Courses

Provides students with a working knowledge of the general principles of administrative law;  implementation of legislative policy through administrative agencies, including the role of administrative agencies in the governmental process, rulemaking, adjudication, and judicial review of agency actions.

This seminar provides an opportunity to explore emerging issues in dispute resolution through research and writing. The goal is to produce a publishable quality article.

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Provides in-depth exposure to the most useful, efficient strategies and resources for environmental law research, including highly specialized information databases, advanced administrative law research, legislative history, and environmental news/updating services.

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An exploration of the major programs and regulatory strategies embodied in the Clean Air Act that are used to address conventional air pollution, toxic air pollution, and greenhouse gas pollution. 

This course presents the theory and practice of negotiation, mediation, and arbitration that constitute the foundation of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) through lecture and simulations.  Examines the different theories and approaches to ADR, as well as the wide range of issues that arise in the selection and application of these dispute resolution techniques.

This course addresses the fundamental crisis in which growing energy demands are threatening the buffering capacity of our global atmosphere, while also producing the greatest emissions of most primary pollutants, and the struggle to identify and create the legal elements necessary to promote and ensure solutions.

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Explores the interface of environmental laws and federal bankruptcy statutes, as well as the tension between the goals of bankruptcy and the goals of environmental law, in particular CERCLA. Topics covered include the rights and obligations of debtors and creditors under the Bankruptcy Code, the discharge of environmental debts in bankruptcy, and the abandonment of contaminated property by the bankruptcy trustee.

Examines CERCLA's broad liability and cost recovery provisions, emergency response and cleanup requirements that extend beyond the usual Superfund sites.  Brownfields, natural resources damages, community involvement, recent Supreme Court decisions and statutory amendments will also be addressed.  The course will examine how parties escape or limit  liability through due diligence, defenses,  pollution prevention, settlement, and cost allocation.

This course reviews the various statutory and common law claims being tried in climate litigation, the kinds of remedies sought, and the jurisdictional and evidentiary obstacles that must be overcome.

This seminar explores the ways in which tax systems can effect change in the energy consumption behavior of business, industry, and consumers.  The seminar addresses issues of theory, policy, politics, and law and --while focusing on climate change-- provides students with a framework for understanding how and when to use tax measures to address other environmental problems.

An overview of the tremendous environmental challenges for the 1.3 billion people in China and the efforts to address them through law and regulation. After an introduction to the political and legal system and cultural background of the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, we will survey the basic regulatory schemes managing air quality, water resources and quality, natural resources, environmental impact assessments, and pending legislation concerning waste management and energy conservation. If there is sufficient interest, we may offer an additional, optional, one-credit session in China immediately following the class, to let students experience firsthand the environmental conditions and lectures and meetings with leading Chinese environmental scholars and activists.

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Interdisciplinary seminar that combines the study of cultural ecology with legal anthropology. The course examines the historical roots of the current environmental crisis in the development of agriculture, urbanization and industrialization. The course focuses on the political and cultural challenges of climate change in other historical periods and the challenges that global warming presents in different parts of the world.

Examines assumptions underlying environmental, constitutional, corporate, and other laws, and how those assumptions impede our ability to live cooperatively and sustainably with the natural world. Identifies legal, governance, and economic systems that better recognize the inherent rights of all people and the natural world.

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Explores the principles of ecology using an interdisciplinary approach and field-based work. Course work stresses the inventorying of biotic and physical components of a landscape, examining how these components are distributed, and determining what forces drive these patterns. Topics include interpreting the natural and cultural histories of a landscape, biodiversity conservation, and the scientific method, among others.

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A critical examination of several case studies drawn broadly from the science, law, politics, economics and policy of food and agriculture.  The course also has the broader goals of teaching the student to critically read the scientific literature, and to effectively apply science in diverse legal and political settings. 

Examines key issues in American energy policy and searches for ways to ease the strains which that policy puts upon environmental sustainability. The course reviews fundamental facts about our energy demands and sample regulatory orders and legal writings that address many of those elements from the perspective of a legal review. Background readings will include ethical issues of social justice in siting projects and meeting-or limiting-energy demand, the statutory schemes underlying traditional regulation, and an introduction to wholesale electric markets.

Builds on the course Energy Law and Policy in a Carbon-Constrained World by exposing students to the legal, economic, and structural issues involved in energy regulation and energy markets, focusing on electricity. The course examines the evolution, theory and techniques of monopoly regulation; the current processes for rate setting; and the development of  competitive, market-based alternatives. The course exposes students to the latest approaches to managing the electric grid, to renewable energy strategies and procurement, energy efficiency, demand side management and green markets.

Explores the range of processes that are used to resolve environmental disputes with particular emphasis on consensual processes such as negotiation and mediation.  Instruction will be based on lectures and discussions of the theory of dispute resolution and environmental law and simulations to practice the skills needed to resolve environmental disputes.

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Explores the ethical foundations of environmental reasoning, including: intrinsic value, biocentrism, utilitarianism, eco-feminism, deep ecology, social ecology, and religious/spiritual foundations of environmental reasoning. These theoretical approaches are applied to concrete environmental policy issues. A central goal of the course is to assist students in developing a personal and professional environmental ethic.