Energy Law; Environmental Law Forum

[lisjjen]

OK. Since everyone wants to prove they're smarter than everybody else, I'll edit the hyperbole out and remove the temptation.

Bioenergy, wind energy, solar and the like are the new kids on the block. There are energy law programs out there (most notably at the University of Texas) but most of the money and institutional knowledge is in oil and gas. This is hardly surprising. Oil and gas have been around for over a century; wind and solar have only been significantly invested in for a few decades. Therefore, many of the energy classes that are available have to do with oil leases and the like. Things that are wholly irrelevant to alternative energy.

Likewise, many environmental law courses fall outside of the scope of alternative energy, dealing with such issues as conservation, regulation and public easements. My school is one of the few US law schools who have a core of teachers dedicated to energy, so I will be talking to them once I return to school, but for the mean time, I thought I'd see what TLS had to say about it. Which is a better focus to pursue? Environmental or Energy.

[Cavalier]

Energy law is kinda a code word. Just like "urban youth" just means black kid, "energy law" usually means big oil. On the other hand, "environmental law" tends to mean 15 people sitting in a house office in Northern Virginia claiming to be saving the planet by lobbying for an endangered snail.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

[lisjjen]

Energy law is kinda a code word. Just like "urban youth" just means black kid, "energy law" usually means big oil. On the other hand, "environmental law" tends to mean 15 people sitting in a house office in Northern Virginia claiming to be saving the planet by lobbying for an endangered snail.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

hy·per·bo·le   [hahy-pur-buh-lee]
noun Rhetoric .
1.
obvious and intentional exaggeration.
2.
an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally, as “to wait an eternity.”

[LSATNightmares]

This is coming from a 1L with four years of prior work experience in environmental policy but not much in law school. But I think environmental law would be more interesting. Environmental law cuts across all those energy sectors, as you can study things like the Clean Air Act. Energy law is much more focused on the traditional forms of energy. I worked for a bit at a solar start up company, and the lawyers there were just transactional lawyers.