Renewable Energy Law Students Help Create Policies

The University of Denver prides itself in promoting legal work that makes a difference. Professor K.K. DuVivier’s Renewable Energy Law (REL) class allows students to help elected officials create policies to address the world’s climate crisis at a state and local level. It started with Prof. DuVivier’s involvement as a chapter author in LEGAL PATHWAYS TO DEEP DECARBONIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES (John C. Dernbach & Michael Gerrard, eds.) (ELI 2019) and Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law project to create Model Laws for Deep Decarbonization in the United States.

To the extent most law school students get any experience with statutes is through how a statute may be interpreted in a judicial opinion. Professor DuVivier’s REL class takes the opposite perspective: students learn what goes into drafting a statute from inception. In past years, REL students researched recommendations for national model laws proposed by the Deep Decarbonization project.

In 2022, Colorado state legislators, local officials, and representatives of NGOs presented their climate-goal wish lists to the REL students for their projects. In addition, Professor Jonathan Rosenbloom from Albany Law School agreed to collaborate with DU students to create entries for the Sustainable Development Code (SDC) website. Rosenbloom has been the mastermind in developing and implementing the SDC, which originated at Denver Law’s Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute. While the majority of students in the 2022 REL class are researching and annotating model state statutes, at least three are creating SDC entries for chapter 7 of the code addressing Energy, including about Floating Photovoltaics, Wildfire Mitigation, and Disclosure of Utility Spending on Trade Association Activities that Impact the Legislative Process.

REL assignments are due in late fall 2022 so, in 2023, look for these and other valuable contributions on the SDC website.