Toward a Role for Protest in Environmental Law

The story of environmental law closely coincides with that of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has doubtless made many contributions to improved governance and enhanced environmental protection.In this symposium tribute to the EPA's fiftieth anniversary, however, I invite a renewed look at the role of protest in environmental law-both as an integral part of the development of environmental law and as an enduring critique of it.This approach demands of traditional legal scholarship that it interrogate its discomfort with direct-action methods; in the environmental law arena, it asks for both a deeper theoretization of protest and a renewed commitment to principles of environmental justice.Using examples from the environmental protest traditions of central Appalachia, I explore how those traditions have shaped environmental law and how the promise of environmental law has fallen short.These examples also make plain that the narrative of civil disobedience as "outside" of the legal system in contrast to participatory activities "within" the system is a false dichotomy.Indeed, the coordinated efforts among civil disobedients, local environmental movements, and impact litigators suggests the further need to theorize and operationalize a role for protest in environmental law.Ultimately, this Article calls for such a research agenda.