Emmett Environmental Law Policy Clinic

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The Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic is offering students even more opportunities to do a wide variety of hands-on, environmental legal and policy work. Under the leadership of Director and Clinical Professor Wendy Jacobs, the Clinic has expanded to offer local, national and international projects covering a broad range of environmental issues. These projects include:

• Defending Kansas Secretary of Health and Environment Roderick Bremby in his precedent-setting October 2007 permit denial of a coal-fired power plant expansion on the basis of concern over carbon dioxide emissions and global warming: Students have been engaged in day-to-day litigation by drafting briefs, preparing testimony for legislative hearings, and reviewing proposed legislation.
• Developing model statutes to govern carbon capture and sequestration in the United States and China: Students are submitting comments to U.S. EPA regarding the risks associated with sequestration and ways to mitigate those risks. The Clinic is collaborating with scientists and policy experts from across the University throughout the course of this project.
• Representing two municipalities in their effort to block the construction of a large industrial facility in an ecologically-sensitive estuary. 
• Assisting the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs in its development of new regulations to implement the 2007 Oceans Act and the Ocean Management Plan being developed thereunder.
• Assisting a municipality in its development of a water extraction ordinance to ensure the sustainability of water extraction by water bottlers.
• Advising scientists on the potential legal consequences of studies looking at personal and household exposure to environmental contaminants: Our work will help scientists understand how to best pursue this work while managing those risks.
• Creating user-friendly consumer guides to conserving energy and purchasing renewable energy: As of October 2008, we have distributed guides for all six New England states to members of the Harvard community.
• Assisting the California Attorney General’s office in appealing the EPA’s denial of its waiver request for its automotive greenhouse gas emissions law.

To learn more about how you can get involved with the ELPC click here.