In recent years the FSU College of Law environmental law program has offered a substantial number of programs on important environmental issues through its Environmental Forum series (held each semester), and through lectures by distinguished environmental law professors from around the country who visit the law school to share their ideas about the current state of the law and its likely future directions. We’ve been very pleased with the reception to these programs – there is clearly a great deal of interest in the State about environmental issues, and we have a sense that our programs have helped to educate the public and advance the debate about the future of environmental protection in a constructive way. We’ve been very fortunate to include leading members of the Section in our Environmental Forum series and we look forward to continuing to do so in the future.

     This spring, in addition to our Environmental Forum and a distinguished lecture by Professor Rob Fischman of Indiana University Law School, the College of Law is hosting an innovative Symposium that will feature an extraordinary array of leading scholars, including Dan Farber from the University of California-Berkeley, John Ferejohn, of Stanford, Brad Karkkainen from the University of Minnesota, and John Scholz, the Eppes Professor of Political Science at FSU who also has an appointment with the College of Law.

     The Symposium, Default Rules in Private and Public Law, will address some of the central issues of environmental and administrative law, such as the role of courts in interpreting ambiguous statutes, the utility and function of the “delegation doctrine,” and the weight that should be given to the precautionary principle and other theories for determining appropriate levels of environmental protection. These issues are of importance to scholars as well as to policy makers and practitioners.

     For those interested in exploring these issues in detail, FSU’s law review will be publishing the proceedings of the Symposium in a special issue. In addition, FSU Professor Jim Rossi, the College of Law’s Harry M. Walborsky Professor and Associate Dean for Research, has written a book, Regulatory Bargaining and Public Law (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming this spring), which addresses the kind of default rules that should guide courts in reviewing regulations.

    Please visit our web site, http://www.law.fsu.edu/, for more information on the upcoming Symposium, as well as for information about Professor Fischman’s lecture and for updates concerning our spring Forum.