The University of Pennsylvania Law School and the University of Virginia
School of Law co-sponsored “Covenanting the Future: Reforming Environmental
Regulation Through Innovative Resource and Land Management” in June at
the Law School. The conference sought to examine points of intersection
between environmental regulation and natural resources management by identifying
the key defining features of this new approach and by drawing on the case
study experience of public officials, private practitioners, environmentalists,
and business leaders. Second, the conference considered how law and regulation
must be changed to better facilitate the new cooperative, contractual
approach to manage the environment. Jason S. Johnston Robert
G. Fuller Jr. Professor of Law and Director of the Program on Law
and the Environment (POLE), spoke on the panel “Environmental Contracts
and the Synthesis of Environmental and Natural Resource Regulation: Background,
Rationale and Promise.” The plenary speakers were the Honorable Michael
Fisher, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, and the Honorable James Greenwood,
U.S. Representative, Pennsylvania. Ann Klee L’86, Counselor to
the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, presented the Keynote Address. Other
participants in the two-day gathering included David Hayes, Former Deputy
Secretary of the Department of the Interior; Susan Moore, Vice President
– Environmental Affairs for Georgia-Pacific; Christopher Rose, Chief Strategist
for Greenpeace UK; Gregg Cooke, Regional Administrator for the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, Region VI; Robert Stephens, Assistant Secretary for
the California Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Management
and Sustainability; Michael O’Connell, Senior Government Relations Representative
for the Nature Conservancy; and James Conrad, Senior Counsel of the American
Chemistry Council. The conference was followed the next day by a Roundtable
discussion of how federal environmental regulators can better facilitate
state level policy innovation. Participants in the discussion included
Deputy EPA Administrator Linda Fisher, former EPA Deputy Administrator
and Assistant Attorney General for Land and Natural Resources Hank Habicht,
California Secretary for Resources Mary Nichols, Maryland Environmental
Secretary Jane Nishida, and Minnesota Commissioner for the Environment
Karen Studders. 
