Fifty-six years ago, the first Earth Day helped spark a generation of landmark environmental legislation — and the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) was born from that same moment. On this Earth Day 2026, host Sebastian Duque Rios sits down with ELI President Jordan Diamond and Senior Attorney Jay Austin to trace the arc of environmental law from that founding era to the compounding crises of today.

Together, they reflect on how statutes like NEPA and the Clean Air Act were designed with more foresight than we often credit them for, why adaptive management is baked into the DNA of environmental law, and how ELI is responding to an era of rapid institutional change — from regulatory rollbacks and executive action to the governance challenges posed by emerging industries like deep sea mining, geothermal energy, and data centers. They also dig into ELI's new collaboration with the Federation of American Scientists' (FAS) Center for Regulatory Ingenuity and their joint white paper laying out a framework for rebuilding and reimagining environmental governance fit for the 21st century.

This episode is a candid, long-view conversation about what it takes to protect people, places, and the planet. For more information on other emerging topics in environmental law, see our recent episode, "What's Next for Environmental Law in 2026."

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