Environmental and Energy Law at Columbia ENVIRONMENTAL and ENERGY LAW at COLUMBIA

Environmental and Energy Law at Columbia ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY LAW AT COLUMBIA Columbia provided me with an excellent foundation for the practice of environmental law. The faculty are outstanding, and I benefited greatly from their instruction,“ mentoring, and career advice. As an editor at the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, I researched and published an academic article exploring a complex procedural issue encountered during an off-campus summer internship. The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law’s activities fostered an energetic and Leading on the Environment fascinating dialogue on climate-related issues. Finally, learning the fundamentals of practice in the Environmental Law Clinic prepared me to hit the ground running as an associate at a New York City law firm specializing in environmental law. Devin McDougall ’12 ” Sive Paget & Riesel, P.C. CONTENTS © 2019 Columbia Law School ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY LAW AT COLUMBIA ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY LAW AT COLUMBIA Sabin Center for Climate Change Law Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United Fighting Back Against Attacks States on Climate Science Climate Engineering and Climate Change, the Courts, the Law: Regulation and and the Paris Agreement Liability for Solar Radiation A Critical Question: If a Country Sinks Beneath the Sea, Can Fossil Fuel Companies Management and Carbon is it Still a Country? Be Held Liable for Climate Dioxide Removal Change? Climate Change, Public Health, Rising ocean levels brought about by climate difficult to have a conversation in the interna- Offshore Wind in New York: and the Law change continue to create unprecedented tional community about how countries might What’s Next? Global Climate Change and legal questions for small island nations. adapt to climate change. “But now people Weathering the Storm: U.S. Law, 2nd ed. Among them: If a country is completely recognize that the climate situation will get Resilience & Sustainability in The Law of Clean Energy: submerged, is it still a country? Does it keep worse before it gets better, and we have to Design and Construction Efficiency and Renewables its seat at the United Nations? Who controls begin making serious preparation,” he says. Using Green Infrastructure for its offshore fishing and mineral rights? Does it Climate Change Adaptation The Law of Adaptation to Gerrard has traveled to the Marshall Islands have any legal recourse against those whose and Hazard Mitigation Climate Change: U.S. and multiple times, co-chaired a major conference International Aspects emissions contributed to sea level rise? at Columbia Law with the republic, co-edited a New York Sea Level Rise Projections: Implications for Threatened Island Nations: The Republic of Marshall Islands—a book on its issues, worked with the republic’s Law, Land Use, Buildings and Legal Aspects of Rising Seas Micronesian nation of 29 low-lying coral atolls delegation in the Paris Agreement negotiations, and a Changing Climate Infrastructure in the Pacific just north of the equator—is researched its authority to regulate emissions Should Universities and struggling to secure its survival and is working from ships, and enlisted numerous students Pension Funds Divest from to attract international attention to the plight in the efforts to assist the country and its Fossil Fuel Stocks? of vulnerable countries. In 2009, the republic people. He took the photograph (above left), Legal Issues in Managed enlisted the help of Columbia Law School’s of a burial vault, on his first trip in 2010. Coastal Retreat Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Revisiting the same spot in 2013, he saw that the sea had risen closer to the vault— EPA Region II Bi-Annual Until just a few years ago, notes Michael Conference (2010 – present) evidence, both literal and figurative, of the Gerrard, faculty director of the center, it was danger posed to the nation’s heritage. Annual David Sive Memorial Lecture (2015 – present) ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY LAW AT COLUMBIA ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY LAW AT COLUMBIA Environmental Law Clinic Curriculum Battling Pipelines to Promote Clean Energy In 2018, clinic students represented the New Jersey directly challenging FERC’s approval of PennEast’s Conservation Foundation and Hunterdon Land Trust, which project. These clinic cases are part of the clinic’s broader were named defendants in land seizure proceedings by clean energy advocacy project. the PennEast Pipeline Company. (PennEast sought to The problem: Fossil fuel infrastructure projects are rapidly condemn conservation lands, state public recreational proliferating as private companies assert that they are a lands, and small, independent farms for its pipeline.) needed “bridge” to a clean energy future. These projects Students also brought a Fifth Amendment challenge cause myriad economic and environmental harms, and against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s are an obstacle to achieving greenhouse gas emissions (“FERC”) practice of approving 99% of pipeline project The course offerings at Columbia built my foundation in the law, while hands-on reductions essential for decelerating climate change. proposals without sufficient economic or environmental experience with the Environmental Law Clinic introduced me to the fundamentals analysis. And the clinic joined the State of New Jersey in The argument: FERC’s rubber stamping of fossil fuel of practice. Throughout my time the outstanding faculty mentored me and guided launching a suit infrastructure projects violates the Natural Gas Act and “ me into the field of environmental law. the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution by failing to Channing Wistar-Jones ’17 ensure that they serve any public benefit. Environmental Protection Bureau, New York State Office of the Attorney General” ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY LAW AT COLUMBIA ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY LAW AT COLUMBIA THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY LAW CURRICULUM THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY LAW CURRICULUM Administrative agencies play a Students in the Environ- transaction, from initial consideration of whether to by noted environmental law practitioners as well as critical role in determining the duties and entitlements of mental Law Clinic represent local, regional, and national go forward, to determination of its structure and financing, Law School faculty. the public. This course introduces students to the constitu- environmental and community organizations working to negotiations between the buyer and the seller, securing tional and statutory frameworks regulating administrative solve critical environmental challenges facing the board approval, obtaining regulatory approvals, presenta- In the spring semester, the Society sponsors one team to agencies in their exercise of this authority. Focusing on the metropolitan region (see page 4). We have worked with tions to the investment community and rating agencies, compete in the National Environmental Law Moot Court major federal agencies, we consider the forms of agency community groups concerned about pollution and public proxy solicitation and shareowner vote, closing, and competition, based on a short writing competition. action (e.g., rulemaking and adjudication) and the health, and with statewide and national organizations and structuring the new company. Particular emphasis will be procedures required by the Administrative Procedure Act; coalitions dealing with land conservation and transportation. devoted to issues that are distinctive to regulated utilities in Students constitutional constraints limiting agency action; and the In weekly seminars, students lead discussions on issues the energy industry. who have completed the Environmental Law Clinic have means used by Congress, the President, and the courts to they are facing in their cases. The clinic emphasizes litigation the opportunity to engage more deeply in the work of the control and review what agencies do, plus some attendant skills that have applications beyond environmental law, such A look at the legal status of non-human Clinic and to take on an even more significant role with separation of powers questions. In addressing these as drafting pleadings, arguing motions, and negotiating animals, including a review of the relationship between respect to Clinic cases and projects. issues, we consider both political and legal dynamics settlements, and exposes students to such mechanisms humans and animals, how it can vary according to the use about the twenty-first-century administrative state. as citizen suits, that can be found in both civil rights and to which animals are put and the scientific understanding environmental cases. While this is a one-semester clinic, of the capacities of various animal species. We investigate How can extractive industry investments be leveraged for A survey course introducing the students have the opportunity to continue working with the classification of animals as “property”—whether it is sustainable and equitable development, particularly in basic problems and approaches that characterize contem- clients in subsequent semesters. appropriate or important and how such “property” can be low-income resource-rich countries? What is the interna- porary environmental regulation. We review the ecological legally valued—and discuss laws impacting people’s tional, national and regional regulatory framework under and economic justifications for government regulation to A survey of the relationship with pets, industry’s use of animals, including which such investments are made? How can the challeng- protect the environment,

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