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)
Semester
2022 Summer Environmental - Term 1ENV5430/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)
Semester
2022 Summer Environmental - Term 1ENV5510/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)
Semester
2022 Summer Environmental - Term 1ENV5511/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 1ENV5512/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)
Semester
2022 Summer Environmental - Term 1ENV5903.01/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.
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Semester
2022 Summer Environmental - Term 1WRI7380/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)
Semester
2022 Summer Environmental - Term 1Term 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 2ENV5422/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)
Semester
2022 Summer Environmental - Term 2ENV5446/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.
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2022 Summer Environmental - Term 2ENV5474/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)
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2022 Summer Environmental - Term 2ENV5480/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).
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2022 Summer Environmental - Term 2Term 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)
Semester
2022 Summer Environmental - Term 3ENV5550/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.
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2022 Summer Environmental - Term 3ENV5902.01/Animal Ethics and Conservation
This course explores the challenges associated with applying animal welfare ethics to wildlife management and ecosystem conservation.
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2022 Summer Environmental - Term 3ENV5902.02/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.
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Semester
2022 Summer Environmental - Term 3INT7435/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.
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Semester
2022 Summer Environmental - Term 3Term 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.
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2022 Summer Environmental - Term 4ENV5224/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.
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2022 Summer Environmental - Term 4ENV5410/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)
Semester
2022 Summer Environmental - Term 4ENV5412/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.
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2022 Summer Environmental - Term 4ENV5425/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.
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2022 Summer Environmental - Term 4ENV5462/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.
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2022 Summer Environmental - Term 4Weekend 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.
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2022 Summer Environmental - Weekend IntensiveENV5901.01/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.
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2022 Summer Environmental - Weekend IntensiveENV5901.01/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.
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2022 Summer Environmental - Weekend IntensiveENV5901.02/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.
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2022 Summer Environmental - Weekend IntensiveENV5901.04/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.
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2022 Summer Environmental - Weekend IntensiveENV5901.05/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.
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2022 Summer Environmental - Weekend IntensiveENV5901.06/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.