Edward Lloyd, a foremost environmental activist and crusading public interest attorney who established the Environmental Legislation Clinic at Columbia Legislation University, wherever he taught for 21 many years, died on August 5. He was 74.
Lloyd, Evan M. Frankel Scientific Professor Emeritus in Environmental Law, was a pioneering figure in the environmental law group, especially in New Jersey, the place he lived. Lloyd was regarded as that state’s most prominent environmental attorney for his function in protecting against sewage from staying dumped into waterways, which guarded delicate lands and safeguarded communities from hazardous squander.
“Despite his gentle demeanor, any one who knew Ed nicely understood that he was both of those a fierce advocate and formidable lawful foe,” reported Gillian Lester, Dean and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Legislation. “Generations of his pupils have long gone on to combat the fight as terribly effectively-qualified environmental attorneys, motivated by Ed’s indefatigable feeling of reason and justice.”
As director of Columbia Law’s Environmental Legislation Clinic, Lloyd supplied arms-on legal training to scores of long term attorneys as they represented businesses functioning to clear up critical environmental worries. Beneath his aegis, the clinic took on a broad selection of routines, this kind of as analyzing the environmental impacts of pipeline progress in excess of, beneath, or through the Delaware River. The clinic’s notable victories involved drafting an amicus short that led a federal court in 2018 to buy the EPA to ban chlorpyrifos, a toxic pesticide linked to brain problems in small children working on the scenario that led the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court docket to overturn important elements of the state’s 2012 purely natural fuel progress legislation that would have stripped municipalities of zoning legal rights and provided state businesses sole authority to establish exactly where hydraulic fracturing could just take area and symbolizing Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn Community Board 1, and the Greenpoint/Williamsburg Waterfront Process Power in a 2008 obstacle to a proposed electric power plant on the East River waterfront in Brooklyn.
“I want my college students to just take away a quantity of skills from this clinic: listening very carefully to their customers and analyzing strategies—including litigation, coverage change, possible regulatory reform,” Lloyd after explained.
Alumni of the Environmental Regulation Clinic have gone on to do the job at the Office of Justice, Environmental Protection Company, Earthjustice, Pure Means Defense Council, and other community desire companies and federal government agencies. “Even if college students select not to exercise environmental regulation,” Lloyd claimed, “I hope they take with them a perception of the breadth and depth of the environmental challenges experiencing this country and the environment.”
Susan Kraham ’92, a former staff members lawyer for the Environmental Regulation Clinic who is now an attorney at Earthjustice, characterized Lloyd as “a exceptional blend of successful and assertive litigator, acceptable negotiator, engaging instructor, and gentle mentor. The men and women and spots he touched are superior off for his treatment.”
Melding Regulation and Science
Lloyd graduated from Princeton University with a B.A. in chemistry in 1970 and received a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Legislation School in 1973. He commenced his profession at the New Jersey Public Interest Investigation Team, an group that advocates on behalf of consumers, in which he was government director and workers lawyer. In 1985, he established the Environmental Legislation Clinic at Rutgers University Law University, which he directed for 15 several years prior to signing up for the Columbia Legislation college in 2000. He also served on the tutorial committee of the Earth Institute at Columbia College and on the board of directors of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law.
Beyond the academy, Lloyd preserved a comprehensive docket of environmental perform. He was a longtime member of the New Jersey Pinelands Commission, which oversees preservation and development in the 1.1 million–acre Pinelands Nationwide Reserve in South Jersey, and he fought threats to its sovereignty. He was co-founder and co-chair of the Eastern Environmental Law Middle, the sole community desire environmental regulation agency in New Jersey, and he was a member of the Litigation Critique Committee of the Environmental Protection Fund and of the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on Environmental Litigation. Lloyd also testified prior to the U.S. congressional and legislative committees on troubles including power conservation, solar power, clear drinking water criteria and polices, independence of facts, drinking water offer organizing and conservation, and stable squander.
For the duration of his life span, Lloyd been given various honors and awards, such as the NY/NJ Baykeeper Award (2000), the Sierra Club Fantastic Environmental Accomplishment Award (2005), and the Environmental Stewardship Award from EarthShare New Jersey (2014). He was hailed by the New Jersey Do the job Atmosphere Council in 2013 for his “tireless initiatives and determination to preserving the surroundings and overall health and security of personnel and communities.” When he was honored by the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters at its Eco-friendly Tie Gala in 2018, the Point out of New Jersey Senate and Typical Assembly handed a resolution commending him as “a guy of exceptional character and remarkable willpower.”
Lloyd is survived by his wife, Janine Bauer their son, Alexander E. Lloyd ’19 and their daughter, Abigail Lloyd.
