Comments on the Department of Homeland Security's Procedures for Handling Critical Infrastructure Information (Interim Rule).

Rena Steinzor is the Edward M. Robertson Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, and a past president of the Center for Progressive Reform. She is the author of Why Not Jail? Industrial Catastrophes, Corporate Malfeasance, and Government Inaction.

Professor Steinzor has taught an environmental law survey course, seminars in risk assessments and critical issues in environmental law and science, administrative law, contracts, torts and counseling and negotiation. She has written in the areas of (1) regulatory dysfunction in agencies assigned to protect public health, worker and consumer safety, and the environment; (2) the role of centralized White House review on the protectiveness of regulation; (3) environmental federalism, including so-called "unfunded mandates" imposed on state and local governments by the federal government and the impact on public health of devolving authority and responsibility for solving environmental problems; (4) the implications of industry self-regulation on the protection of the environment and human health; (5) "market-based" alternatives to traditional regulation; and (6) political interference with regulatory science.

She is the editor, with Christopher Schroeder, of the CPR-sponsored book A New Progressive Agenda for Public Health and the Environment, published by Carolina Academic Press. She is also the editor, with Wendy Wagner, of the book Rescuing Science from Politics, published by Cambridge University Press in 2006. Her book, Mother Earth and Uncle Sam: How Pollution and Hollow Government Hurt Our Kids was published by the University of Texas Press in December 2007. With Professor Sidney Shapiro of Wake Forest Law School, she co-authored The People’s Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public: Special Interests, Government, and Threats to Health, Safety, and the Environment published by the University of Chicago Press in 2010.

Professor Steinzor began her legal career in 1976, and entered academia in January 1994. From 1987 through 1993, she was associated - first as "of counsel" and ultimately as the partner in charge of the environmental practice - at Spiegel & McDiarmid, a 45-lawyer, Washington, D.C. firm representing approximately 400 cities, counties, states, and public agencies in the energy, environmental, communications, and transportation fields. The practice counseled federal, state, and municipal clients regarding compliance with federal and state laws and regulations.

Prior to joining Spiegel & McDiarmid, Professor Steinzor served as Staff Counsel, Subcommittee on Commerce, Transportation, and Tourism of the Energy and Commerce Committee, U.S. House of Representatives (James J. Florio, Chairman). She was the primary staff person responsible for legislation that became the "Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986" (Public Law 99-499) and the "Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act" (Public Law 99-519). She also prepared legislation to reauthorize the Toxic Substances Control Act during the 98th Congress.

Professor Steinzor has testified before Congress on several occasions, most recently regarding the impact of health, safety, and environmental regulations on the economy.

Rena Steinzor
University of Maryland Carey School of Law
Baltimore, MD
410.706 0564
email
website

Karen Sokol is Associate Professor of Law at the Loyola University College of Law in New Orleans. 

Karen Sokol joined the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law faculty in 2009. Her teaching and research interests include environmental law, torts, products liability, and law and philosophy. Her current scholarship focuses on legal controls on marketing of dangerous products, climate change resilience, particularly for vulnerable countries such as Cuba and India, and, most recently, on the potential for forging more robust environmental and public health protections by incorporating Indian philosophy into Western jurisprudence, law, and policy. She will spend the spring of 2018 researching in India, supported by a Fulbright Award.

Professor Sokol graduated from Yale Law School, where she served as Articles Editor for the Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal and was a member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic. After law school, she clerked for Judge Carolyn Dineen King of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and worked as an associate in the appellate section of Vinson & Elkins, LLP. She then worked as a policy analyst for the Center for Progressive Reform, writing a number of papers and articles on environmental and public health issues, with a focus on government transparency and corporate accountability. The year before coming to Loyola, she was a fellow at Georgetown University Law Center’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. She is admitted to practice in the state of Texas and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. 

Karen Sokol
Loyola University New Orleans College of Law
New Orleans, Louisiana
504.861.5593
email
website
SSRN
Twitter