Courses

Deals with the legal status and management of resources on federal lands, including national forests, parks, and BLM lands. Explores federal law, policy, and agency practice affecting the use of mineral, timber, range, water, wildlife, and wilderness resources on public lands. Prereq., LAWS 6112.

Introduces students to the law of natural resources. Examines the legal, historical, political, and intellectual influences that shape resources development and conservation. Same as ENVS 6112. Prerequisites: Restricted to Professional Year 1, 2, or 3 Law students only.

Analyzes regional and national water problems, including the legal methods by which surface and ground water supplies are allocated, managed, and protected. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Examines the law that protects wildlife, its habitat, and biodiversity. Explores human-caused threats including habitat destruction, illegal trade, and climate change. Focuses on statutes, case law, environmental ethics, and current controversies to highlight legal, scientific, and political strategies for protecting biodiversity. Particular emphasis is placed on the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Concerns domestic and International regulation of property that expresses group identity and experience. Organized around traditional categories of property (real, personal, and intellectual), the course covers historic preservation, archeological resources, art and museum law, with attention to indigenous people's advocacy on burial sites, traditional lands, ceremonies, music, symbols, ethnobotany, genetic information, and language. May satisfy upper-level writing requirement. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Examines the science of climate change and the broader role of science in public policymaking. Reviews the changing legal landscape to abate greenhouse gas emissions, and key issues in policy design. Reviews the Supreme Court's April 2, 2007, decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, overturning EPA's refusal to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from motor vehicle tailpipes, and the aftermath in the courts, Executive Branch and Congress.

Provides an introduction to energy law and regulation in the United States. Covers basic principles of rate regulation and public utilities, the division of jurisdiction between federal and state governments, and the key federal statutes and regulatory regimes governing natural gas, electricity, and nuclear power. Focuses on the basic federal frameworks for natural gas and electricity regulation, with an emphasis on understanding the messy and uneven transition to wholesale competition in these sectors and, in the electricity context, the experience with state restructuring and retail competition. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Examines renewable energy and how legal topics impact financing projects. Reviews structure, regulation, and functioning of electric energy industry and laws applicable to development, ownership and operation of renewable energy projects across technologies. Addresses legal policy, economic and financing issues associated with expansion and improvement of the transmission grid to support renewable energy development. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Deals with the legal problems associated with private arrangements for the ownership and development of oil and gas: deeds and leases to oil and gas rights, trespass, adverse possession, implied covenants in leases, conveyances of fractional interests, and the interaction of private rights and conservation regulation. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Addresses major issues affecting the development of mineral resources through mining activity. Includes the regulation of the impacts of mining on the environment on both public and private land. Covers the Mining Law of 1872, the Federal Coal Leasing Amendments, and state regulation of the impacts of mining on the environment.

Examines why national security deals not only with armed aggression and the ability to thwart military invasions or subversion, but also includes critical threats to vital national and international support systems such as the economy, energy, and the environment.

Examines and analyzes important federal pollution control statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, Solid Waste Act, and Superfund. Considers related economic theory, ethics, and policy issues.

Examines the litigation strategies and procedures used to enforce and defend against enforcement under environmental protection statutes, such as the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Resource Conversation and Recovery Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980, and the Toxic Substances Control Act. Covers civil enforcement, and citizen's suits.

Explores the foundational issues that underlie agency decision-making, including environmental ethics, cost-benefit analysis, risk assessment, constitutional law, and administrative law. Compares and contrasts National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act and the Endangered Species Act.

Establishes why nearly a third of the world populated by the energy oppressed poor, presents a major national and international "legislative" or socio political problem calling for answers from governments and civil societies in the developed and developing world. Explains and elucidates the concept of energy justice, its jurisprudential heritage, and its meaning and relevance in contemporary society. Case studies present problem solving frameworks spanning the political, social, behavioral, engineering, natural sciences, and law. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Examines the EPA's federal hazardous waste statutes, including the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). Analyzes the RCRA "Cradle-to-grave" hazardous waste program, and addresses the evolving CERCLA liability scheme and cleanup process.

Investigates the federal statutory, decisional, and constitutional law that bears upon American Indians, tribal governments, and Indian reservation transactions. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Investigates the legal history and current legal status of Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians. Addresses other current topics such as tribal water rights, tribal fishing and hunting rights, tribal justice systems, religious freedom, and tribal natural resource and environmental management. Prereq., LAWS 7725.

Examines the current state of the justice system within Indian nations today. Includes understanding the respective roles of tribal and state law enforcement authorities, as well as the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Office of Justice Services, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Examines relationship between federal and tribal courts; substantive laws; and advocates who appear before them. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Provides in-depth study and analysis of current problems in natural resources law, using historical, literary, and scientific materials. Includes field-trip, and requires additional field trip expenses. LAWS 6112 is strongly recommended as a prerequisite, however students must have taken or be concurrently enrolled in any three of the following: LAWS 6002, 6112, 6302 or 7725. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours.

Examines a variety of current issues related to American Indian Law. The topics will change to reflect the subjects that emerge at each time that the seminar is offered. Some examples of topics considered in this seminar include legal protections for American Indian religion and culture, cultural property, Tribal law, gaming law, and Native American natural and cultural resources law. Coreq., LAWS 7725.

Deals with the legal status and management of resources on federal lands, including national forests, parks, and BLM lands. Explores federal law, policy, and agency practice affecting the use of mineral, timber, range, water, wildlife, and wilderness resources on public lands. Restricted to Law students only. Prereq., LAWS 6112. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Provides in-depth study and analysis of current problems in natural resources law, using historical, literary, and scientific materials. Includes field-trip and requires additional field trip expenses. May be repeated up to 5 total credit hours. Restricted to Law students only. Recommended prereq., LAWS 6112 or students must have taken or be currently enrolled in any three of the following: LAWS 6002, 6112, 6302 or 7725. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Examines the science of climate change and the broader role of science in public policymaking. Reviews the changing legal landscape to abate greenhouse gas emissions, and key issues in policy design. Reviews the Supreme Court's April 2, 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, overturning EPA's refusal to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from motor vehicle tailpipes, and the aftermath in the courts, Executive Branch and Congress. Restricted to Law students only. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.

Provides an introduction to energy law and regulation in the United States. Covers basic principles of rate regulation and public utilities, the division of jurisdiction between federal and state governments, and the key federal statues and regulatory regimes governing natural gas, electricity, and nuclear power. Focuses on the basic federal frameworks for natural gas and electricity regulation, with an emphasis on understanding the messy and uneven transition to wholesale competition in these sectors and, in the electricity context, the experience with state restructuring and retail completion. Restricted to Law students only. Prerequisites: Restricted to Law students only.