Courses

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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 impacts environmental protection in a socialist state, environmental enforcement, and the country's approach to global climate change. 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.

Ethics/Philosophy
Perspective

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 Ecology is an integrative science that can provide insight into many contemporary environmental problems. Through visits to a variety of field sites in central Vermont, readings, and lectures, this course will explore the principles of ecology using a hands-on, interdisciplinary approach. Course work stresses the inventorying of biotic and physical components of a landscape (pieces), examining how these pieces are distributed (patterns), and determining what forces drive these patterns (processes). Topics will include interpreting the natural and cultural histories of a landscape, biodiversity conservation, and the scientific method, among others. This course requires minimal previous scientific understanding.
This is a limited enrollment course. Choose Ecology A or Ecology B (Term Two)-not both

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Please see course description for Ecology A in Term One. This is a limited enrollment course. Choose Ecology A or Ecology B––not both.

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This course explores the intersection of energy and development with special attention to the implications of climate change. The professors bring a perspective gained from multilateral environmental finance and development work to these issues. Course topics and readings are based on recent developments and include case studies of the environmental implications of energy growth for development in China and other large developing countries, the opportunities and challenges to renewable energy and other technological solutions, and the potential contribution of carbon trading. The past and potential future role of the World Bank and other development institutions is also addressed, and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol provide background context.
Policy, Resource Management and Planning

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This course explores the characteristics of environmental disputes, examines alternative dispute resolution processes (including mediation, arbitration, negotiated rule-making, and facilitation), and assesses relevant policy and practical considerations in selecting the most effective method of resolving environmental disputes. A major theme of this course will be to compare the advantages and disadvantages of adversarial and collaborative approaches in environmental conflicts, including ones involving environmental regulation and compliance, remediation of contaminated property, land use, and climate change. This course will use simulations to explore a range of dispute resolution processes, and the role of impartial third parties and lawyers in these processes. The instructors will use numerous case studies and their extensive experience as environmental mediators and facilitators. Students should be prepared to actively engage in each class session. Students cannot take this course and ADR and the Environment in the Summer Session. Environmental Law and Administrative Law are recommended, but not required.

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This course focuses on two interrelated but distinct concepts: environmental justice and sustainable development. With respect to environmental justice, the course examines the issue not only from an environmental law perspective but also from a civil rights law perspective. It explores how environmental justice issues are framed, addressed, and resolved through litigation and mediation in the U.S. With respect to sustainable development, the course examines how environmental law is an essential tool for a national government to achieve sustainable development. Environmental law provides the foundation for governmental policies and actions for the preservation and protection of the environment and human health, and for ensuring that the use of natural resources is both equitable and sustainable. The course examines how developing countries and countries with economies in transition face numerous challenges in their efforts to achieve sustainable development. The course involves discussion of environmental law, history, political science, policy studies, litigation vs. alternative dispute resolution, and urban planning and zoning, as well as reports by the UN and other international bodies. Detailed case studies will be used.
Ethics/Philosophy
Perspective

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This course is an introduction to the law pertaining to environmental issues such as population, economic growth, energy, and pollution. Environmental problems are defined and alternative approaches for dealing with them are examined. Existing statutory efforts such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act are analyzed. The basics of federal rule making and climate change will also be covered.

JD/MELP :  Required.
LLM:  Required.

Spring:  Latham
This course is an introduction to the fundamental federal statutes and regulations that serve to protect the environment, including the Clean Water Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.  The basics of federal rulemaking and climate change will also be covered as part of this course.

JD/MELP:  Required.
MELP:  Required.

*This section is only available to MELP only and 1L JD/MELP only students.

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This course introduces the fields of legal analysis, research, and writing through the study of environmental statutes and case law. It also explores research and investigatory techniques, citation form, legal reasoning, writing skills, and professionalism. The class begins with case briefing exercises that examine environmental law and its interaction with civil procedure, torts, criminal law, property, and constitutional law. Next, an in-depth research tutorial provides students with focused research skills. The course then concludes with two legal memoranda on complex environmental issues.
*This course is available only to non-JD, MELP-only students.
MELP: Required.

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A successful environmental professional need to possess the ability to advocate, counsel, investigate, persuade, research, and educate. This course will develop those skills through various writing and oral advocacy projects. In addition to other writing projects, students will compose a Freedom of Information Act request, draft a public comment letter, write a grant proposal letter of inquiry, and create an environmental communication campaign. Different skills will be emphasized through the exploration of these diverse types of writing. The class will focus extensively on the craft of writing well.
This course is only available to MELP-only students who do not already hold a JD.
MELP: Required.

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