In this essay, Professor Freyfogle takes a broad look at the moral psychology that underlies the environmental movement, using three disputes to illustrate the principles that he distills. He then surveys the major environmental statutes to determine whether and how this new moral order is reflected in federal law. Congress's acts and pronouncements, he concludes, simply do not form a coherent moral order, nor do they convey a premeditated vision of ecological well-being. Because of this failure, environmental law-making is approaching a crisis of vision and imagination, stumbling on such knotty issues as nonpoint-source water pollution and declining wildlife habitat. In the concluding section, Professor Freyfogle identifies the principles that he believes will help guide environmental lawmaking in coming years as ecological understanding increases and as concerns expand beyond matters of pollution and wilderness preservation to take on the more encompassing, more deep-rooted issue of ecosystem health.
