April 2014
Grant Brings in Guest Speakers for “Bringing the Rockies to the Bayou” Program
Professor Uma Outka visited LSU as the first speaker in the Bringing the Rockies to the Bayou Guest Lecture Series. Outka, an Associate Professor at Kansas Law School, spoke on “Intrastate Preemption in the Shifting Energy Sector.” Professor Outka’s visit was funded by a grant from the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation that is dedicated to bringing two guest speakers to LSU – one this spring and one in the fall – from law schools that are members of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation.
Professor Hudson Co-Organizes Conference Honoring the Research of Elinor Ostrom
Professor Hudson and Brigham Daniels of BYU Law organized a conference honoring the life’s work of the late Elinor Ostrom, 2009 Nobel Laureate in Economics. The conference was attended by many high profile scholars, including Carol Rose (Yale,) Buzz Thompson (Stanford,) Lee Fennell (Chicago,) Jim Salzman (Duke,) Eric Freyfogle (Illinois,) Dan Cole (Indiana-Bloomington,) Marco Janssen (Arizona State,) and Marcilynn Burke (Houston.)
61st Annual Mineral Law Institute at LSU
The 61st Mineral Law Institute was held at LSU Law School on April 3 ‒ 4, 2014. Approximately 350 attorneys, landmen, and energy industry executives from Louisiana, Texas, and other states attended the conference. LSU’s Mineral Law Institute is the second oldest annual mineral law program in the country.
LSU Law School Hosts Symposium on Careers in Energy Law
LSU and the Institute for Energy Law teamed up to host a symposium on careers in energy law. The symposium, which featured speakers from Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania, was held on Saturday, April 5 at LSU Law School. Approximately 90 law students from 17 law schools attended. The schools that were represented included each of the four Louisiana law schools, as well as Rutgers, SMU, Texas A&M, Houston, South Texas, Mississippi College, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Tulsa, Kansas, Washburn, American University, and New England. A smaller group of students also spent an afternoon touring Entergy’s River Bend nuclear power plant. The symposium was co-chaired by Professor Hall and an attorney from EDF Trading, a subsidiary of a French energy company.
Professors Hall and Hudson Speak at Multiple Conferences
In February 2014, Professor Hall spoke on “Municipal Regulation of Hydraulic Fracturing” at a seminar in Santa Barbara, California. In April, he served on a panel that discussed shale gas issues at the Annual Spring Meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
In February 2014, Professor Hudson made two presentations at the Tulane Law School Environmental & Energy Law Society’s 19th Annual Summit on Environmental Law & Policy in New Orleans. He spoke on “Sinkholes vs. Natural Gas Storage: Finding Common (and Stable) Ground?” and “Land Use Planning & the Gulf Dead Zone: Political, Legal, and Technical Challenges.” In March 2014, Professor Hudson participated in a colloquium on “Hayek, Coase and Ecosystem Services,” in Queenstown Maryland that was sponsored by the Property and Environment Research Center. Finally, in April 2014, Professor Hudson was invited to speak on “Structural Environmental Constitutionalism,” at Widener University School of Law’s Global Environmental Constitutionalism Symposium in Wilmington, Delaware.
Professor Hall Appears on LPB Program on Coastal Erosion Litigation
Professor Hall was one of the guest panelists on the Louisiana Public Broadcasting program Louisiana Public Square, which aired on February 26, 2014, regarding litigation that a flood control district has brought against dozens of oil and gas companies. In the litigation, the plaintiffs allege that the oil and gas companies’ coastal activities have contributed to coastal erosion.
Professor Hudson’s Book Published
In March 2014, Professor Hudson’s book, Constitutions and the Commons: The Impact of Federal Governance on Local, National, and Global Resource Management, became available for purchase. The book is the first to apply commons analysis to scholarship on constitutional law and governance structure, and to explore the implications of federal governance structures to the management of natural resources across scales of government. The publishers of the book, Resources for the Future/Earthscan, were kind enough to allow Professor Hudson to design the book’s cover, which includes an image of his family forestland in south Alabama.
Professors Publish and Place Papers
Professor Hall’s article Hydraulic Testing and the Baseline Testing of Groundwater was published by the University of Richmond Law Review. Another of his articles, Hydraulic Fracturing: If Fractures Cross Property Lines is There an Actionable Subsurface Trespass?, will appear in the volume of the Natural Resources Journal that is being readied for print.
Professor Hudson had a number of articles accepted for publication in the spring submission cycle, including Dynamic Forest Federalism in the Washington and Lee Law Review, Institutional Preconditions for Policy Success in the Tulane Law Review, and a co-authored article titled Our Constitutional Commons in the Georgia Law Review.
Energy Law Center Advisory Council Meets
The inaugural meeting of an Advisory Council for the Laborde Energy Center was held. The Advisory Council has tentative plans to meet again in September.
Energy Center obtains Coordinator
Melissa (“Missi”) Lightfoot has been hired as Coordinator of the Energy Law Center.
