Virtual Event—Energy Seminar: Legal Issues Impacting the Clean Energy Transition, David J. Hayes

Date
Mon April 13th 2020, 4:30 - 5:20pm
Event Sponsor
Precourt Institute for Energy
Location
By Zoom
Virtual Event—Energy Seminar: Legal Issues Impacting the Clean Energy Transition, David J. Hayes

Discussion:

Legal issues affecting the deployment of clean energy solutions are arising across the U.S. energy landscape. The Trump administration is scaling back industry-wide restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, raising fundamental questions about Clean Air Act authority to drive down carbon emissions. Meanwhile, new clean energy and fossil-fuel-based infrastructure projects (e.g. gas pipelines; wind/solar projects) are encountering disparate regulatory treatment at the hands of federal and state agencies, raising contentious legal issues across a number of statutory frameworks. Major disputes also have broken out between federal and state authorities regarding the management of interstate electricity markets and state-based clean energy choices, putting in play fundamental questions regarding states’ clean energy rights and the appropriate treatment of environmental costs and energy subsidies. How these issues are addressed and, hopefully, resolved in a clean-energy-friendly manner - via regulatory activity, litigation, and/or statutory reforms - will have a material impact on the speed with which the U.S. transitions to a clean energy economy. 

Speaker bio:

David J. Hayes is the Executive Director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at NYU School of Law, which supports state attorneys general in their advocacy for clean energy, climate and environmental laws and policies. He teaches energy and environmental law at the NYU School of Law. From 2013-2017, Hayes was a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at Stanford Law School and was affiliated with Stanford's Precourt Institute for Energy and Woods Institute for the Environment. He also serves on the Advisory Council of Stanford’s Bill Lane Center for the American West.

Hayes was the Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer at the Department of the Interior for Presidents Barack Obama (2009-2013) and Bill Clinton (1999-2001). Before and between serving in the Obama and Clinton Administrations, Hayes was a partner and global chair of the Environment, Land & Resources department at Latham & Watkins, an international law firm. He is a former Chair of the Board of the Environmental Law Institute; a member of the board of directors for the Coalition for Green Capital; and founder of the Wildlife Trafficking Alliance. Hayes graduated summa cum laude from the University of Notre Dame and received his JD from Stanford Law School.