Jamison E. Colburn

Joseph H. Goldstein Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law

Professor Colburn is a leading scholar of environmental and natural resources law. He has published over thirty articles and book chapters focusing on the law of environmental assessment, habitat and at-risk species protections, and the jurisdiction of water disputes. His published work routinely considers the legal system’s use (and misuse) of science and scientific information. Prior to teaching, he served as Assistant Regional Counsel at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and as Trustee of the Connecticut River Watershed Council.

Jamison Colburn

Location: University Park

Email  jec38@psu.edu

Phone  814-865-8965

SSRN

Prof. Colburn in the Media

Faculty Impact


Education
J.S.D., Columbia University

LL.M., Harvard

J.D., Rutgers University

B.A., State University of New York, Plattsburgh


Current Courses
Environmental Law

Natural Resources Law

Property

Colburn’s Publications

Rethinking the Supreme Court’s Interstate Waters Jurisprudence, 33 GEO. ENVT'L L. Rev. 233 (2021)

Time to Rethink the Supreme Court’s Interstate Waters Jurisprudence, 50 ENVTL. L RPTR. 10840 (2020)

Don’t Go in the Water: On Pathological Jurisdiction Splitting, 39 Stan. ENVTL. L.J. 3 (2019)

Don’t Go in the Water: On Pathological Jurisdiction Splitting, 39 Stan. ENVTL. L.J. 3 (2020)

The National Park System and NEPA: Nonipairment in an Age of Disruption, 50 AKRON L. REV. 81 (2017)

Governing the Gradient: Clarity and Discretion at the Water’s Edge, 62 VILL. L. REV. 81 (2017)

Coercing Collaboration: The Chesapeake Bay Experience, 40 WM. & MARY ENVTL. L. & POL'Y REV. 677 (2016)

A Future for Paris? Federalism, the Law of Nations, and U.S. Courts, 34 Md. J. Int’l L. 181 (2019)

The Scales of Weighing Regulatory Costs: Technology, Geography and Time (2018)

Retreat Alternatives in NEPA — A Tool for the Perplexed, 33 J. Envtl. L. & Litig. 3 (2018)

Technology-Based? Cost Factoring in U.S. Environmental Standards, 7 Mich. J. Env’tl & Admin. L. 83 (2017)

A Climate-Constrained NEPA, 2017 U. Illinois L. Rev. 1091 (2017)

The Risk in Discretion: Substantive NEPA’s Significance, 41 Colum. J. Envtl. L. 1 (2016)

Addition by Subtraction: NEPA Routines as Means to More Systemic Ends, in The Laws of Nature: Reflections on Ecosystem Management Law & Policy (Kalyani Robbins ed., 2013).

Reasons as Experiments: Judgment and Justification in the Hard Look, 9 Contemp. Pragmatism 205 (2013) (invited article for philosophy journal’s symposium on “Democratic Experimentalism”).

Permits, Property, and Planning in the 21st Century: Habitat as Survival and Beyond, in Rebuilding the Ark: New Perspectives on ESA Reform (Jonathan H. Adler ed., 2011)

Agency Interpretations, 82 Temple L. Rev. 657 (2010)

Splitting the Atom of Property: Rights Experimentalism as Obligation to Future Generations, 77 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1411 (2009)

Habitat and Humanity: Public Lands Law in the Age of Ecology, 39 Ariz. St. L. J. 145 (2007)

Localism’s Ecology: Protecting and Restoring Habitat in the Suburban Nation, 33 Ecology L.Q. 945 (2006)

The Indignity of Federal Wildlife Habitat Law, 57 Alabama L. Rev. 417 (2005)


Penn State Dickinson Law and Penn State Law are reunifying to operate as Penn State University’s single law school, which will be known as Penn State Dickinson Law. While ABA approval for the reunification is pending, both schools are currently fully accredited. We submitted an application for acquiescence to operate as a single law school in July 2024 and plan to enroll a unified class in Fall 2025. Once reunification is complete, the separate faculties of each school will be members of the reunified Penn State Dickinson Law faculty.