Environmental Policy (EP)

This course offers students an introduction to the major approaches to environmental protection policy in the United States. The first two weeks will provide the student with a basic introduction to the legal process, sources of law, and the anatomy of a case brief. Students will be presented with an overview of how the United States legal system works at the local, state and national level. The majority of the semester will be focused on the foundations for environmental law. The history of the environmental movement will be discussed as well as development of laws that affect environmental issues. Throughout the course, we will consider the roles of individuals and nonprofit organizations in the administrative and litigation processes. Students will become acquainted with specific environmental laws, enforcement and methods for compliance. Toward semester's end, students will have an understanding of legal analysis and the function of legal advocacy in the determination of environmental policy.

Understanding the complex adaptive systems of environmental impairment and protection is an interdisciplinary effort that converges in the study of environmental policy. This course examines environmental policy (and politics) and it underlying ethical consideration with an emphasis on the American political system. Students will receive a board introduction to key concepts, actors, stakeholders, and issues related to environmental policymaking. Course material focuses on the role of government organizations – at the federal, state, and local level – institutional processes, and nongovernmental entities. Throughout the semester, we will address substantive environmental policy issues, such as water and air pollution, waste, biodiversity, land use, and climate change. At the conclusion of the semester, students should have an understanding of the historical, cultural, institutional, and ideological forces shaping environmental policy and regulations in the United States.

This course covers the basic scientific knowledge for informed policymaking and environmental resource management. Using current case studies, students will gain a basic proficiency in the biology, chemistry and physics of major environmental issues.

It is widely recognized that most environmental problems, whether small-scale or global, are the result of a complex interaction of natural processes with economic forces and decisions. This course provides graduates with a sound theoretical base and practical appreciation of the concepts and methods of environmental and natural resource economics relevant to policy decisions and research. In addition, many economists are also increasingly coming to recognize that the study of human activities on a finite planet, in the long-run requires an expanded set of concepts beyond those used in neoclassical economic analysis and connects the fields of ecology and economics in a complementary way. This course will provide an understanding of both perspectives

We will explore the process of innovation, the challenge of managing innovation within organizations, and how to mesh new product development with the strategy of the firm. We use a multi-level, multi-discipline approach and emphasize management issues relating to the innovative process and implementation of new technologies within organizations. We will also cover the collaboration between R&D and other functional areas, and collaboration across firms, technological and innovative needs of the firm over time, and organizational adaptation to innovation and technological change, with an emphasis on environmental businesses. Course will be given both Fall and Spring to accommodate JD/EP Students.

Legislative and regulatory process is a sophisticated, messy and complex affair but it is has been key to virtually all contemporary environmental advances. Knowledge of that process is fundamental to understanding the history and enactment of the statutes, regulations and decisions that have formed environmental policy for the last 40 years. The course in Legislative and Regulatory Process will exam budget processes, bill drafting, sponsorship, committee and floor rules, parliamentary procedure, constitutional authority, executive vs. legislative authority, role of hearings, majority and minority politics, bicameral structure and process, redistricting, judicial and executive appointments, and more. Its context will be a comparative study of Federal and NYS legislative and regulatory processes. A premium will be placed on student writing as well as research into statutes and their history, meetings with legislative experts, and individual student presentations at term's end regarding a specific environmental law, its history, support and opposition, procedural and substantive hurdles, and impacts.

Whether it is the public sector, the private sector, or the nonprofit sector, environmental managers of today must be fully prepared for the roles they will be assuming in the highly politicized world of environmental policy. Leadership and decision-making in the environmental sector is a highly complex management issue that integrates public and private sectors and crosses multiple geographic borders. Today's professionals must be fully engaged with their communities and aware of diverse externalities in this often contentious discipline. Subsequently, a leadership and decision-making course that focuses on key skills is necessary to develop effective environmental professionals. This course is centered on building a conceptual foundation in leadership, decision-making and skill-building. Key focus areas for skill building include policy analysis, structured decision-making, motivational applications, and ethics. Contemporary leaders must understand the leadership perspective and learn how to work within the management framework to affect change. Ultimately, developing management skills that facilitate relationships and motivate across multiple disciplines and government entities will drive environmental policy.

This course will introduce students to the range of methods relevant to the empirical analysis of environmental policy, with the goal of guiding students through the process of writing a research proposal. Students will learn to do a literature review, frame a research question, develop a feasible research strategy, and then write a well-designed proposal that will comprise the basis of their Master’s research project. Readings in research methods, along with examples of published research, will train students in the qualities of solid, empirical research, including focus, validity, and clarity of articulation. Students will also learn oral presentation skills in the presentation of their proposals.

Environmental Advocacy combines the use of law, policy and politics to achieve environmental protection. As a laboratory for the effectiveness of environmental advocacy, the Hudson River Valley has provided a wide array of challenges, and a catalog of successes. This course will explore the environmental issues that confront one of the world's most beautiful, and developed watersheds, and develop holistic and proactive strategies to preserve its resources, to enhance the quality of life for its millions of residents. The course will include field visits to Hudson Valley institutions, and a boat ride orientation to the estuary.

The purpose of this course is to give students the opportunity to develop a capstone research project, based on an environmental issue of their choice that will result in a final product that has the potential to: • Be published in an environmental journal • Be used as education policy analysis by environmental organization and other advocacy organizations or • Be used by legislative and/or administrative staff for developing new regulations. The capstone projects will focus on developing academic research that has immediate practical value in the political world. This course will utilize E-Portfolio in order or link the students in real-time to each other’s projects and to enable their work to be shared with the boarder environmental community when it is completed. The research will follow the format of a policy analysis in which students will identify the principle political stakeholders, their positions and arguments; the important counter-arguments; the scientific basis for the polices; the health implications; the long and short-term environmental and eco-system implications of the issues, economic costs and benefits; and proposed polices to address the issue. The major focus of the project will be a thorough analysis of each of the proposed policy alternatives to identify their strengths and weaknesses in terms of environmental benefits and costs.

Students will work two days in an environmental policy organization or in a position related to environmental policy in an organization. A weekly two-hour seminar will train students in the professional skills of policy work, including public presentation and memo-writing skills. The instructor will supervise the development of a three policy memos. The work supervisor will submit a written review of the student's performance at the end of the externship. The student will carry out one professional presentation and produce three policy memos related to the student's work experiences in the organization and covering three environmental issues.