It’s a heady time to be engaged in the fields of energy and environmental law, thanks to challenges like climate change and integrating renewable energy into the domestic power grid. Now throw in recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have roiled long-standing approaches to regulation and administrative authority — plus a change in the Oval Office — and there is even more to delve into.
Three new professors are exploring these areas and more in their teaching and scholarship, energizing Minnesota Law’s Environmental & Energy Law focus with their expertise and vantage points. Associate Professors Jack Whiteley and Nick Bednar ’16 joined the faculty in 2023 while Professor James Coleman came on board in 2024.
Whiteley, Bednar, and Coleman bring varied backgrounds and experiences to their work understanding the dynamic field.
Photo: Tony Nelson
Jack Whiteley was long attracted to environmental law, an affinity he cemented as a teaching fellow and supervisory attorney at Georgetown University’s Environmental Law and Justice Clinic.
Whiteley teaches environmental law, a climate law seminar, evidence, and property law. He developed the climate law course, focusing on legal issues related to climate change and ways to address it with new and existing local, state, federal, and international laws. That might mean turning to traditional environmental laws or using property or tort law in novel ways to mitigate climate change and help people adapt.
In a similar vein, Whiteley’s research considers potential connections between judge-made legal doctrines and modern statutes as a framework to address environmental concerns. For an upcoming Minnesota Law Review essay, Whiteley evaluates recent Supreme Court rulings like 2023’s Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency regarding the Clean Water Act, analyzing how they might inform statutory interpretation.
Whiteley also is digging into how property law in the United States has historically contributed to climate change, such as through deforestation or encouraging the development of fossil fuels. “Scholars have some ideas for developing property law in the future in light of what we now know about climate change,” he says. “I hope to contribute to an interesting new body of research that investigates how centuries-old property doctrines might be used to manage or protect the environment.”
Photo: Tony Nelson
After Nick Bednar graduated from Minnesota Law in 2016, he earned a doctorate in political science from Vanderbilt University, focusing on executive branch politics and the federal bureaucracy.
Bednar’s expertise in executive power, the civil service, and administrative capacity has been especially timely this year as the Trump administration seeks to reshape the federal workforce. He has been writing regularly for Lawfare and doing numerous media interviews about civil service laws and personnel management since late 2024.
His doctoral research explored how federal agencies like the EPA acquire vital employee knowledge needed to execute their functions — think hydrologists or atmospheric scientists — and consequences if they don’t have such experts on staff. Bednar’s current research gauges potential impacts of administering the Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act without an expert or experienced workforce. In addition, he is evaluating how the Supreme Court’s Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo ruling will alter the deference traditionally given to government agencies such as the EPA.
Bednar teaches torts, legislation and regulation, and policy and public administration, covering their implications for environmental law. He weaves in topics like using property rights and public nuisance laws to sue polluting factories, as well as regulatory processes and how agencies like the Department of Energy interpret complex scientific and technical statutes.
It has been admittedly strange for Bednar to be called on for his knowledge of the civil service, a normally under-the-radar area of the law. But he’s happy to help “notify the public about what’s going on and whether or not it’s legal, and whether I think it’s good policy,” he says. “I’m continuing to do what I’ve always done, which is researching the civil service more broadly and what makes a strong federal workforce. We’re going to continue to have tough conversations about how we structure the federal workforce and the role the president plays in managing that workforce.”
Photo: Tony Nelson
Drawn to science, James Coleman taught physics before becoming an environmental lawyer and then law professor at Southern Methodist University.
Coleman brings rich expertise at the confluence of energy transport and trade. It inspires his teaching and research that examines how to ensure reliable, affordable, and clean sources of energy through transmission, infrastructure, and regulations. Coleman’s research reflects his multifaceted knowledge. He is the co-author of Cases and Materials on Oil and Gas Law, and has also has written numerous articles and book chapters, including ones on energy competition and the low-carbon transition.
Coleman will soon publish a paper on carbon capture and storage. Another project tackles ways to increase the number of energy projects being built by streamlining the protracted and often inefficient permitting process. He has been studying legal interventions that might make a project easier to build, such as preventing courts from holding up projects indefinitely through the environmental review process. Coleman also is evaluating lifecycle studies in energy permitting and trade decisions and whether they should be incorporated into regulation. These studies assess a project’s cumulative carbon footprint and its overall impact on global energy markets, weighing the cost of materials and construction against their energy output.
Coleman teaches contracts, international energy development, and energy law, a course that draws students from across the University. He aims to help students master the complex field, gaining understanding of the science, economics, law, and policy related to the energy sector.
“Part of the reason I went into energy law was that I could use my scientific background,” Coleman says. “I love that it helps explain so much about how the world works, how the economy is doing, and the balance of geopolitics. It’s so important to the world around us and how it all works.”