Levin College of Law

Alyson Craig Flournoy

Emeritus Professor

Mailing Address:
Box #117620 Gainesville, FL 32611

Phone:
(352) 273-0945

About

Professor Flournoy joined the Levin College of Law faculty in 1988. She served as Director of the Environmental and Land Use Law Program from its inception until 2011 when she began serving as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, where she remained until 2015. She has taught courses in Environmental Law, Property and Administrative Law and has published book chapters and journal articles on environmental policy. Prior to her tenure at UF, Flournoy clerked for New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Wilentz and practiced with the firm of Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., principally in the field of environmental law. Professor Flournoy received her J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School and her A.B. from Princeton University.

Professor Flournoy’s scholarship focuses on the design of legislation to protect natural resources, including decision-making processes under environmental and natural resource laws, and environmental ethics. She has addressed these themes in writings about endangered species and forest management, wetlands conservation and restoration, and regulation of toxic substances. Her most recent work focuses on law and policy responses to disasters and sea level rise, and the importance of identifying the values that are embedded in the nation’s environmental laws and policies.

She has written numerous articles on environmental and natural resources law topics, including several articles on wetlands regulation under the Clean Water Act. She is co-editor and a co-author of BEYOND ENVIRONMENTAL LAW: POLICY PROPOSALS FOR A BETTER ENVIRONMENTAL FUTURE (Cambridge Univ. Press 2010) which develops her proposal for a National Environmental Legacy Act. Flournoy is a trustee and past president of Florida Defenders of the Environment, a past chair of the Environmental Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools and a member scholar and trustee of the Center for Progressive Reform.

Education

J.D., Harvard Law School (cum laude)
A.B., Princeton University (cum laude)

Teaching and Scholarship

Environmental Law, Property, Administrative Law

Publications

Book Chapters

  • Incorporating Resilience and Innovation into Law and Policy: A case for preserving a natural resource legacy and promoting a sustainable future (with Tarsha Eason, Heriberto Cabezas and Michael Gonzalez) in Social-Ecological Resilience and Law (Ahjond S. Garmestani and Craig R. Allen, eds.) (Columbia Univ. Press 2014)
  • The Case for a National Environmental Legacy Act, in Beyond Environmental Law: Policy Proposals for a Better Environmental Future, David M. Driesen & Alyson C. Flournoy eds. (Cambridge Univ. Press 2010)
  • Following the Court Off-Road in SUWA, in Strategies for Environmental Success in an Uncertain Judicial Climate (Michael Allan Wolf ed.)(ELI 2005)

Articles

  • “Wetlands Regulation in an Era of Climate Change: Can Section 404 Meet the Challenge?” 4 G.W. J. Energy & Envtl L. 67 (2013)(co-authored with Allison Fischman) [SSRN]
  • “Three Meta-Lessons Government and Industry Should Learn from the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster and Why They Won’t,” 38 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 281-303 (2011) [SSRN]
  • “Protecting a Natural Resource Legacy While Promoting Resilience: Can it Be Done?” 87 Neb. L. Rev. 1008-1035 (2009) [SSRN]

Miscellaneous

Co-authored Writings

  • Regulatory Blowout: How Regulatory Failures Made the BP Disaster Possible, and How the System Can Be Fixed to Avoid a Recurrence, Center for Progressive Reform White Paper #1007, available at: http://www.progressivereform.org/articles/BP_Reg_Blowout_1007.pdf (co-edited with James Goodwin and co-authored with William Andreen, Rebecca Bratspies, Holly Doremus, Victor Flatt, Robert Glicksman, James Goodwin, Joel Mintz, Daniel Rohlf, Amy Sinden, Rena Steinzor, Joseph Tomain, and Sandra Zellmer)(September 2010)
  • The Future of Environmental Protection: The Case for a National Environmental Legacy Act, A Center for Progressive Reform White Paper, available at: http://www.progressivereform.org/articles/NELA_1002.pdf (co-authored with Ryan Feinberg, Margaret Clune Giblin, Heather Halter, and Christina Storz) (January 2010)
  • Squandering Public Resources: A Center for Progressive Reform Report (with Margaret Clune Giblin and Matt Shudtz) (September 2007)
  • An Unnatural Disaster: The Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, (coordinated and edited work of 16 other member scholars of the Center for Progressive Reform) (September 2005).