Profile IX: Professor Alexandra Klass, University of Michigan
In this issue, The Daily Dynamo met with Professor Alexandra Klass, the James G. Degnan Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Environmental & Energy Law Program at the University of Michigan Law School. Before joining the Michigan Law faculty, Professor Klass was a member of the Minnesota Law faculty for sixteen years and, before that, was a partner at a large Minneapolis law firm. Throughout her professional career, she has held senior-level positions in the environmental and energy law fields, including recently serving as the deputy general counsel for energy efficiency and clean energy demonstrations at the US Department of Energy. She was also able to bring her expertise to state government as part of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s Advisory Council on Climate Change.
While many professors The Daily Dynamo has interviewed thus far have had experiences with energy and the environment at a young age, Klass’ journey towards the field developed later. . She entered law school with little knowledge about potential areas of specialty, but found focus the second semester of her 1L year through an elective called “The Legal Process.” The class exposed her to the field of administrative law, which she found compelling. “I really liked the interaction between legislatures [and] state and federal agencies, [and] all of the aspects of administrative law,” she explained. It was this class that drew her towards environmental law, she said. Environmental law had everything she wanted in a career at the time – “a core substantive area [that] would be really interesting” as well as opportunities to work on regulatory and compliance issues. After gaining experience in the field throughout law school, she confirmed this was the path she wanted to pursue after graduation.
While Klass’ focus area didn’t encompass energy law initially, growing concerns over climate change fueled her transition into the energy law space. “The fields of environmental law and energy law were merging because the only way to deal with climate change [was] through energy policy,” she realized. Though much of her work now centers around energy law and policy, she has retained her environmental law focus, aiding her in a number of issues she’s tackled.
With a second Trump administration on the horizon, she recognizes that the road to a clean energy transition will become more challenging. Despite possible rollbacks of federal investments in renewable energy resources , there may be continued bipartisan support for certain carbon-free technologies. “Nuclear energy [investment] and carbon capture sequestration tend to be more bipartisan,” Klass asserted, adding that clean energy projects where federal funding has already been committed can likely move forward. She underscored that part of the equation for the nation’s energy will hinge on “the lobbying power of some of the clean energy industries”; if their efforts are successful, a clean energy transition can still happen. . Despite the second Trump administration’s plans to prioritize oil and gas development in its energy agenda, Klass maintained that today, economics as much as politics supports clean energy development. . “Economics are really driving a lot of the clean energy transition and that’s not necessarily going to change in a new political administration” she said. While “[Trump] has a lot of authority” in opening up public lands for fossil fuel development, most clean energy projects are permitted at the state level and thus, states maintain considerable autonomy over that process and can keep clean energy projects moving if they wish.
Klass has worked with state governments, specifically Minnesota, under the governorship of Tim Walz. As a member of his inaugural Climate Change Advisory Council, she performed outreach to a diverse set of constituents, from farmers to small businesses and school districts. Working with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the Minnesota Commerce Department, she played a pivotal role in helping to implement the state’s framework to address climate change. And between her academic appointments at Minnesota Law and Michigan Law, she joined the Biden-Harris Administration full-time, serving as the deputy general counsel for energy efficiency and clean energy demonstrations at the US Department of Energy.
For Klass, working in the federal government provided a challenging environment with a “steep learning curve.” However, she found the opportunity, where she advised the Department on legal issues surrounding clean energy grant funding and energy efficiency standards, to be “invaluable.” For her, “it was wonderful to see just the commitment and expertise of the career lawyers and staff and the scientists there.” Such an experience broadened her perspectives beyond private practice and academia and into government, where she found extensive collaboration between the different federal agencies within the Executive Branch. “We [were] always coordinating with the White House… and I also ended up doing a lot of work helping our team provide technical support to the Department of Treasury to implement some of the clean energy tax credits.” As counsel at the Department of Energy, Klass was responsible for advising on its regulatory actions, most of which were setting appliance efficiency standards, which, as required by federal statute, designate minimum energy efficiencies for a vast number of products. Klass posited. “They all need to go through OIRA [Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs] within OMB [Office of Management and Budget]. Part of my job was making sure those rules were moving through the process because [the OIRA process] can slow things down.”
As Klass returns to academia at the University of Michigan, she will impart the lessons she learned in Washington and across her professional career, educating environmental and energy attorneys that will be able to skillfully navigate a regulatory system that continues to be extremely dynamic.
