Professors Dodge and Frank file brief in climate change case

Professors William S. Dodge and Richard M. Frank have filed an amici brief in United States v. California, the Trump administration’s challenge to the constitutionality of California’s cap-and-trade agreement with Quebec. Professor Dodge drafted the brief with Professor Jean Galbraith at the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Frank served as counsel of record. The brief on behalf of 13 professors of foreign relations law argues that the California-Quebec agreement is neither a treaty prohibited by Article I’s Treaty Clause nor a compact requiring congressional approval under Article I’s Compact Clause.

Professor Dodge is Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Law and John D. Ayer Chair in Business Law at UC Davis School of Law. He is a leading expert on international law, international transactions, and international dispute resolution, who served as Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State from 2011 to 2012 and as Co-Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law from 2012 to 2018.

Professor Frank is Professor of Environmental Practice and Director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center at UC Davis School of Law. Before returning to UC Davis in 2010, he served as Executive Director of the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) at UC Berkeley School of Law. Professor Frank practiced law with federal and state agencies for 32 years before joining the academy, most of that time with the California Department of Justice. Immediately before joining Berkeley Law, he served as California’s Chief Deputy Attorney General for Legal Affairs.