Prerequisites: None

Exam Type: One Day Take-Home

This introductory course will focus on the variety of legal mechanisms we use to address public health and environmental harms such as air and water pollution, climate change, hazardous waste, and habitat destruction. The course will begin with the common law roots of environmental law in nuisance and negligence before moving to the key environmental statutes that currently make up federal environmental law, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. We will cover the history of environmental law, tracking its evolution over several presidential administrations to the present day, and cover a wide range of topics including cost-benefit analysis, cooperative federalism, and environmental justice. The course will also cover important developments in constitutional and administrative law that significantly affect federal environmental law including the Supreme Court’s historical Commerce Clause jurisprudence and its recent statutory interpretation decisions in West Virginia v. EPA and Loper Bright v. Raimondo. Students will come away with an appreciation of the policy and politics of environmental law, including the role played by interest groups and NGOs in the development and enforcement of environmental law.

Students need not be self-identified “environmentalists” to be interested in this course. Nearly every area of law is now affected by environmental regulation, including private law fields such as real estate, bankruptcy and financial regulation. The legal issues presented by environmental problems offer ample opportunities for students to develop important and transferable legal skills, including statutory interpretation, constitutional analysis and application of administrative law doctrines.

Laptops and other electronic devices will not be permitted in class. Regular attendance and participation in class discussion is expected.

Cross-Registration: No undergraduates please, and cross-reg students allowed only with permission of instructor.

Note: This course is not available for auditing.