Ms. Margaret Thompson presented a nationally broadcast webinar on December 10, 2025, sponsored by the American Academy of Environmental Engineers & Scientists (AAEES). The title of her presentation was “Why Is It So Hard To Protect the Environment? A Long-View Approach in a Short-Sighted Era.” Ms. Thompson is an expert in the aspects of administrative law that pertain to environmental protection. As a retired attorney and former faculty in the Department of Environmental Engineering & Earth Sciences (EEES), she is well versed in teaching non-lawyers on how to understand environmental law.
Ms. Thompson’s seminar highlighted milestone events, from nineteenth-century set-asides of lands for “wilderness” value through twentieth-century development of natural resources and pollution management to today’s politically fraught policy reversals playing out in the administrative and judicial branches of the federal government. Her webinar included a discussion of the recent oral arguments in a U.S. Supreme Court case where the question concerns the President’s executive authority to fire federal administrators, and how this impacts environmental regulations. Ms. Thompson retired from teaching last spring, after joining EEES in 1999.
Thank you, Margaret, for “carrying the torch” for EEES on the national stage. A summary of her webinar may be found here.
