Environment, Natural Resources, and American Indian
LAWS 6002-3. Public Land Law. 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.
LAWS 6112-3. Foundations of Natural Resources Law and Policy. 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.
LAWS 6302-3. Water Law. Analyzes regional and national water problems, including the legal methods by which surface and ground water supplies are allocated, managed, and protected.
LAWS 6502-2. Wildlife and the Law. 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.
LAWS 6712-3. Climate Change Law and Policy. 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.
LAWS 6722-3. Energy Law and Regulation. 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.
LAWS 7102-3. Oil and Gas. 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.
LAWS 7122 (2-3). Mining and Energy Law. 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.
LAWS 7132-3. Energy Insecurity and Sustainable Energy. 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.
LAWS 7202-3. Environmental Law. 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.
LAWS 7212-2. Environmental Litigation. 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.
LAWS 7402-2. Toxic and Hazardous Waste. 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.
LAWS 7725-3. American Indian Law I. Investigates the federal statutory, decisional, and constitutional law that bears upon American Indians, tribal governments, and Indian reservation transactions.
LAWS 7735 (2-3). American Indian Law II. Examines selected issues in the field emphasizing major emerging problems and reform proposals. Examples of issues include Alaska development and the Indian Child Welfare Act.
LAWS 7745 (2-3). Jurisdiction in Indian Country. 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.
LAWS 8112 (2-3). Seminar: Advanced Natural Resources Law. Studies historical, literary, and scientific materials and analyzes current problems of natural resource law. Requires additional field trip expenses. Recommended prereqs., LAWS 6002, 6112, 6302, 7725. May be repeated up to 5 total credit hours.
LAWS 8725-2. Seminar: Advanced American Indian Law. Examines the current state of the justice system within Indian nations today. It concentrates on the interplay among contemporary federal, tribal, state and local institutions which, taken together, comprise “justice” within Indian Country. 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. Coreq., LAWS 7725.
