David Sive

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David Sive is an attorney, environmentalist, and professor of environmental law, who has been recognized as a pioneer in the field of United States environmental law, and is credited with helping create the field of environmental law. He received a Bachelor of Laws degree from Columbia Law School in 1948 where he was recognized as a Harlan Fiske Stone scholar.

In the early 1960's he was involved in a landmark environmental case opposing construction of a power plant on Storm King Mountain located on the Hudson River in New York State, called Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, 354 F.2d 608 (2d Cir. 1965) and 453 F.2d 464 (2d Cir. 1971). The Scenic Hudson case established some of the basic first principles of standing in United States environmental law and is credited with having helped inspire the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act and the creation of environmental law as a field and career. (Card, Skip, Scenic Standing; The 40th Anniversary of Scenic Hudson and the Birth of Environmental Litigation, New York State Bar Association Journal, Sept. 2005).

Sive also was involved in the preservation of the "forever wild" clauses of the New York State Constutition preserving the Adirondack Park and Catskill mountains. Sive has been described as a "pioneer" and "elder statesman" of environmental law by the New York Times. (Reinhold, Robert, The Law; Coming of Age of the Environmental Lawyer, New York Times, April 29, 1988). Sive is a founding partner of the environmental law firm Sive, Paget & Riesel, located in New York City.

[edit] Further reading

Ann E. Carlson, Standing for the Environment, 45 UCLA L. Rev. 931 (1998)
Oliver A. Houck, More Unfinished Stories: Lucas, Atlanta Coalition, and Palila/Sweet Home, 75 U. Colo. L. Rev. 331, fn.1 (2004) ("In the late 1960s, Mr. Sive represented plaintiffs in the seminal administrative standing and environmental cases surrounding Storm King Mountain. See Oliver A. Houck, Unfinished Stories, 73 U. Colo. L. Rev. 867 (2002). Mr. Sive went on to become a leader of the environmental law movement, annual Chair of the annual ALI/ABA Conference on Environmental Law in Washington, D.C., and a perceptive analyst and scholar. Retired from practice, he currently teaches at Pace Law School.")
William H. Rodgers, Jr., The Most Creative Moments in the History of Environmental Law: The Who’s, Washburn Law Journal