Analytical Paper Optional: All enrolled students have the option of completing a research paper of at least 20-25 pages, with faculty and peer review of a substantially complete draft. This paper can be used to satisfy the analytical paper requirement for J.D. students.

Prerequisites: None. Neither Environmental Law nor Natural Resources Law is a prerequisite for taking this seminar. The seminar naturally builds upon those survey classes but is taught in a manner that is easily accessible to students who have not taken either of those cases.

Exam Type: No Exam

This seminar will be the third in a trilogy. In the fall of 2019, I taught a seminar “Environmental Law During and after the Trump Administration.” In the spring of 2022, I taught a seminar “Environmental Law in the Biden and After the Trump Administration.” The seminar this spring (2026) will be the obvious sequel “Environmental Law after the Biden Administration and During the Trump (2.0),” which will focus on the extraordinary efforts of the new administration to upend long settled environmental laws. Not only is the second Trump administration seeking to rollback most every regulatory initiative of the Biden administration, but also to dismiss the thousands of agency career staff who are responsible for implementing the nation’s environmental laws. These efforts raise not just questions of environmental law but fundamental questions of constitutional law.

This seminar will explore the shorter and potential longer-term impact of these whiplashing presidential administrations on constitutional law and environmental law, broadly defined to include pollution control, energy, and natural resources laws, with a particular focus on climate change law and environmental justice. Students will review and discuss evolutionary trends in environmental law from the beginnings of the 1970s through President Trump’s first year back in office. The seminar will extend to consideration of the portent for environmental law of the Supreme Court’s changing membership since 2019.

Students may either write three shorter papers or one longer paper. To satisfy the law school’s Analytical Paper requirement, a student must opt for the longer paper option, and prepare a draft paper that is subject to both student peer and professorial review.

Note: The seminar will meet twice a week during the first four weeks of the semester and then again twice a week during the final two weeks of the semester.