Environmental Courses

Provides students with a working knowledge of the general principles of administrative law;  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 seminar provides students an opportunity to produce a significant written paper based on sophisticated research and thinking about a key area in energy policy and law. Seminar topics include proposals for reducing the economic and environmental costs of meeting energy needs. Efforts to reduce costs through more efficient delivery and end-use are assessed, with specific attention to the statutory, regulatory, and contractual techniques for creating sound incentives.

Land used for agricultural purposes (timer land excepted) accounts for nearly 53% of the total land area of the United States - the largest category of land use by far. This course addresses the complex and interconnected relationship of environmental and agricultural law, its historical roots and modern developments.

This course covers the major programs and regulatory strategies embodied in the Clean Air Act that are used to address conventional air pollution, toxic air pollution, and greenhouse gas pollution.   Students will be expected to read the statutory and regulatory provisions carefully, understand the history of those provisions, and consider the science and policies which animate them.

With an eye toward the impacts of climate change on both natural systems and possible interference on current energy production, this course considers emerging distributed generation models, surveys the range of emerging energy technologies, and examines the local, state and federal laws and policies that govern transition to renewable energy sources.

This course addresses 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, and the struggle to identify and create the legal elements necessary to promote and ensure solutions.

A discussion of legal rights for nonhuman animals, 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.

Surveys U.S. and E.U. animal welfare, environmental, food safety, and economic regulatory schemes implicated in farmed animal food production.Case law and case studies illustrate how the E.U.'s stricter animal welfare and food safety standards have led to trade treaty disputes, and how the WTO addresses them.

Over the past decade, discoveries in molecular biology have given rise to controversial new technology based on the maniulation and transfer of genes.  This course considers some of the legal and ethical issues surrounding the application of genetic engineering to food, agriculture, and gene therapy.  The course also covers the patenting of genes, cells, and organisms.

Examines the legal challenges raised for society to adapt to the impacts of climate change.  Students will examine the confusion and inadequacy of current legal and policy structures to address new risks, and the need for alternative tools in light of rapidly changing circumstances.

Explores lawyers' involvement in the formulation and implementation of United States foreign and national defense policy through the examination variety of domestic, constitutional, and international law issues such as authority for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, intelligence gathering at home and abroad, detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects, planning for the next terrorist attack, protection of sensitive government information, and other current topics.Perspective & AWR 

This seminar explores the ways in which tax systems can effect change in the energy consumption behavior of business, industry, and consumers.  The seminar addresses issues of theory, policy, politics, and law and --while focusing on climate change-- provides students with a framework for understanding how and when to use tax measures to address other environmental problems.

Designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills to operate effectively in a variety of environmental careers. Topics include communications to achieve public policy aims; development and implementation of legislative and policy campaigns; and management of environmental enterprises.

A research and writing seminar that provides a framework and faculty supervision for students to engage in comparative environmental law research. While the seminar is designed primarily to support VLS students participating in the US-China joint student research projects and will focus generally on China, the seminar is sufficiently broad to accommodate students interested in researching the environmental law systems of other countries. Perspective & AWR.

A critical examination of several case studies drawn broadly from the science, law, politics, economics and policy of food and agriculture.  The course also has the broader goals of teaching the student to critically read the scientific literature, and to effectively apply science in diverse legal and political settings.

Builds on the course Energy Law and Policy in a Carbon-Constrained World by exposing students to the legal, economic, and structural issues involved in energy regulation and energy markets, focusing on electricity. The course examines the evolution, theory and techniques of monopoly regulation; the current processes for rate setting; and the development of  competitive, market-based alternatives. The course exposes students to the latest approaches to managing the electric grid, to renewable energy strategies and procurement, energy efficiency, demand side management and green markets.

As our society continues to develop greener ways of living and doing business, "green" technologies have become increasingly important. In addition, we are becoming more efficient in other ways, including, agricultural methods and health care treatments. This course provides students the opportunity to learn how intellectual property law operates to help support the development and protection of new technologies that impact our environment and the way we live.

This seminar introduces selected foundations of environmental reasoning:  intrinsic value theory, biocentrism, utilitarianism, ecofeminism, deep ecology, social ecology, and religion/spirituality.  These theoretical approaches are applied to concrete environmental issues.  A central goal of the course is to assist students in developing a personal and professional environmental ethic.

Understanding the implications of policy and law, as well as planning for the future, often involves forecasting the outcome of complex relationships. For example, land use growth impacts transportation infrastructure, which, in turn, affects future land use growth. The importance of this and other relationships is constantly being revealed and incorporated into forecasting techniques. This course considers how forecasting is performed and reviewed within a legal framework.

Environmental health law uses federal environmental law and state public health law to address human health impacts resulting from exposure to physical, chemical, biological, and social factors in the environment.  This seminar will cover a range of subject areas, including toxic torts, lead poisoning prevention, food protection, and pesticides.  Public policy, and the role of government as policymaker and regulator, will be emphasized.  Students will write a paper on a chosen topic and present their research to the class.

Every lawyer, in private practice, in the business sector, or in government, is likely to be confronted with insurance issues.  This is no different in the context of environmental insurance issues.  This course is intended to provide a broad based introduction to insurance law generally, and more specifically with respect to how environmental issues have forced dramatic changes in the insurance industry, as well as how insurance is a fundamental component of many cases with environmental implications.

An exploration the types of environmental risks and issues that are commonly confronted in a variety of business-related transactions such as the acquisition of all of the stock of a company, asset purchases, real estate deals, leases and financings. Special focus on how the environmental issues in transactions are identified and managed in the course of a deal. The unique environmental issues associated with the purchase and redevelopment of contaminated properties or so-called Brownfield sites are also covered.

Examines the issues of environmental justice from an environmental law perspective and from a civil rights law perspective. Explores how environmental justice issues are framed, addressed, and resolved through litigation and mediation n the U.S. and internationally.

An examination of environmental justice from an environmental law and a civil rights law perspective, including how environmental justice issues are framed, addressed, and resolved through litigation and mediation in the U.S.  Also a study of how developing countries and countries with economies in transition face numerous challenges in their efforts to achieve sustainable development.

The seminar will address discrimination, distributional, and justice concerns about the benefits and burdens of environmental protection and natural resource management.  A significant portion of the course will be devoted to issues of race and poverty, with a special focus on the environmental justice movement (including the special situation of Indian tribes).  Another focus will be equity issues in the international context, including tensions between industrialized and developed countries due to the environment and environmental human rights.

Please see class descriptions by term.

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 engineering realities of energy infrastructure systems can greatly constrain the choices that lawyers and policy analysts might otherwise make. This module will cover the engineering fundamentals inherent in electric power grids and will explain how these engineering realities affect market and regulatory choices.

This module explores the expanding field of renewable energy development. It reviews local, state, and federal laws and policies that promote (and impede) such sources. Aside from the environmental and climate implications, there is nothing less at stake in the push for renewable energy than the very nature of our existing energy institutions. This module offers a brief look at various alternative mechanisms for delivering energy services including emerging models for relying on distributed generation.

Electric vehicles (EVs) are not just the way of the future; they are biggest growth opportunity for our electric utilities in nearly a century.

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 have 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.

This seminar identifies cutting edge ecological problems and addresses the potential of science, legal regimes and public policy to tackle frontier (i.e., not yet fully discovered and appreciated) environmental concerns that threaten public welfare and the world's natural resources.  From the perspective of environmental science and law, and through various media and scholarly sources, students will seek out those frontier and under-discussed environmental concerns of most interest, and suggest how we might learn from existing legal and policy regimes to better deal with these concerns.

The heat is on, in the courts as well as the biosphere. Frustrated with the slow governmental response to the growing menace of climate change, advocates are turning to the courts to goad agencies into action and to seek damages and injunctions against industrial sources of greenhouse gases (GHG). Climate litigation has brought together an intriguing coalition of states, environmentalists and "green" economic interests. Emboldened by the landmark decision of the U.S.

This course revolves around a central questions: how can justice theory help people make meaningful decisions about the production, the delivery, the use and the effects of energy?

This course explores the legal landscape of global hunger: the definition of "food security"; food security risks; global food governance organizations and legal instruments; assessing and monitoring food security; food related human rights concerns; the current status of global food security; and the international NGO's strategies for policy advocacy against hunger.

The links in theory and in law between the enjoyment of internationally recognized human rights and protection of the environment. The value and limits of procedural rights of access to information, public participation, and remedies in environmental law, as well as the case law of human rights bodies finding environmental degradation to constitute a breach of various human rights such as life, health, home life, and privacy.

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.

An introduction to the fields of legal analysis, research, and writing through the study of environmental statutes and case law. The course explores research and investigatory techniques, citation form, legal reasoning, writing skills, and professionalism.

When does the government go "too far" in regulating land use without compensating the landowner?  This seminar traces the development of the constitutional regulatory takings doctrine in the United States-why it developed, what lines it draws, what voids have not yet been filled, how existing case law applies to various types of situations and whether the lines need to be redrawn by the courts or by legislatures to meet more fully the complex, competing needs of our society.

Examines the tools available to preserve ecological diversity, historic places, working lands, scenic viewsheds, and open space, such as conservation easements, purchase of sensitive lands, and private/public partnerships for land conservation. The course provides a practical understanding of both the legal and nonlegal dimensions of land conservation transactions involving conservation easements.

An introduction to land transaction and finance, covering the study of the title system, title insurance and land contracts, the private development process, and modern real estate financing, including private financing and public financing. The course also introduces the public-private development process including redevelopment, military base conversion and Brownfield's redevelopment.

A basic course in land use law.  Covers planning and all manner of private and public land use regulation from common interest communities, to subdivisions, to zoning, to variances, to planned development districts, to transit-oriented development, to traditional neighborhood design, to form-based codes, to growth management.

Most leading scientists and policy makers 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.

Teaches the nuts and bolts of providing legal services to farmers and food entrepreneurs (producers/retailers/restaurants), drawing from the rich examples of farmer and food entrepreneurs locally. Such skills are needed to equip students with real world legal knowledge for those students seeking to provide legal services in this area or who wish to start an entrepreneurial career in food and agriculture.

Teaches the nuts and bolts of providing legal services to farmers and food entrepreneurs (producers/retailers/restaurants), drawing from the rich examples of farmer and food entrepreneurs locally. Such skills are needed to equip students with real world legal knowledge for those students seeking to provide legal services in this area or who wish to start an entrepreneurial career in food and agriculture. A JD skills class. 

This course is an introduction to natural resource damages (NRD), an extremely complicated and cutting-edge area of environmental law. At least five different federal statutes (CERCLA, OPA, NMSA, NPA, and CWA), along with innumerable state and tribal laws, provide for recovery of damages for natural resource injuries by trustees.

Please see individual class descriptions by term.

This seminar explores the proposition that successfully coping with today's environmental threats requires deeper challenges to our prevailing system of political economy than mainstream environmentalism in the United States has been willing to mount. It develops the idea that a new American environmentalism is needed and with it new environmental policy and law that go beyond the traditional realm of environmental affairs.

An in depth exploration of agricultural and food laws and policies and the regulatory mechanisms supporting them. The covers public health issues including Farm Bill nutrition assistance programs, food access, obesity and malnutrition, food safety and food-borne diseases, genetically modified foods, organic and other certification schemes, and the debate about food systems and sustainability.

This course examines the interaction of state, federal, and international regimes in the regulation of the marine environment.  After a brief historical introduction, the course looks at private right, the public trust, and the police power in the context of state authority over coastal lands and navigable waters.  We then consider the sources of federal power over marine and maritime matters and the relationship of federal preemption of state law and federal incentives for state regulation.

This course explores the expanding 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. Turning to technology-specific evaluations, it surveys the range of emerging technologies and looks in depth into some specific models of high potential or value, concluding with consideration of proposed strategies for reducing greenhouse gases.

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 geothermal. The course will explain the various ownership structures that are used for developing an energy project, such as LLC arrangements and partnership agreements.

Learn about risk assessment by living it. In this class, the instructor and students will work together to write a comment letter, petition, white paper and/or FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request.

Many public policy debates are deeply rooted in science. Prominent examples include global climate change, abortion, homosexuality, DNA forensics, evolution, genetically modified organisms, and debates over the safety and effectiveness of prescription drugs. Sometimes the underlying science is sound, but it is seriously distorted when communicated to the public. Other times, litigation or polarized public debate leads to seriously biased scientific research being conducted in the first place, as has sometimes happened with litigation-driven medical research.

Examines CERCLAs broad liability and cost recovery provisions, emergency response and cleanup requirements that extend beyond the usual Superfund sites.  Brownfields, natural resources damages, community involvement, recent Supreme Court decisions and statutory amendments will also be addressed.  The course will examine how parties escape or limit  liability through due diligence, defenses,  pollution prevention, settlement, and cost allocation.

Water is the planet's most precious natural resource. Deciding how it will be shared among competing demands is one of a society's most challenging questions. Water Resources Law is a review of the law and policies concerned with the allocation of water resources in the United States.  This course will examine the three main systems of water law in the United States: Eastern riparian systems, the prior appropriation doctrine of the West, and the nationally diverse laws regulating the use of groundwater.