Overview

A domestic energy boom is underway with major new energy projects being sited on both private and public lands, including wind projects, utility-scale solar projects, oil and gas projects, and associated transmission lines and pipeline projects.

Many of these projects leave significant footprints, with related negative impacts on their local environments that need to be evaluated.

Students will work with policymakers in Sacramento and Washington this fall in evaluating new regulatory and market-based options to address the environmental impacts of energy-related projects. In doing so, seminar participants will be working “in real time” on new state and federal initiatives to develop more expedited and effective mechanisms to compensate for environmental impacts of energy and other infrastructure projects, including a number of large renewable energy projects that currently are being developed on public and private lands in the southwest. The seminar also will explore the full range of environmental issues associated with major infrastructure development, including an in-depth discussion and evaluation of permitting reforms and environmental issues that the Administration is now addressing under Executive Order 13604 (President Obama’s infrastructure permitting reform initiative).