Environmental Watch List of 2011. The 10 environmental hot topics range from issues like oil spills and offshore drilling to breakthroughs in wind and solar energy and the military’s increased use of renewable energy. The full report evaluates 10 judicial, legislative and other actions that the top-ranked law school considers to significantly affects humans and the natural world.

“We can continue our short-sighted addiction to fossil fuels or we can adopt innovative, healthier, more sustainable practices,” said VLS Dean Jeff Shields. “The Environmental Watch List will help improve public understanding of how to use the law to take action on the critical issues of our time.”

The 2011 Watch List:
1. Congressional failure to enact climate change legislation – will states take over where federal failed in 2011?
2. The nation’s worst oil spill – Deepwater Horizon Disaster
3. First U.S. greenhouse gas rules – Will the EPA’s efforts to restrict global warming pollutants survive judicial and political challenges?
4. Climate change in the courts – Supreme Court case that would allow public nuisance lawsuits against major air polluters.
5. California’s climate law dodges a bullet – Voters kill Prop 23 in November elections
6. EPA clamps down on mountaintop removal coal mining – Looks at the EPA’s crackdown on the coal industry’s practice of tearing off mountain peaks
7. Wind and solar projects make breakthroughs – Including offshore wind and solar projects on public lands
8. Supreme Court reviews genetically modified crops – Looks at the Supreme Court’s first ruling on so-called Frankenfoods
9. EPA’s water transfer exemption remains in force – Conflict over transferring polluted water from one water body to another.
10. U.S. military going green – Looks at how the military is reducing its dependence on fossil fuels

You can learn more about each issue and delve into the debate on their dedicated Environmental Watch List 2011 website.