General Course Descriptions for Terms: environmental
744 - Administrative Law
This course is an introduction to the federal administrative state. We will study both the powers that agencies possess and the constitutional, statutory, and other limitations on those powers. We will explore the relationship of agencies to Congress, the courts, the President, and the public; the procedures through which agencies operate; and the availability and scope of judicial review of agency action. Along the way, we will consider the rationales for delegating power to agencies, the implications of the ways agencies are structured, and the values that do or should guide agency conduct. The course thus has theoretical components, but it is also extremely practical, and I will emphasize both theory and practice during the course. The work of federal agencies affects nearly every area of modern life, from environmental protection to financial markets to national security—not to mention public health, medicine,voting, and mail.This course will prepare you to engage with that law, whether as a public servant, a lawyer representing a client, or a citizen interacting with your government. Understanding how regulation works will serve you well in your legal careers (and your lives), whatever you choose to do with your degree.
815 - Appellate Advocacy (moot court - Environmental Law)
848 - Environmental Law
918 - SP International Law: International Environmental Law
940 - Public Law & Private Power
This course is about problems in the design and maintenance of a democratic “affirmative” (aka“welfare” or “opportunity”) state that satisfies popular interest in both efficacy and democratic legitimacy, particularly in the latter’s requirement of demonstrated fidelity to the rule of law. We take the activities of this kind of state, which is characteristic of all modern capitalist democracies, to include not only income maintenance and social insurance programs but any public policies or programs that, in alleged pursuit of improved living standards and egalitarian ends, supplement or replace unregulated markets, procedural rights, and representative democracy — for example, in environmental protection, industrial policy, and the provision of basic public goods in education, security, energy, transportation, and communication. We will examine the modern affirmative state’s origin, evolution, current problems in satisfying expectations of it, and a variety of strategies to address those problems.
988 - SP Environ Law: Natural Resources Law
This course covers the law and policy of the disposition and use of natural resources in the United States. We will emphasize federally owned and managed resources, especially the nearly one-third of this country’s land area that is owned by the federal government, although you will also learn a little about the management of state and private lands as well. Main topics include the history of public land law; the constitutional basis for federal control of natural resources, and legal doctrines and principles that cut across the whole field. We will study two important statutes that, while often included in environmental law curricula, are equally pivotal to natural land use and management in the United States: the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act. We will then turn to studies of particular types of resources, including fisheries, wilderness and recreational areas, water, rangelands, federally owned minerals, and forests. Although the general public often perceives natural resources law as part of “environmental law,” natural resources law, as presented in law school courses and casebooks, covers the government’s role as owner and regulator of publicly owned resources, such as land and use of navigable waters. In contrast, environmental law tends to focus on the regulation of private conduct to minimize and provide remedies for various forms of pollution of natural resources. Natural resources law follows a property law model, whereas environmental law’s common law heritage is traceable first and foremost to tort law. While having taken environmental law will, like a number of other courses (structural constitutional law; federal courts; legislation), prove helpful for your studies of this course, it is not a requirement, and I will not assume knowledge of environmental law.