Oil & Gas, Natural Gas & Energy Center

This course comprehensively examines energy law doctrinally and in a broader social and political context. Topics include:

• The history, economics, and environmental considerations relevant to energy regulation.
• The regulatory context and policies espoused by that context.
• Particular issues relevant to hydro, coal, oil, gas, nuclear, solar, and wind power.
• The nexus between energy law and climate change.

The course approach draws from traditional doctrinal and seminar formats, allowing for discussion of current events relevant to the course topics.

This survey course is designed to introduce students to the common law and statutory approaches to environmental issues such as population, economic growth, energy, and pollution. The primary focus is on the major federal environmental protection statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act, and statutes regulating pesticides and dealing with the testing of hazardous substances. 

Course coverage also includes examining the administrative process and the role of courts in environmental litigation. Specific recurring themes animating the development of federal environmental law are emphasized, including the role of public interest, economics, scientific uncertainties, risk factors, and the government's need for relevant information regarding the effects of pollution on the environment to regulate effectively.

The seminar is open to all upper-level students, has no prerequisites, and does not require a background in environmental law. The format of this seminar will involve reading and discussing selected classical and contemporary works with an environmental theme or influence. The grade will be based on a composite of class participation, short papers, and a group presentation on one of the assigned readings. Illustrative readings may include:

• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson 
• Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook 
• The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World by Russell Gold 
• Babylon’s Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo by Lawrence Anthony 
• Stand Up That Mountain by Jay Leutze 
• The Sixth Extinction, by Elizabeth Kolbert 
• The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey 
• A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean 
• A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold 
• Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman 
• Ectopia by Ernest Callenbach 
• Food, Inc. edited by Karl Weber

In addition, the class will watch selected movies, which may include Erin Brockovich, Gasland, Crude, Blue Gold, Local Hero, and King Corn. Please note that although the seminar’s shorter writing assignments will not satisfy the Graduation Writing Requirement, accommodations will allow students to extend a paper to meet the GRW, as needed. The readings may be obtained from any source, such as through Amazon, bookstores, or the electronic format of E-Readers (e.g., Kindle, Nook).

Water rights and their management increasingly present critical legal and economic development challenges, and in Oklahoma – as throughout the West – those challenges are often made more complex by the interplay of state law rights and American Indian tribal rights. This course will allow students to study a fascinating and unique area of law and examine the complexity of inter-sovereign resource disputes. 

The course will explore the history and policies that have shaped water law. Building on a review of foundational Indian law cases as well as relevant history, we will examine the substantive rules of federal Indian law cases and – at least as importantly – the complex intergovernmental processes in which these rules are applied (e.g., general stream adjudications, the McCarran Amendment, the federal criteria and procedure for American Indian water rights settlements, the Montana approach, etc.) This course will require a paper that can be used to satisfy the Graduation Writing Requirement. 

Teams of students work under the supervision of an in-house lawyer at one of several Oklahoma City oil and gas companies. Throughout the semester, the teams are assigned weekly tasks involving drafting, negotiating, curative, or interdisciplinary work. Specific tasks vary but generally include preparing a confidentiality agreement, oil and gas lease negotiation and acquisition, drafting special lease provisions, drafting and negotiating a farmout agreement, drafting and negotiating a purchase and sale agreement, title curative work, geophysical permitting, working with geophysicists and geologists in selecting a well site, preparing division orders, drafting crude oil sales contracts, drafting gas processing and transportation contracts, and drafting memos concerning actual disputes in litigation or that may lead to litigation.

How to Drill a Well is the first of what the College of Law hopes will be several “experiential” offerings, teaching skills essential to specialized law practice.

This course considers the legal issues and transactions relating to petroleum exploration, production, and marketing- the largest and most important commodity traded worldwide. Coverage includes how countries settle competing claims to oil and gas reserves, how host governments or state-owned oil and gas companies contract with private companies to explore and develop oil and gas resources, and the contracts that parties engaged in such activities enter into with each other. This course also covers the international marketing of crude oil and natural gas.

​​This course provides an overview of and examines the legal issues facing the midstream oil and gas industry. The midstream industry provides the infrastructure to gather, process, transport, store, and market crude oil, natural gas, liquids, and refined products. Coverage includes:

• Negotiated agreements for the gathering and processing of natural gas.
• The regulation of gas transportation is under the Natural Gas Act, and oil is under the Interstate Commerce Act.
• The regulation of pipeline safety by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
• The use of tax-exempt Master Limited Partnerships to own midstream assets.

This course examines the encompassing comparative laws of Oklahoma, Texas, and other oil-producing states. The course also examines the study of relevant law and preparing a mineral title opinion.

After an overview of the history of U.S. native policy and the fundamental doctrines of Indian Law, this course covers various issues relating to tribal interests and jurisdiction over environmental resources. Course coverage includes:

• Tribal rights to land
• Land use and environmental protection in Indian country
• Economic and natural resource development issues (including grazing, minerals, timber, and taxation)
• Water rights
• Hunting and fishing rights
• International perspectives on indigenous resources

Throughout the course, students will consider the roles of the tribal, federal, and state governments in resource regulation and use. 

This course will primarily cover oil and gas environmental law, including specific federal and state environmental statutes and case law. We will consider many environmental issues that affect oil and gas operations, such as land/lease acquisition, geological exploration, well site preparation, drilling, completion, production, and midstream activities.

Nature of property interests in oil and gas; conveyancing of interests in oil and gas; legal interests created by oil and gas leases; validity of leases; habendum, drilling, and rental clauses; assignment of interests of lessor and lessee; rents and royalties; and conservation of oil and gas.

Prerequisite: Oil and gas is recommended, although not mandatory. 

In this course, you will:

• Examine contracts used in the oil and gas industry to explore, produce, and develop oil and gas properties and investments.
• Learn the nature of the relationships created by such contracts
• Explore the rights and duties of the parties
• Discover income tax consequences
• Get acquainted with governmental regulation

This course is an examination of a practical skills approach to oil and gas practice in Oklahoma. This course will examine how oil and gas wells are drilled in Oklahoma and the important rules, regulations, and statutes that govern many facets of oil and gas exploration and conservation. 

From the filing of the Intent to Drill to settling surface damages, permitting wells through the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC); the jurisdiction of the OCC, the OCC Rules of Practice; and additional developmental drilling; pipelines; horizontal drilling; negotiated agreements; unitization; underground storage; environmental issues and water law will all be covered along with an examination of the relevant case law.

Prerequisite: ONE J membership. 

Production of case summaries of recently released court decisions on matters relating to oil and gas, natural resources, and energy; student notes and comments on topics relating to oil and gas, natural resources, and energy; editorial work on submitted articles relating to oil and gas, natural resources, and energy; or other approved activities associated with the production of the review.

In this course you'll learn about:

• System of water rights
• Riparian, appropriation, and prescriptive rights
• Stream, surface, and groundwater
• Transfer and termination of rights;
• Injuries caused by water 
• Development of water supplies 
• Federal-state, interstate, and intrastate conflicts
• Water pollution control 
• Federal and Indian rights 
• Federal water resource problems

This course will cover wind project development, state and federal legislative and regulatory status and processes, permitting processes, construction, and other document negotiation and content.