Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Center

The Center for Environment, Energy and Natural Resources at the University of Houston links energy issues with impacts on environment and natural resources. Building on the academic excellence of the faculty in these areas and the complex and multi-faceted energy and environmental issues in Houston, the Center provides a forum for education and discussion of the most important issues of the day, such as climate change, air pollution, clean coal and renewable energy. The Center is the proud sponsor of the Environmental & Energy Law & Policy Journal, the first law review devoted to the intersection of environmental and energy law and of the University of Houston Environment and Energy Law Society UHEELS. Law Center students have many opportunities to network and attend programs related to energy, resources and the environmental in the Houston area. Click here to see the EENR Student Resources memo for these programs and scholarship information.

Additionally, the EENR Center is a component of the new Strategic Energy Alliance at the University of Houston. The Center also works closely with the EENR LLM program at the Law Center.

Sponsors

EENR Center has ambitious plans – and equally ambitious fundraising goals. The Houston law firm of Connelly Baker & Wotring LLP has provided initial capital to create the EENR Center and is recognized as a Founding Partner. Additional partners are now needed, and the Law Center will gratefully acknowledge the firms and individuals who step forward to help make EENR Center a success.

The EENR Center would like to recognize and thank our current sponsors:

Grand Underwriters

• Connelly Baker & Wotring LLP
• Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP

Benefactors

• Porter & Hedges LLP

Sponsors

• Blackburn Carter, P.C.
• Bracewell & Giuliani LLP
• El Paso Corporation
• Environmental & Natural Resources Law Section of the State Bar of Texas

Become a sponsor of the EENR Center

Recent Projects

The 2008 class in Interagency Environmental Cooperation prepared comprehensive draft legislation on issues concerning Carbon Capture and Storage (“CCS”) technology. CCS allows the capture of CO2 produced by coal-fired power plants and its storage in underground strata to mitigate the climate change impacts of coal combustion.  Because the United States has very large coal reserves, yet coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, facilitating methods to allow coal burning is considered to be critical to the economical control of global warming emissions  in the United States. Easing the regulatory uncertainty surrounding issues such as liability, permitting, ownership, and sovereignty will assist in CCS technology development in the U.S.  Innovations in the U.S. can then be shared with other countries, such China. This class project grew out of presentations to the Interagency Environmental Cooperation Class by the Advanced Coal Technology Working Group, convened by the EPA last year.

To read the Proposed Legislation, click here.
For the white paper explaining the issues and legislative choices, click here.

The EENR Center, in conjunction with the University College London, the Texas/UK Initiative, and American University Washington College of Law, held two workshops in 2008 to examine whether environmental review of offset provisions in a U.S. federal carbon trading regime, might cause problems in integration with the existing Emissions Trading System (ETS) in the European Union.  High level officials of DEFRA (the British Environmental Agency), staffers of Congressional committees working on climate change legislation, members of the Pew Center for Climate Change, members of the Nicholas Institute, and members of Resources For the Future, as well as academics, participated in these discussions.

Based on the Workshops, the EENR Center prepared a draft summary of the issue and possible responses. Click here for the document.

Newly minted UHLC graduate, Tanya Mortenson,  working with EENR center faculty in a seminar on International Law and Climate Change prepared a paper entitled “An Unattainable Wedge:  Four Limiting Effects to the Expansion of Nuclear Power.”  This paper examines the barriers to larg-scale deployment of nuclear energy as a way to quickly lessen the emissions of greenhouse gases in electricity production.  In addition to the familiar cultural and safety issues, the paper explores the impact that smart grid technology and CO2 permit pricing might have on the nuclear industry.  To see the entire paper, click here.

News and Events

The Practice of Carbon Trading Class, co-taught by Professor Flatt and Professors Praveen Kumar and Craig Pirrong, began in January 2009 with 20 law and 20 business students, and is the first of its kind in the country. The students learn about existing greenhouse gas trading systems, such as the European Union’s ETS, and also examine the possible policies that will come about at the federal level in the US. The most promising projects prepared by the students, will be presented to federal policy makers on May 13, 2009 through a video conference link with Washington D.C. The presentations will also be webcast. Revisit the site for more information on the webcast. The class syllabus can be accessed at http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/vflatt/CTPsyllabus2009.pdf

Raves at the EPA for the EELPJ – Suzanne Murray, the new EPA Region VI Regional Counsel, singled out a recent development in the Environmental & Energy Law & Policy Journal’s newest issue (Volume 3, Number 2) for praise at a presentation in downtown Houston in February 2009. The article, by student Holly Reuter, examined the policy options related to the conflicts between the EPA and the State of Texas' State Implementation Plan approvals for flexible permits. According to Ms. Murray, the article did an “excellent job of explaining a very complicated issue.” Professor Brigham Daniels helped Holly Reuter with the paper.

In conjunction with the Taft gift for the Environment at the University of North Carolina School of Law, the EENR Center hosted an all academic workshop addressing how legal regimes should be changed in the face of climate change. Because of the broad nature of the topic, professors from medicine, public health, banking, and IP participated. Professors Marcilynn Burke, Brigham Daniels, Joan Krause, Victor Flatt, and Julie Hill, attended from the UHLC.

Professor Jacqueline Weaver, at the request of the U.S Department of State, spent two weeks in Uganda in March 2009, consulting with international oil companies, the Ministries of Petroleum and  Finance, various NGOs, and members of Parliament to aid in the drafting of an oil revenue management law and in understanding production sharing contracts. She spoke on Uganda’s oil industry at an OSAC (the Overseas Security and Advisory Council of the U.S. State Department) at a meeting in Houston in July 2009 on intelligence and security issues facing the oil companies in Africa.  She also spoke to a group of foreign service officers on the “Future of the Petroleum Industry in an Era of Global Warming” in July 2009, in Houston. Her speech on this last topic has been presented at numerous CLE conferences in Texas and in Wyoming and Montana.