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Environmental Studies/Science

This guide will help students researching topics in Environmental Studies.

Legislative history refers to the collection of documents produced by a governing body during the course of enacting a piece of legislation. The documents include: bills from all legislative bodies; committee reports; transcripts of hearings; texts of debates; histories and timelines of action taken. Legislative histories may be, and have been, used in court cases to determine the legislative body's intent when drafting laws. 

Finding Legislative History: Strategies

You will need to use a variety of strategies to find legislative histories:

A. Some of the reference sources listed on the Reference Sources page of this guide will provide a summary of the legislative history for major environmental legislation. In addition, there are two good reference sources in Seymour Library that will help you understand how specific legislation was enacted:

  • Congress and the Nation, 12 volumes spanning 1945-2008 -- Main Stacks JK999 C44x
    For major legislation these volumes provide summaries of legislation, including provisions and stipulations in the law; house and senate actions; brief background on the issues addressed in the law.
  • West's Encyclopedia of American Law -- Main Stacks KF154 .W47
    The section on "Environmental Law" provides an overview of major environmental legislation. Also use the index to find material on specific legislation.

B. Congressional action and debate can be found in a variety of places. Note the dates of coverage for these online sites; for older legislation you will need to use other methods.

  • The Congressional Record (1994-present) is available on the GovInfo site. The Congressional Record records action, including transcripts of floor speeches, done on the floors of the U.S. House and Senate.
  • The GovInfo site has History of Bills information for 1983-present. This details legislative action that includes summary, names of sponsors and cosponsors, and a chronological list of actions on the bill. You need to know the bill number. The GovInfo site has lists of public and private laws organized by Congressional session. The legislative history of the bill is presented, including references to House and Senate reports and relevant citations in the Congressional Record.

C. Significant and/or controversial legislation is often treated as a subject in scholarly books. Use Knox Primo (especially the I-Share search) to find books on your topic. Additionally, legislative histories compiled by offices of the federal government may be freely available on the internet (try a Google search); for example, see the Legislative History of Noise Control Act of 1972.

D. Find relevant journal articles using the databases listed on the "Journal Literature" page in this guide. Also, there are two magazines that cover legislative activity quite well, although these are more like news magazines than scholarly journals. Search for articles, then make interlibrary loan requests for the full text.

E. Find articles in law review journals using the Nexis Uni database. Law review articles may have some discussion of the legislative history of a law.