Environmental law survived the loss of presidential support through Congress, courts, and advocacy groups.

Evidence

Remarkably, notwithstanding President Nixon’s opposition to the very regime of environmental law he helped create, that legal regime not only survived, but continued to expand in the 1970s. As support from the White House quickly ebbed, environmental law found its institutional supporters elsewhere. The most significant of these supporters were in Congress and the federal judiciary and in the rising environmental law public interest community. — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 372

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Career-staff leaks and congressional oversight forced Reagan’s anti-environment appointees to resign — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 535; Legislative defeat still elevated environmental justice in Washington — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 131; U.S. environmental law has survived every political assault and grown stronger after each — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 21 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Congressional stalemate shifted environmental lawmaking power to appropriations riders. #complicates (0.80) — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 703
• Environmental law triggered the replacement of transmission-belt with surrogate-political-process administrative law #expands (0.75) — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 830