Government agencies regulate almost every area of our lives. Many lawyers work for government agencies and many other lawyers work for people whose lives are affected by these agencies. Virtually every lawyer needs to know how government agencies operate. That is the subject of this course. The course is recommended for students interested in substantive areas in which agencies play an important role, such as environmental law, health-care law, and securities law (to name a few).

This is an introductory course in environmental law. The purpose is to give interested students a background in a number of federal environmental statutes, including NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act) ESA (Endangered Species Act) and CWA (Clean Water Act).

This seminar will explore legal and regulatory options for addressing global climate change. We will begin with materials examining the scientific evidence and projections of climate change, then move on to attempts at international legal and quasi-legal mechanisms, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Copenhagen Accord. We will also cover U.S. domestic climate policy options, including regulation under the Clean Air Act and at state level, and contrast these policies with those in place in other developed economies. Throughout, we will discuss the uniquely difficult challenges climate change creates for institutions, society, and the legal system.

This course explores the foundations, tenets and practices of the environmental justice movement, with its focus on centering and addressing the needs of people and communities that bear disproportionate environmental burdens. Although we will explore case law as appropriate, much of the course focuses on the ways that this social movement has necessarily deviated from a judicial-centered notion of justice. The course will include examinations of the history and theory of environmental justice in the United States, its application to a range of case studies, and its intersections with other emerging fields of justice studies—including climate change justice, energy justice, and food justice. We will pay particular attention to the ways that race, ethnicity, and class have shaped the challenges, tools, and politics of environmental justice.

This course provides an introduction to the law and regulation of energy resources, primarily in the United States, focused on three core areas within the field. The first part of the course will cover extraction of energy resources, primarily coal, oil, and natural gas. The second part will cover regulation of the electricity generation and distribution system, including public utility and rate regulation, transmission, and relevant environmental regulations. The final part of the course will address legal and regulatory issues specific to nuclear and renewable energy, with a particular focus on the Southeast. Throughout, the course will focus on the ability (or inability) of legal and regulatory regimes to keep pace with rapid change in the energy sector.