Environmental Policy Analysis

This course investigates key issues in environmental policy analysis, including the importance of environmental justice, federalism versus state policy, techniques of environmental assessment, the impacts of politics and case law on environmental policy, and policy decision-making. The class sets a foundation with an overview of the U.S. and international environmental movements. Students look at stakeholder engagement, policy formulation and implementation, and policy evaluation in different institutions. The course emphasizes the important role that the political and judicial process plays in the creation of policy solutions, and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of different techniques of environmental analysis including environmental impact assessments, modeling and simulation, sustainability analysis, and how best to weave environmental justice/equity throughout policy development and implementation.