I was saddened to learn of the passing of my former PLF colleague, Reed Hopper, over the Christmas holiday. Reed had a long and interesting life, and by the time I came to know him, over 15 years ago, he had become one of the most important environmental law attorneys in the country. He won two Supreme Court cases, Rapanos v. United States and Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes, and was a resolute, principled, and tireless advocate for sensible and constitutionally limited environmental policy in the lower courts, too. Although his opponents would often assail him as an extremist anti-environmental zealot, etc., etc., he actually had a very level-headed and moderate approach to these questions, believing that environmental protection was important, but also that it should be carefully restrained by the Constitution to protect the rights of human beings.
And he had an almost unsurpassed skill in cutting through the nonsense of a case to the core legal principle involved. He was always helpful to me in cases that we worked on together, particularly in an economic liberty case I did in Missouri. We were doing a moot court, and in the middle of it, Reed began asking questions on a subject that I had not really anticipated and that I thought it unlikely that the court would address. I remember leaving the moot court with a superior air, thinking it silly that he asked those questions, but I looked up the answers anyway, just in case--and sure enough, they ended up being front-and-center when the hearing was held. He was also a superb writer, who taught me some extraordinarily helpful tips about arguing in print. I always respected his legal judgment, and his skills in presenting an argument. He was a quiet man, whose name may not have been prominent, but his keen mind will be missed by all of us in this profession.
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