Courses

ABCs of Analyzing Energy and the Environment

This course sets out, in three linked modules, the fundamental knowledge that professionals should have for working in the closely intertwined fields of energy and the environment. Students may take one, two, or three modules for one credit each.
Module A: Engineering Fundamentals for Analyzing Energy and the Environment
The engineering realities of electric power grids and natural gas pipelines greatly constrain the choices that lawyers and policy analysts might otherwise make. This module will cover the engineering fundamentals inherent in the current and expected energy infrastructure.
Module B: Business Fundamentals for Analyzing Energy and the Environment
The energy and electric power industries in the U.S. are facing unprecedented challenges in meeting our society’s demands for low-cost, high-reliability energy and electricity with lower environmental impacts. This module will introduce the major financial and economic factors that energy companies use in making production and investment decisions, and how emerging environmental regulations might affect these decisions. The module will also cover deregulated market structures in the petroleum, natural gas and electric power industries.
Module C: Legal Fundamentals for Analyzing Energy and the Environment
Decades of controversy and development have created a detailed legal and regulatory structure that channels and often defines the choices made by energy providers and users. This module will cover the key jurisdictional, procedural, and substantive elements of the federal and state laws most directly affecting energy and the environment.

Download Module A Syllabus

Download Module C Syllabus

Administrative Law

The course will examine the legal principles and framework of agency action. The goal is to provide not only a general understanding of agency processes, but also a good working knowledge of the legal principles and policy critiques that lawyers use to support or oppose agency action. Specifically, the course reviews the implementation of the legislative policy through administrative agencies, constitutional concerns about the operation of agencies, the rule-making and adjudicatory modes of agency action under the APA and the due process clause, and issues of review.

Administrative Procedure and the Environment

This course reviews the legal doctrines that empower and constrain the so-called fourth branch of government-administrative agencies. In many arenas, but particularly in the realm of environmental policy, administrative agencies often "make" more law than courts or legislative bodies, and that law generally has more direct consequences for industry and society. Administrative law is thus fundamentally concerned with whether and how unelected bureaucrats are held accountable as they implement legislative policies. Major topics include agency exercises of power, rulemaking, adjudication, individual participation in agency processes, and judicial review of agency action.
Required for MELP

Download Course Syllabus

ADR and the Environment

This course explores the nature and characteristics of environmental disputes, examines alternative dispute resolution (ADR) processes, and assesses policy and practical considerations that are relevant when selecting a process (including litigation) for resolution of a particular dispute. Statutes, including the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act and the Negotiated Rulemaking Act, will be examined. Simulations, including mediation and arbitration of siting disputes, are used to provide practical exposure to the ADR processes studied. Students cannot take both this course and Alternative Dispute Resolution. Environmental Law and Administrative Law are recommended, but not required.

Download Course Syllabus

Advanced Energy Writing Seminar

Seminar topics will include proposals for reducing the economic and environmental costs of meeting energy needs. Because of its importance for both finance and emissions, the electricity sector will be a major focus of this class. Efforts to reduce costs through more efficient delivery and end-use will be assessed, with specific attention to the statutory, regulatory, and contractual techniques for creating sound incentives. Each student will produce a significant written paper about a key area in energy policy and law. Successful students will emerge with many of the skills useful for contributing to the work of an energy commission, a law firm with an energy practice, an environmental group addressing energy issues, or a company delivering energy or efficiency services.

Advanced Environmental Legal Research

This seminar 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. The course goes well beyond the basics taught in introductory legal research classes and is designed to prepare students to research all types of environmental legal materials for use while in law school as well as in practice. Students will be evaluated on the quality of a research project focused on an environmental issue of their choosing, as well as class participation. This is a limited-enrollment course.

Advanced Land Use

Governments, environmental groups, and land conservation organizations increasingly seek to protect and enhance the environment and provide community benefits through land development. This writing seminar examines the intersection of advanced forms of land use regulation in the context of an in-depth student investigation of a significant biodiversity challenge. Reading focuses on the relationship between local, state, and federal regulation and of the relationship between public regulation and private means of conserving biodiversity.

Not offered in 2009-10.

Advanced Land Use Writing Seminar

The objective of the course is to research and write a publishable article of about 6,000 words on a narrowly focused issue of land use law. During the first week, students meet with the faculty members individually and as a class to discuss their chosen topics and focus their research and writing. The second week is devoted to intensive research and drafting and individual meetings with both faculty members. The third week is devoted to writing. Students will submit a first draft by June 10 to the two faculty members and two peer reviewers. On the last day of class, students will briefly present their papers, and the two peer reviewers will offer individual critiques. The final paper will be due one week after the final class. The faculty will work with the students thereafter to find appropriate places to publish the articles. Students will learn not only how to learn and write something substantial about a narrowly focused area of land use law, but also to produce an article of publishable quality and get it published, with obvious benefits in terms of professional reputation and placement.

Regulatory, Resource Management and Planning

Agricultural Law and Policy

In the past several years, the American public has renewed its interest in ensuring that the food it eats is healthy and is grown in ways that are environmentally and economically sustainable. This course will explore a range of issues related to both the regulatory and incentive-based federal programs that affect the crops we grow, the manner in which they are grown, and the human and environmental impacts of such programs. The course will begin with an overview of the environmental impacts of agriculture, including issues related to pesticides, fertilizers, irrigation, water quality, wetlands, and climate change. After providing an overview of U.S. agricultural policy and the major regulatory programs that address the environmental impacts of agriculture, the course will then turn to exploring the Farm Bill, as well as other programs that encourage certain forms of farming that contribute to environmental degradation. The course will also cover issues related to genetically modified crops, organic farming certification, and international trade and environmental agreements that influence agricultural practices in the U.S. The course will include a field trip to a local organic farm and will conclude with a classroom-facilitated negotiation on an international agreement on the import and export of agricultural pesticides.

Policy, Regulatory

Download Course Syllabus

Air Pollution Law and Policy

This course teaches how to read a complex statute-i.e., the Clean Air Act-and how statutory provisions are implemented both administratively (through regulations and guidance memos) and the courts. Topics include the national ambient air quality standards, state implementation plans, hazardous air pollutant standards, new source review, nonattainment, pollution transport regulations, market trading programs, permitting, and mobile source controls.

Alternative Dispute Resolution

This course presents the theory and practice of arbitration, negotiation, mediation and other processes placed under the umbrella of alternative dispute resolution. This survey course focuses on the theory and practice of dispute resolution as either an alternative or an addition to formal litigation. Students will study the legal, sociological, and ethical issues in dispute resolution and apply them in simulation exercises designed to explore the three major types of alternative dispute resolution.

America's Energy Crisis: Eight Fridays with National Experts

This class will address 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. It takes place at a time when increasing recognition of the problem is maturing into a struggle to identify and create the legal elements necessary to promote and ensure solutions. The first and last seminars will be led by Michael Dworkin and the middle six classes will each feature a three-hour student conversation with nationally-recognized experts in the field. Experts will include FERC Commissioner Jon Wellinghoff, Former Energy Bar Association Chairman Stu Caplan, Regulatory Assistance Project Director Richard Cowart, Professor Lisa Heinzerling of Georgetown University Law Center, and General Counsel of the Electric Power Research Institute Norma Formanek. Grading will be based upon a ten page final paper that compares and contrasts the solutions offered by each of the expert speakers and synthesizes those recommendations into a proposed comprehensive energy strategy for the United States. This is a limited-enrollment course.

Animal Rights Jurisprudence

Nonhuman animals presently have no legal rights. We will discuss what legal rights are, what are the sources and characteristics of fundamental rights, why nonhuman animals are presently denied them, why all humans are presently entitled to them, whether they should be available for nonhumans under the common law and, if they should, which rights should nonhuman animals have, which animals should have them, and what strategies are available for obtaining them.
Ethics/Philosophy

Bankruptcy and Environmental Law

This course will explore the interface of environmental laws and federal bankruptcy statutes The goals of bankruptcy are in direct conflict with the goals of environmental law, in particular CERCLA. The tension between these two policies is profound. Topics covered will 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.

Not offered in 2009-10.

Biodiversity Protection

Across the globe, wildlife and its habitat are increasingly threatened by human-caused habitat destruction, exploitation, poaching, illegal trade, invasive species, disease, and climate change. This course examines what biodiversity is, the growing threats to it, and U.S. and international laws to combat those threats. The course focuses on statutes, case law, environmental ethics, and current controversies to highlight legal, scientific, and political strategies for protecting biodiversity. Particular emphasis is placed on the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
Ethics/Philosophy, Policy, Resource Management and Planning

Download Course Syllabus

CERCLA Law and Policy

CERCLA (also known as Superfund) touches many areas of the law, including real estate development, financial planning, corporations, small business development, municipal government, and insurance law. Through analysis of the statute and cases, and reflection on the policy implications, the course will examine CERCLA's broad liability and cost recovery provisions, emergency response, and cleanup requirements that extend beyond the usual Superfund sites. Natural resources damages, community involvement, recent Supreme Court decisions related to voluntary cleanup, and the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act amendments will also be addressed.

*Students who enrolled in the summer CERCLA course may enroll in this course with prior permission of the instructor. MELP: Distributional requirement - Regulatory and Policy. Prerequisite: Concurrent or prior enrollment in Corporations is recommended, but not required.

Clean Water Act

This course examines, in depth, the key provisions of the Clean Water Act, including technology-based requirements, effluent limitations, water quality standards, permitting, enforcement, control of polluted runoff, and resolution of interstate disputes. The course evaluates the success of the Clean Water Act in protecting and improving water quality and discusses other statutory and common law mechanisms for water pollution control. The course provides significant practice with interpretation of statutes and regulations and evaluating proposed legislation.
Regulatory, Policy

Download Course Syllabus

Climate Change and the Law

Climate change is the most profound social and environmental issue of the 21st century. This course will integrate the emerging science and law of climate change along with economic and intergenerational equity aspects of the problem. The course considers how existing federal laws such as the Clean Air Act and NEPA may be used to address climate change as well as how new more comprehensive laws may be fashioned. Guest speakers will provide a variety of perspectives.

 MELP: Distributional requirements – Regulatory, Policy, and Resource Management/Planning.

Climate Change Litigation

The heat is on, in the courts as well as the biosphere. Seeking to prod faster governmental response to the growing menace of climate change, advocates are turning to the courts to seek injunctions against sluggish agencies and damages against industrial sources of greenhouse gases. Climate litigation has brought together an intriguing coalition of states, environmentalists, and "green" economic interests. Emboldened by the landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA, federal courts across the country have handed down a number of important decisions with more to come. This course will review the various statutory and common law claims being tried, the kinds of remedies being sought, and the jurisdictional and evidentiary obstacles that must be overcome. Grading will be based on a litigation memo and mock hearing.
Regulatory, Policy

Download Course Syllabus

Comparative U.S.-China Environmental Law

This course provides an overview of the tremendous environmental challenges for China’s 1.3 billion people and the efforts to address them through law and regulation. After an introduction to the political and legal system and cultural background of the world’s soon-to-be largest greenhouse gas emitter, 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. Among the key issues covered are the challenges of large hydropower projects like the Three Gorges Dam, high-visibility pollution incidents like the Songhua river spill, China’s burgeoning electronic waste recycling industry, public participation and democratic governance as it affects environmental protection in a socialist state, environmental enforcement, and the country’s approach to global climate change. If there is sufficient interest, we will offer an additional, optional, one-credit session in China at the end of Term Four, to let students experience firsthand the environmental conditions and lectures and meetings with leading Chinese environmental scholars and activists.