ENERGY LAW AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL LAW SECTION: A RETROSPECTIVE

Written by Nick Oliver¹

Many states have energy law sections within their state bar associations or have expanded their environmental law sections to include energy in their name. The New York State Bar Association has its Environmental & Energy Law Section.² The State Bar of Texas, of course, has an Oil, Gas & Energy Resources Law section.³ The Illinois State Bar Association, by comparison, has grouped several topics into its Energy, Utilities Telecommunications and Transportation section.⁴ California, a national leader in the development of innovative laws and regulations to advance clean energy, has no equivalent section devoted principally to energy law. Instead, the Environmental Law Section of the California Lawyers Association casts a wide net, with a mission "to advance the quality, breadth, and availability of information and services related to environmental, natural resources, land use, and energy law, and to enhance the profession by cultivating a well-informed, collegial, and diverse group of lawyers and law students throughout the state."⁵

While its name may belie this fact, the Environmental Law Section of the California Lawyers Association is resoundingly one of the premier state energy law bar associations in the United States. Over the past 20 years, the Environmental Law Section has significantly increased its focus on serving the California energy bar as the interrelatedness of climate change and energy issues has become apparent. This increase in energy law offerings is due in large part to the efforts of a devoted group of energy law practitioners who have served on and advised the Executive Committee of the Environmental Law Section over the past two decades.

William "Bill" Westerfield III, who is Senior Of Counsel at Meyers Nave, first got involved with the Environmental Law Section in the early 2000s while he was an attorney at the California Energy Commission at a time when an electricity crisis had put the state’s newly deregulated energy market into the public spotlight. As the electricity crisis waned, the state’s adoption of the Renewables Portfolio Standard in 2002⁶ and the nascent period of momentum toward clean energy investment in California sustained the interest of a small but enthusiastic subset of environmental lawyers in energy law topics, particularly in permitting requirements around siting renewable energy. However, for some time the prevailing view was that energy lawyers preferred to look elsewhere for their educational programming, such as to the Conference of California Public Utility Counsel (CCPUC).⁷ Westerfield notes that, while the CCPUC was the only forum in the state at the time for practicing energy lawyers to learn and network, it had one big issue—its