Ever since his controversial 1991 confirmation hearings, Justice Clarence Thomas has been the subject of ravenous popular and scholarly interest. Today, there is a veritable shelf of books and studies analyzing his biography, his ideology, and his jurisprudence. Yet one area has been missing from the existing literature: environmental law. Few scholars or Supreme Court-watchers would think of Thomas as a specialist in environmental law, but for many years that was precisely his area of expertise. Indeed, his only private sector experience was almost three years working as a lawyer for Monsanto, an immense and powerful agrochemical corporation. This stint was followed by two years advising Senator John C. Danforth on environmental issues. According to two of Thomas’s biographers, when members of the newly elected Reagan Administration sought to hire Thomas away from Danforth, their first offer was to be an advisor to the White House on environmental policy, as that was thought to be Thomas’s specialty.

This Article is the first to document or analyze Thomas’s environmental experience and ideology in any depth. Drawing deeply on never-before-cited archival material, it argues that Thomas’s environmental work was key to the development of his conservative political and judicial philosophy. As a young man, Thomas was fairly liberal; he grew more conservative precisely because of his experiences at Monsanto—a pioneer in anti-environmental lobbying and litigation—and then as a Senate aide, where he relentlessly lobbied his boss on behalf of corporate interests, including Monsanto’s.