Envi­ron­men­tal and Ener­gy Law Program

Jan­u­ary 22, 2024

• Gabriel Chan, Uni­ver­si­ty of Minnesota
• “Ener­gy Jus­tice in State Util­i­ty Regulation”

Novem­ber 1, 2023

• Narayan Sub­ra­man­ian, US Depart­ment of Energy
• “An Agency Forged from Crises: The Depart­ment of Ener­gy and its Role in Address­ing the Cli­mate Cri­sis Today”

Octo­ber 11, 2023

• Heather Tanana, UCI Law
• “Secur­ing Trib­al Water Rights after Ari­zona v. Nava­jo Nation”

Sep­tem­ber 19, 2023

• Ricky Revesz, New York Uni­ver­si­ty School of Law
• “Mod­ern­iz­ing Reg­u­la­to­ry Review”

Envi­ron­men­tal law brings togeth­er mul­ti­ple dis­ci­plines in ways that exceed most oth­er cur­ric­u­lar and prac­tice areas. 

Envi­ron­men­tal attor­neys are lit­i­ga­tors, reg­u­la­tors, com­pli­ance offi­cers, treaty nego­tia­tors, and pol­i­cy­mak­ers; their work depends upon exper­tise in ecol­o­gy, biol­o­gy, chem­istry, engi­neer­ing, risk sci­ence, tox­i­col­o­gy, pub­lic health, and resource management. 

To be suc­cess­ful, envi­ron­men­tal attor­neys must have the abil­i­ty to work with peo­ple across dis­ci­plines and to trans­late com­plex sci­en­tif­ic con­cepts into acces­si­ble lan­guage. At Michi­gan, that process starts with an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary empha­sis along with joint degree pro­grams that no oth­er top law school can match. 

Michi­gan Law offers a range of out­stand­ing dual degree pro­grams, includ­ing one of the only Law and Nat­ur­al Resources (JD/MS) pro­grams in the coun­try. Michi­gan also offers superb Law and Pub­lic Pol­i­cy (JD/MPP), Law and Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion (JD/MBA), and Law and Pub­lic Health (JD/MHSA or MPH) pro­grams. 

Stu­dents seek­ing dual degrees may apply to the pro­grams that inter­est them dur­ing their first or sec­ond year of law stud­ies. Ad hoc dual degree pro­grams can also be designed to fit the more nar­row­ly tai­lored needs of indi­vid­ual stu­dents who wish to pur­sue careers in envi­ron­men­tal and nat­ur­al resources law.

In addi­tion to dual degrees, Michi­gan Law offers a wide range of inter­dis­ci­pli­nary oppor­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents inter­est­ed in envi­ron­men­tal law. Stu­dents can take envi­ron­men­tal cours­es at oth­er schools on cam­pus, includ­ing the School for the Envi­ron­ment and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty, the Ford School of Pub­lic Pol­i­cy, the Ross School of Busi­ness, the Taub­man Col­lege of Archi­tec­ture and Urban Plan­ning, and the School of Pub­lic Health.

Each year, Michi­gan Law stu­dents are eli­gi­ble to apply for the Dow Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Fel­lows Pro­gram, which awards $25,000 grants to stu­dents to work on inter­dis­ci­pli­nary projects with stu­dents from oth­er grad­u­ate and pro­fes­sion­al schools on cam­pus, a pro­gram no oth­er law school offers.

Stu­dents also have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in a wide range of inter­dis­ci­pli­nary pro­grams spon­sored by the Gra­ham Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Insti­tute, the Erb Insti­tute for Glob­al Sus­tain­able Enter­prise, the Cen­ter for Sus­tain­able Sys­tems, and the Insti­tute for Ener­gy Solu­tions. Few uni­ver­si­ties can offer its stu­dents more oppor­tu­ni­ties to explore dif­fer­ent aspects of envi­ron­men­tal issues than the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michigan.

Plan­et Blue

The Envi­ron­men­tal Crimes Project 

Near­ly 400 Michi­gan Law stu­dents col­lab­o­rat­ed begin­ning in Fall 2010 on the first com­pre­hen­sive empir­i­cal study of envi­ron­men­tal crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions in the Unit­ed States. The stu­dents obtained and reviewed court doc­u­ments from near­ly 2,000 cas­es pros­e­cut­ed from Jan­u­ary 1, 2005, through Decem­ber 31, 2018, and cre­at­ed a search­able data­base about all pol­lu­tion pros­e­cu­tions inves­ti­gat­ed by the EPA dur­ing that time frame. 

The data­base facil­i­tates research and analy­sis about crim­i­nal enforce­ment, includ­ing the charges that are most fre­quent­ly brought, the size of the cor­po­ra­tions involved, case out­comes, dis­cre­tionary fac­tors that make envi­ron­men­tal vio­la­tions crim­i­nal, and geo­graph­i­cal dis­par­i­ties in crim­i­nal enforce­ment under the envi­ron­men­tal laws. Research results have been pub­lished by the Har­vard Envi­ron­men­tal Law Review, the Michi­gan Jour­nal of Envi­ron­men­tal and Admin­is­tra­tive Law, the Amer­i­can Bar Asso­ci­a­tion, and the Envi­ron­men­tal Law Insti­tute and have been fea­tured in the New York Times.

The Green Gavels Project 

Every year, the Michi­gan Supreme Court makes deci­sions that have a crit­i­cal impact on envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and nat­ur­al resources use. The Court’s role is like­ly to increase in future years as the state grap­ples with issues per­tain­ing to water rights, water con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, sul­fide min­ing, land use, and air quality. 

The Green Gavels Project began in 2012 with a review of Michi­gan Supreme Court deci­sions over the last two decades to iden­ti­fy all deci­sions that have pro­mot­ed or hin­dered envi­ron­men­tal protection. 

Stu­dents work­ing on the project ana­lyze each deci­sion and pro­duce sum­maries that explain the sig­nif­i­cance of the deci­sion and how each Supreme Court jus­tice vot­ed. The infor­ma­tion is then pro­vid­ed to the Michi­gan League of Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers, which pro­duces a non-par­ti­san online report about the role of the Court and the vot­ing records of indi­vid­ual jus­tices that is broad­ly avail­able to the pub­lic on a web­site that is heav­i­ly mar­ket­ed, eas­i­ly dis­cov­ered, and seam­less­ly navigated. 

The project is a mod­el for efforts to assess how elect­ed state Supreme Courts are influ­enc­ing con­ser­va­tion efforts through­out the Unit­ed States.

Learn More About Green Gavels

Pub­lic Util­i­ty Reg­u­la­tion Ini­tia­tive (PURI)

In the short term, PURI​’s goal is to assist the Cit­i­zens Util­i­ty Board of Michi­gan (CUB of MI) and attor­neys rep­re­sent­ing it at the Michi­gan Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion with legal research and oth­er behind-the-scenes tasks that will enable them to make a stronger show­ing in rate cas­es, which direct­ly deter­mine how much Michi­gan­ders pay for utilities.

Exam­ples of this research include cross-state ener­gy pol­i­cy com­par­isons, analy­ses of whether the util­i­ty com­pa­nies’ rev­enue require­ments are ​“rea­son­able,” and exam­i­na­tions of the ener­gy bur­den Michi­gan­ders cur­rent­ly face.

Learn More About PURI