Fittingly, the Act's chief sponsors were a Senator from Nevada, Key Pittman, and a Representative from Virginia, A. Willis Robertson. The Pittman-Robertson Act, as it came to be called, sped through Congress and was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt on September 2, 1937. From a modest beginning, the Pittman-Robertson program has grown with the economy and the human population of our country. By now it has channeled nearly $1.7 billion in Federal excise tax receipts, augmented by some $600 million from the States, into activities to restore wildlife. The projects include State acquisition of acreage needed to bring wildlife back, research into wildlife requirements and problems, active management of habitats, and development of scientific ways to enable wildlife and people to share our land in harmony. The program has strengthened State governments and built wildlife management into a respected profession.

More than any other field of public administration, environmental administration is defined by its legal content. Federal legislation has a direct and immediate impact on state and federal bureaucrats, and citizen groups must constantly adjust to changing standards for environmental protection and regulation. In Understanding Environmental Administration and Law, Susan J. Buck examines the use of environmental law by exploring the policy process through which such law is made, the political environment in which it is applied, and the statutory and case laws that are critical to working within the regulatory system. The book provides an analytic framework for the legal context of environmental administration and familiarizes readers with the development and implementation of the federal regulatory structure. First published in 1991, this revised and expanded edition includes new material on: the continuing evolution of environmentalism in the United States federalism and bureaucratic decision making within the context of the American legal system citizen suits, counter suits, and the increasingly restrictive perspective of the federal judiciary toward standing the property rights movement the impact of political changes on policy development Unlike most books that deal with environmental law, the focus of this volume is on understanding the law as a managerial tool and fitting it into the overall policy context. Anyone involved with the environment, from students to citizen activists to mid-level managers at the federal, state, and local level, will find it enormously valuable.