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2022 Summer Session Classes

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Students, please note: CampusWeb is the authoritative source for class information, so please refer to CampusWeb when making final registration decisions. Click on the name of a class to read the full description.

2022 Summer Session Classes

Term 1

ENV5423.01/Ocean & Coastal Law

Long neglected by lawmakers despite its essential ecological functions, the marine environment has increasingly been the focal point of conservation and natural resource management efforts. As a foundation for studying the laws that govern the marine environment, the course considers the natural components of estuarine, coastal, and marine ecosystems and the current conservation issues confronting them.

Professor(s)

Don Baur
Sarah M. Reiter JD’13

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 1

ENV5430/Ecology

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.

Professor(s)

Walter Poleman
Thomas Lautzenheiser

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 1

ENV5510/Three Essentials of the Electric Grid: Engineering Essentials

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.

Professor(s)

Chris Root

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 1

ENV5511/Three Essentials of the Electric Grid: Business Essentials

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.

Professor(s)

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 1

ENV5512/Three Essentials of the Electric Grid: Legal Essentials

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.

Professor(s)

Samantha Williams JD'05

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 1

ENV5903.01/Cannabis Law

This course will survey historical and policy considerations relating to cannabis regulation and enforcement, explore the current and anticipated regulatory landscapes, and integrate considerations of note to practitioners in this rapidly developing field.

Professor(s)

Benjamin Varadi

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 1

WRI7380/Advanced Environmental Legal Research

This one-credit course provides in-depth exposure to the most useful, efficient strategies and resources for environmental law research, including specialized science and statistical information resources, state, national, and international environmental law research, advanced administrative law research, legislative history, environmental updating services, etc. The course is designed to prepare students to research environmental legal materials and non-legal materials for use in law school and in practice.

Professor(s)

Christine Ryan

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 1

Term 2

ENV5230/Global Energy Law and Policy

Global Energy Law and Policy explores the current policy framework in a particular region outside of the United States with a focus on clean energy policies. The course will explore the regions policy development process, the current energy policy framework, policies implementing global and regional climate commitments and emerging issues.

Professor(s)

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 2

ENV5422/Animal Welfare Law

In recent years, a broad and rapidly evolving field of law has developed concerning the welfare of animals that are used for a variety of human purposes, including food, entertainment, research, and companionship.  Animals used for these purposes often endure a wide range of abuses that diminish animal welfare while also impacting humans.

Professor(s)

Delcianna Winders
Heather Rally

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 2

ENV5446/Environmental Justice

The environmental justice movement is aimed at avoiding, minimizing, or mitigating disproportionately adverse human health and environmental impacts, including social and economic impacts, on minority and/or low-income communities, and for those communities to be engaged meaningfully in environmental decision-making processes. This course examines this environmental and public health problem.

Professor(s)

Barry Hill

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 2

ENV5474/Land Conservation Law

Increasingly important in our efforts to protect ecological diversity, climate resiliency, historic places, working lands, scenic viewsheds, open spaces, and public uses of land are conservation tools and processes such as donation of conservation easements, purchase of sensitive lands, and private/public partnerships for land conservation.

Professor(s)

Jessica Jay JD/MSEL'97

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 2

ENV5480/Environmental Crimes

Environmental crime is the most common federal offense committed by U.S. corporations, and among the most profitable criminal activity in the world. Explore this specialized practice, from the relevant investigative agencies, through the benefits of “speaking” indictments, to the applicable federal sentencing guidelines. Students will examine the major pollution prevention and wildlife protection statutes, as well as the Title 18 offenses with which they are most often paired (e.g., conspiracy, false statements, obstruction of justice).

Professor(s)

Deborah Harris

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 2

Term 3

ENV5225/Environmental Governance and the Private Sector

This class examines the push for more private sector accountability and governance in environmental matters (such as EDG and CSR policies) and how this relates to legal requirements.  The class also looks at private sector environmental governance.  In particular, the class will examine the concept of business sustainability drivers and practice, private environmental governance, including the growth of market models, and what legal standards apply.

Professor(s)

Victor Flatt

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 3

ENV5550/Renewable Energy Project Finance and Development

This course will provide an in-depth look at the legal and regulatory issues associated with the development and project financing of renewable energy projects such as wind, hydro, solar, and battery storage. After completing this course, students will have a solid understanding of how to help vet the economics of renewable projects and get them permitted, financed, built, hooked-up to the grid and operational. 

Professor(s)

Brian Potts JD'04
Andrew Hanson

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 3

ENV5902.01/Animal Ethics and Conservation

This course explores the challenges associated with applying animal welfare ethics to wildlife management and ecosystem conservation.

Professor(s)

Heather Rally

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 3

ENV5902.02/Environmental Appeals

In this course we will first examine some fundamentals of appellate practice and procedure (understood to include judicial review of agency action). We will survey topics that often loom large in environmental appeals– including subject matter jurisdiction and appealability; presentation of complex scientific and technical evidence; statutory and regulatory interpretation; and legal framing of environmental claims and values.

Professor(s)

Sean Donahue

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 3

INT7435/The International Law of Food

This course, one of the few if not the only in the world to address this critical subject matter, identifies and analyzes contemporary international legal and policy issues related to food including supply, safety, security, subsidies, and trade.  Students will master legal and structural analytical tools for addressing these increasingly important challenges of concern to all global citizens.

Professor(s)

David Wirth

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 3

Term 4

ENV5223/Environmental Governance in the Developing World

This course introduces students to the challenges faced by developing countries in developing, implementing, and enforcing effective environmental governance systems. It compares systems of environmental governance in developing countries with a particular focus on countries in Asia and Oceania.

Professor(s)

Robert Percival

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 4

ENV5224/Environmental Governance Field Study

Following completion of the Environmental Governance in the Developing World course, students are invited to participate in an optional field trip, contingent on the state of travel restrictions, where they can examine firsthand how developing countries are using law to cope with environmental challenges.. Prerequisite: Environmental Governance in the Developing World.

Professor(s)

Robert Percival

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 4

ENV5410/The Farm Bill

American farm and food policy has long been the subject of strenuous debate and criticism.  In recent years, prominent criticism has come from a movement of consumer and environmental interests concerned that the way we eat and how we support producers impacts our health, natural resources and the environment.  Other interests raise concerns that about Federal spending and government footprint.  Regardless of the reason, all of them look to the farm bill.

Professor(s)

Chris Adamo JD'04
Jonathan Coppess

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 4

ENV5412/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.

Professor(s)

David Takacs

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 4

ENV5425/Clean Transportation Law and Policy

Transportation is the leading source of climate pollution in the United States. This course is focused on a key pathway to reduce those harmful emissions: the electrification of our cars, trucks, and buses. We’ll examine the current federal landscape for regulation of tailpipe emissions and the range of clean transportation policy options, including a particular focus on the role of electric utilities and how electric vehicles can support a smarter, cleaner electricity grid.

Professor(s)

Joseph Halso

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 4

ENV5462/Public Lands Management: Montana Field Study

The Montana Field Study is a unique experiential learning opportunity. This class focuses on National Forest Management. Students experience forest management, wilderness, recreation, and roadless issues first-hand, in the wilds of Montana and Idaho. Almost the entire class is held in the field; we camp and hike into remote places. Instructor permission is required; contact the Environmental Law Center for further information.

Professor(s)

Chelsea Colwyn MELP'11

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Term 4

Weekend Intensive

ENV5324/Conservation Agriculture Policy

This one credit course examines state and federal conservation agriculture policies with an emphasis on Vermont’s Required Agricultural Practices (RAPs). Students will be exposed to the variety of state and federal conservation programs designed to assist farmers in achieving conservation compliance.  The course will include farm visits where students will see specific types of conservation practices implemented by farmers to protect natural resources and increase air, water, and soil quality on- and off-farm. 

Professor(s)

Jennifer Byrne MELP'19

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Weekend Intensive

ENV5901.01/Toxic Exposure and Health: Communities on the Front Lines

This class will address several substantive issues from the perspective of community health, including the Toxic Substances Control Act, Air Toxics and the petrochemical industry, Pesticides and Farmworker Safety, Lead Exposure, and PFAS.  We will look at recent EPA actions and related cases, as well as community level impacts, frontline advocacy.  The class will examine and discuss the history and architecture of our federal statutory and regulatory programs that have allowed disproportionate impacts to persist for decades.  

Professor(s)

Patrice Simms

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Weekend Intensive

ENV5901.01/Farmworkers and the Law

The approximately two million farmworkers who grow our food are essential to this country. Yet they are often overlooked in national policy efforts on issues ranging from immigration law to environmental justice. In some areas, like labor rights and occupational health and safety, they are explicitly denied certain basic protections.

Professor(s)

Iris Figueroa

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Weekend Intensive

ENV5901.02/Balancing Perspectives in Coastal Resource Management: Maine Field Study

This course will examine the common law and statutory underpinnings of coastal resource ownership and use. Taught along one of the longest coastlines in the United States, this class will explore real life conflicts stemming from competing interests, including working waterfronts, energy development, conservation, and recreation. Given the field study nature, students will have the opportunity to visit a working waterfront and/or aquaculture facility and speak directly with leaders– from attorneys to fishermen– at the forefront of coastal resource conflict.

Professor(s)

Lindsay Leoni Bourgoine MELP'15

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Weekend Intensive

ENV5901.04/Sustainable Social Enterprises for the Fossil-Free Economy

Shifting the global economy off of fossil fuels while pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals, such as reducing income inequality, requires harnessing the power of the private sector in new ways.  Using a series of case studies of inspiring sustainability pathbreakers working in renewable energy, organic foods, water, finance, and fair trade, the course explores how social enterprises, such as cooperatives and B Corp, pursue the triple bottom line. 

Professor(s)

Melissa Scanlan

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Weekend Intensive

ENV5901.05/Undercover Investigations of Animal Operations

What are undercover investigations? Why do animal advocacy organizations conduct them? In this course, students will explore a variety of legal considerations as they relate to conducting undercover investigations of animal operations. Specifically, students will examine the intersection of criminal law, tort, and ethical issues, as well as what does and does not constitute actionable animal cruelty.

Professor(s)

Margaret York

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Weekend Intensive

ENV5901.06/Offshore Wind Energy

Offshore wind development in the US is growing at a rapid pace as companies pour hundreds of millions of dollars to obtain offshore leases from the federal government and the right to invest billions more to develop, construct and operate massive offshore wind farms.

Professor(s)

Semester

2022 Summer Environmental - Weekend Intensive