once you have the citation, locate the case in the law library. You first will need to decipher the case reporter abbreviation to know which set of books has the case. Use Frequently Requested Materials to locate the books within the library.
  • Update case law using Shepard's Citations. You may update Supreme Court cases online using LexisNexis Academic (see below). If you need to update lower federal court or state cases, please talk with a reference librarian.

Print research using the American Law Reports:

  • The American Law Reports (ALR) is an invaluable resource for case law research. The ALR contains articles called annotations which summarize the law on a particular issue.
  • For an area of law which is case driven, ALR offers the unique function of providing cases from multiple states or federal courts with analysis of trends in decision making.
  • Annotations are also useful because they provide citations to primary materials (cases, statutes, regulations) and/or secondary materials (texts, forms, law review articles, etc.).
  • Please see our research guide on Finding Cases Using the American Law Reports for detailed instructions on how to use this resource.

Electronic research via LexisNexis Academic:

  • To search by the name of a case or its citation, use the Federal & State Cases search form, using the Case name field or the Citation Number search respectively. Follow the Citation Help link for the exact format of citations.
  • To search by keyword for federal cases, start at the Sources tab at the top screen to Browse Sources. Select the radio button for Area of Law. Select Environmental Law, then Environmental Cases, Federal.
  • For state enviromental case law, start at the Federal & State Cases search form. Use the drop down menu to select the appropriate state, then search by keyword.
  • Update all case law using Shepard's Citations.

News and Public Policy

In addition to legal materials, you may want to locate news and read about public policy or other views on the topic you are researching. The following databases can be of help:

Web Resources

Although the temptation to "Google" your topic may be great, it is often better to start with selected reliable sources. Resist the temptation to search the web by using keywords and limit your use of search engines such as Google to find known items that are likely to be on the web.

An environmental law site you should consult is the Environmental Protection Agency. See also Vermont Law School's Research Guide, in particular the section on U.S. Government Sites for additional government agencies and their role in protecting the environment.

Research Guides

In addition to this research guide, the Boston University Libraries offers two guides related to this topic.

Selected environmental law research guides focusing primarily on Internet sources include:

Page maintained by Raquel Ortiz
Last updated: October 2007