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2016 Residential Summer Session Classes

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2016 Residential Summer Session Classes

ENV5112.A/Science for Environmental Law

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).

Professor(s)

Ross Jones '00

Semester

2015 Summer-1 DL

ENV5122.A/Communication, Advocacy and Leadership

A successful environmental professional should 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.

Professor(s)

Jared Carter

Semester

2015 Summer-1 DL

ENV5212.A/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. We will consider 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. Different policy instruments will be considered including carbon taxes and emissions trading.

Professor(s)

Semester

2015 Summer-1 DL

ENV5220.A/Environmental Economics and Markets

​​The course introduces students to the discipline of environmental economics and exposes them to debates over the use of market-based instruments in environmental, energy, and climate policy. It also introduces students to basic economics and finance concepts, examines key principles about market behavior and efficiency, and applies these basic elements and concepts to common environmental problems and actual case studies.​
Approved for Master’s credit only.

Professor(s)

Semester

2015 Summer-1 DL

ENV5226.A/Energy Law and Policy in a Carbon-Constrained World

The energy industry is both a key to the life that billions seek and America's most significant source of pollution. Environmental problems are the energy industry's most important constraint. This course examines key issues in American energy policy, and searches for ways to resolve or ease the strains, which that policy puts upon environmental sustainability. We will review 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.

Professor(s)

Semester

2015 Summer-1 DL

ENV5344.A/Alternative Fuels and Renewable Energy

Our world is fundamentally dependent on energy flows, yet the fuels and sources that have sustained us for the last century all seem to be showing tight limits or tragic flaws. This course, taught by a former administrative law judge for the California Public Utility Commission, explores the emerging field of renewable and alternative energy supplies. It reviews local, state, and federal laws and policies that promote (and impede) such sources, and considers emerging distributed generation models.

Professor(s)

Semester

2015 Summer-1 DL

ENV5411.A/Federal Regulation of Food and Agriculture

This course provides an overview of the U.S. Farm Bill and other federal laws that impact growing policy, animal husbandry, and food production. Students will examine federal farm and agriculture law with specific emphasis on the Farm Bill and its myriad of agriculture, nutrition and environmental programs. This course will explore the ways in which the Farm Bill, the single largest funding source for everything from childhood nutrition to land trust acquisition, impacts everything from U.S. international policy stances to the availability of local food resources.

Professor(s)

Laurie Beyranevand '03

Semester

2015 Summer-1 DL

REQ7180.A/Public Law

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.

Professor(s)

Adrienne Soler, JD'87

Semester

2015 Summer-1 DL

ADR6415.A/Environmental Dispute Resolution

This course explores the characteristics of environmental disputes, examines alternative dispute resolution processes (including mediation, arbitration, negotiated rulemaking, and facilitation), and assesses relevant policy and practical considerations in selecting the most effective method of resolving environmental disputes.

Professor(s)

Sean Nolon
Beth McCormack

Semester

2015 Summer-2 DL

ENV5105.A/Administrative Law

The goal of Administrative Law is to provide students with a working knowledge of the general principles of administrative law, a general knowledge of the workings of bureaucratic institutions, and an understanding of the critiques of government. The course examines the 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 class has been approved for JD credit.

Professor(s)

Semester

2015 Summer-2 DL

ENV5108.A/Intro to the Law and Policy of Agriculture, Food and the Environment

This survey course brings together American law impacting agriculture and food and explores the traditional divisions between agriculture, food, and environmental regulation. The course provides a hard look at the agriculture and food production sector and involves not only an examination of traditional farming and food safety policies but the ways in which these policies intersect with environmental law and health care policy, as well as important sectors from local land use planning to international trade.

Professor(s)

Semester

2015 Summer-2 DL

ENV5115.A/Environmental Law

This course is an introduction to the law of pollution control, management of hazardous materials, and preservation of natural resources, with a particular emphasis on major federal environmental statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and Superfund.

Professor(s)

Ross Jones '00

Semester

2015 Summer-2 DL

ENV5228.A/Energy Regulation and the Environment

This course builds on the course Energy Law and Policy in a Carbon-Constrained World. The course exposes students to the legal, economic, and structural issues involved in both energy regulation and energy markets, focusing on electricity. The course examines the evolution, theory, and techniques of the monopoly regulation. Students learn how utilities are regulated. We examine rate setting, rate design and regulatory alternatives to traditional rates such as performance-based rates. The course then examines evolving competitive, market-based alternatives.

Professor(s)

Semester

2015 Summer-2 DL

ENV5235.A/Natural Resources Law

One third of the nation's land base belongs to the American public and is managed by the United States Forest Service and agencies of the Department of the Interior. The federal lands provide significant wildlife habitat and clean water, and are important sources of timber, forage, and energy. They also offer opportunities for recreation. Through this course students will examine the statutes and regulations governing the management of the federal lands and their resources.

Professor(s)

Jared Carter

Semester

2015 Summer-2 DL

ENV5336.A/Climate Change, Extinction and Adaptation

Human activities are causing a global mass extinction of plants and animals that rivals the five great extinction events over the earth's geologic history. Historically, habitat loss, overharvest, introduction of invasive species, and pollution has been the principal causes of this "Sixth Great Extinction." There is now a strong scientific consensus that the greatest threat to global biodiversity is climate change caused by anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide.

Professor(s)

Jack Tuholske

Semester

2015 Summer-2 DL

ENV5343.A/Climate Change Adaptation in Human Systems

Most leading scientists and policymakers agree that, even if the international community acts promptly to limit future greenhouse gas emissions, levels of carbon and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will continue to rise. Future accumulations of greenhouse gases are generally predicted to produce significant environmental effects, including higher sea levels, changes in temperature and precipitation patterns, reductions in snowfall and the extent of glaciers, and increasingly intense storms.

Professor(s)

Semester

2015 Summer-2 DL

ENV5469.A/Oil and Gas Development and the Environment

This course reviews oil and gas regulation, both up and down stream, in the United States and around the world. With an eye toward the hot issue of the day – Fracking, the proposed natural gas pipeline through, Middle East oil reserves and trade, and so forth – this course gives students a clearer understanding of the legal regime that makes the oil and gas exploration, extraction, refining, distribution and sale markets work around the world.​
This class has been approved for JD credit.

Professor(s)

Semester

2015 Summer-2 DL

ENV5478.A/Climate Change, Food Security and Environmental Justice

Looking internationally and locally, this course uses a comparative lens to assess potential climate impacts on agricultural resources and distribution channels, issues of food security, and food distribution. Students will examine the impact of climate change on agriculture and food resources around the world and will examine the larger questions of food security and environmental justice. As weather patterns and hydrological resources shift, traditionally agriculturally rich areas will be increasingly strained.

Professor(s)

Semester

2015 Summer-2 DL

ENV5478.A/Global Food Security and Social Justice

This course addresses the legal landscape of global hunger, and the ways in which climate change, population growth and economic inequality intersect with food security law and policy challenges. First, we’ll address how “food security” and “hunger” are defined and measured for policy-making purposes. Then, we’ll explore international legal frameworks supporting food security and comparative domestic legal frameworks impacting food security, including Constitutional food rights, agriculture subsidies and tariffs, and public food and nutrition assistance programs.

Professor(s)

Semester

2015 Summer-2 DL