Lowell E. Baier

Lowell E. Baier's book Inside the Equal Access to Justice Act: Environmental Litigation and the Crippling Battle over America's Lands, Endangered Species, and Critical Habitats was named the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Grand Prize Winner in non-fiction in 70 categories from over 7,000 books submitted, as well as the Winner in the Science/Nature/Environment category. His book has also been chosen as a 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award finalist in the two categories of Ecology/Environment and History, as well as a finalist for the Forest History Society’s Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Book Award.

Baier has authored several books pursuant to his passion for wildlife and natural resources conservation, including Inside the Equal Access to Justice Act: Environmental Litigation and the Crippling Battle over America’s Lands, Endangered Species, and Their Critical Habitat (2016); a sequel, Playing God with Nature: The Codex of the Endangered Species Act (forthcoming 2018); and is currently at work on Voices from the Wilderness: A Biography, celebrating America's wilderness preservation system and the fiftieth anniversary of the Wilderness Act (due 2019).

One of America's preeminent experts on environmental litigation, Baier's 2016 book chronicles the century-long story of America's resources management, focusing on litigation, citizen suit provisions, and attorneys' fees. He provides the first book-length comprehensive examination of the little know [Equal Access to Justice Act] (EAJA) and its role in environmental litigation, focusing on its detrimental effect on wildlife and endangered species.

From 2004 to 2007, he led a national campaign to raise $6.5 million to purchase for the federal government the last and largest remaining piece of privately held land that was initially Theodore Roosevelt's historic Elkhorn Ranch, established in 1884. Adjacent to the existing Theodore Roosevelt National Park, also once part of the ranch, this purchase expanded the national park by virtually one-third its size. The Elkhorn is popularly called the "Cradle of Conservation" and the "Walden Pond of the West" since between 1884-1887 Theodore Roosevelt here conceived the cornerstones of the American conservation movement as we know it today.

Baier has taken his environmental and wildlife conservation passion into politics as well, having served as an advisor to many elected officials and educators. Baier took the lead in drafting President George H. W. Bush's wildlife conservation agenda in 1989, and has been an advisor and counselor to all successive presidential administrations. From 1992 to 2010, Baier led in the creation of Ph.D. programs at four separate universities dedicated to postgraduate studies in natural resources and wildlife conservation management.

Baier has been active in the Boone and Crockett Club (America's oldest wildlife conservation organization) since 1975. Baier is its first President Emeritus, and was elected an Honorary Life Member in 2016.

Baier lives in suburban Washington, D.C., with his wife, Bonnie, whom he married in 1968. He is an avid collector of art and 19th century animalier bronze sculpture works. He contemporaneously continues to practice law, specializing in wildlife conservation and natural resources policy, legislation, and regulation, he manages Baier Properties, Inc., and writes extensively.

Baier received his B.A. in economics and political science from Valparaiso University in 1961. He went on to attend law school at Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington, Indiana, where he received his J.D. in 1964.

He served in the U.S. Army Reserves from 1956 to 1964.

Lowell E. Baier (born January 6, 1940) is an American attorney, successful entrepreneur, and an environmental historian and author. He has dedicated his life to natural resources and wildlife conservation. Throughout his career he has been an advisor to many elected officials and educators, including every successive presidential administration since George H. W. Bush, and has been an active and instrumental member of several national conservation groups.

Lowell E. Baier was born on January 6, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up on a farm outside the small town of Remington, Indiana. He was a member of the Boy Scouts of America. He became an Eagle Scout in 1954, at the age of 14. In 1956 his Congressman Charles A. Halleck (R-2nd IN) appointed him to be his Page Boy in the United States House of Representatives, because he was the first Boy Scout to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout in Jasper County, Indiana. He developed a passion for wildlife and natural resource conservation early in life that has greatly influenced his career.