A publication co-authored by Indiana University Maurer School of Law Dean Christiana Ochoa and 2021 Law School alumna Kacey Cook has been selected to appear in the 17th edition of the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review.
The Review, a joint publication of the Environmental Law Reporter and Vanderbilt University School of Law, compiles some of the top environmental law and policy publications into an annual volume.
“Deals in the Heartland: Renewable Energy Projects, Local Resistance, and How Law Can Help” was authored by Ochoa, Cook, and University of Minnesota Law School third-year student Hanna Weil and was published in January 2023 in the Minnesota Law Review.
The article, together with two others, was selected from a pool of hundreds of law journal articles on environmental topics published between August 2022 and July 2023, selected nationally for inclusion.
“The objective of ELPAR is to make the year’s best environmental law and policy ideas more accessible to policymakers and practitioners by publishing abbreviated versions of the academic pieces selected,” said representatives from Vanderbilt and the ELI.
“Deals in the Heartland” provides a rich and textured understanding of the rapidly emerging opposition to renewable energy projects in rural communities enmeshed in legal, political, and social conflicts. The co-authors analyzed why and how communities, using county ordinances, township regulations, and electoral processes, mobilize against renewable energy companies and repel commercial wind projects. The article describes the surprising and complex interplay of national, state, and municipal law governing the transition to renewable energy, and provides tangible reform proposals that can address this emerging policy crisis.
Ochoa is Dean of the Maurer School of Law and Herman B Wells Class of 1950 Endowed Professor at Indiana University. Cook, a 2021 graduate of the Law School, is now the Constance and Terry Marbach Conservation Attorney with the Conservation Law Center, a close partner of the Law School. Weil is expected to earn her juris doctorate from the University of Minnesota Law School in 2024.
In addition to the three articles selected for inclusion in the ELPAR, four were also selected as honorable mentions.
Vanderbilt and ELI will co-host a hybrid conference in Washington, DC in April 2024, bringing together the authors and commenters for an audience of practitioners and policymakers.