SMNR: Law, Politics, and the Environmental Impact of Energy Development

• Semester: Fall 2025
• Course ID: 397S
• Credit Hours: 3
• Unique: 31060

Description

This three credit seminar course will focus on the environmental impacts and resulting political, legal and international issues arising from the exploration, development, production, transportation and delivery of energy sources. The development and use of every source of energy has environmental, economic and political impacts. The election of President Trump presents a major change in the direction of US energy and environmental policy with significant national, state and international effects. To effectively grapple with these issues, students will first gain a general knowledge of the primary energy sources and environmental impacts of national and world wide energy production through a survey format. Topics will include environmental, political and geo-political impacts of oil and gas exploration and production, the mining and production of "rare earth minerals", coal fired generation, solar, wind and nuclear power. The course will then transition into the development of a basic knowledge of the legal and administrative structure of Federal and Texas energy and environmental law.  Using the historical background of domestic and foreign energy development and environmental success, failure, disasters and crisis, we will analyze the issues, conflicts and litigation certain to follow the Trump administration policy changes. The course will also focus on the primary energy sources utilized in Texas and specifically analyze the causes, impact and resulting policy changes of the winter storm of 2021. Students will have an opportunity to utilize the Texas regulatory and legal structure to develop a knowledge of the basic framework of State authority and the conflicts and interplay between State and Federal law. We will work through the issues involved in regulation of fuels for mobil sources, specifically the impending litigation over the California waiver under the Clean Air Act and the effects on EV adoption. Time permitting, the course will focus on various specific energy development projects, with some emphasis on Texas and the Gulf Coast, to gain a practical understanding of the legal and administrative processes involved in dealing with environmental consequences of energy production and delivery. Finally, we will delve into the myriad foreign policy issues and conflicts involved in energy production and climate change policies.  Students will complete the semester by writing and presenting a seminar paper.