The Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law has launched the Emmett Clean Energy Law and Leadership Project (E-CELL), a hub that will be based at the law school and contribute to the clean energy transition while enhancing the institute’s longstanding focus on energy law.

The project, says Cara Horowitz, the institute’s executive director, represents “a bold new investment in UCLA Law’s ability to train the next generation of energy law and policy leaders to advance the clean energy revolution — right when there is tremendous need for new professionals who understand the legal and policy dimensions of this revolution.”

Priority issue areas include:

• Energy affordability and rate reform
• Ownership of energy resources
• Gas transition
• Public Utilities Commission advocacy

E-CELL aims to strengthen the Emmett Institute’s network of leading scholars and law fellows with new staff and resources. Its goals include helping to transform the grid to zero emissions; build out needed energy storage and transmission; and redesign utility rates and regulations to account for the likely increase in household electricity demand and decrease in gas usage. To these ends, E-CELL will engage with policymakers at the state and federal level to transform the energy system and legal regimes to enable progress while training the next generation of energy leaders. Ultimately, the project will work to create law and policy innovations to secure a clean, resilient, and affordable energy system for all.

E-CELL is headed by Project Director Denise Grab, who has spent over a decade advancing clean energy policy at nonprofits and before government regulators, most recently as a principal at the Rocky Mountain Institute. Grab brings a deep expertise working on issues ranging from building electrification to distributed energy resources to renewables deployment.

“Renewable energy technologies promise to reduce energy cost burdens for households, as well as reduce climate- and health-harming pollution. However, there are many legal and policy challenges to overcome to ensure that these technologies are deployed efficiently, effectively, and equitably,” says Grab, who writes about the launch at Legal Planet.

E-CELL will also coordinate with the Emmett Institute’s groundbreaking legal clinics (the Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic and the California Environmental Legislation and Policy Clinic), which connect students and faculty with leading policymakers and advocates. The project will also offer unique opportunities to engage in dockets at the California Public Utilities Commission and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

William Boyd, the faculty co-director of the Emmett Institute and Michael J. Klein Chair in Law, will provide additional leadership. Boyd studies public utility regulation, electricity market design, and renewable energy finance. Since arriving in 2018, he has focused on building the law school’s energy law curriculum and connecting with UCLA Law’s many alumni working in the field.

“California is at the forefront of this transition, and this new program at the nation’s leading public university is uniquely suited to support California policymakers and practicing lawyers as they navigate the changes occurring in the energy sector — and to compare the California experience with other jurisdictions across the United States and around the world,” Boyd says.