From Wednesday, January 3d, through Sunday, January 7th, the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) held its 101st annual meeting in San Francisco. Among the numerous panel discussions, workshops, luncheons, receptions, and field trips that took place at that event was a lively and well-attended session (held on Friday, January 5th) entitled "Dinosaur or Phoenix?: Choosing Between Old-Fashioned Regulation and Second-Generation Strategies in the New Millennium."

This discussion, co-sponsored by the AALS' sections on Environmental Law and Administrative Law, was moderated by Prof. Thomas O. "Tom" McGarity, a widely respected environmental law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, who has participated in and written about the formulation of environmental policies for many years. Other participants included Jan Mazurek, an economist and visiting fellow with the Public Policy Institute of California who, for a number of years, was associated with Resources for the Future (RFF) in Washington, D.C.; David B. Spence, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business, who specializes in the analysis of environmental regulatory issues; and John Walke, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in Washington, D.C. A number of the environmental law professors in attendance at this session also volunteered perceptive comments and questions.