This introductory course examines the variety of federal legal mechanisms that protect the environment, focusing principally on several major environmental statutes such as the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, NEPA, RCRA, and CERCLA and the regulatory mechanisms that implement them.  In addition to studying statutes and their implementation in some detail, we will also consider a range of policy approaches to regulation, e.g., market-based versus prescriptive or information-based approaches, the methods of assessment that underlie these approaches to regulation, and their suitability to address various rapidly developing environmental issues such as controlling greenhouse gases to limit climate change.  We will also think strategically, from both industry and environmentalist perspectives, about how environmental law can be used as an instrument of social change.  A prior course on administrative law is helpful, but is not a prerequisite.