Columbia Law School Student Gregg Badichek ’16 Wins Award from New York State Bar Association

Student Takes 1st Place in 2016 Professor William R. Ginsberg Memorial Essay Contest

New York, October 12, 2015—Columbia Law School student Gregg Badichek ’16 has been awarded 1st place in a contest held by the New York State Bar Association’s Environmental Law Section for his essay, “Resolving Conflicts Between Endangered Species Conservation & Renewable Energy Siting: Wiggle Room for Renewables?”

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Columbia Law School student Gregg Badichek '16
The essay takes a look at two competing U.S. policies–protection of threatened and endangered species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the prioritization of building a renewable energy infrastructure. Badichek argues that it is better to risk endangering a certain species by moving ahead with renewable energy projects.
 
The alternative—prioritization of species’ survival over energy reformatting, resulting in inaction—would increase global climate risk, and ultimately threaten more species and habitats in the long term,” he writes.
 
Because major amendments to ESA through Congressional action are unlikely given the political climate, Badichek suggests potential solutions and “statutory innovations” that would help expedite renewable energy development while still complying with the ESA.
 
Badichek wrote his winning essay, which was published in Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development and will be published in The New York Environmental Lawyer, for Columbia Law School Professor Michael B. Gerrard’s Advanced Climate Change Law seminar. Gerrard directs the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
 
Named for a pioneer in the field of environmental law, the New York State Bar Association’s annual Professor William R. Ginsberg Memorial Essay Contest is designed to challenge law students to analyze the environmental issues confronting today’s world. It is open to all J.D. and LL.M. students enrolled in a New York State law school.
 
The awards were presented Oct. 3 at the fall meeting of the New York State Bar Association’s Environmental Law Section.