Webinar: Teaching Environmental Tax

Teaching Environmental Tax
Wednesday, May 14
1:00pm-2:00pm ET

How can tax professors at law schools and in accounting, economics, and public policy programs incorporate clean energy and environmental issues into their courses and curricula?

Join us for an hour-long virtual discussion with four panelists at the leading edge of teaching environmental tax: Joe Aldy, Teresa and John Heinz Professor of the Practice of Environmental Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School; Seth Hanlon, Senior Fellow at the Tax Law Center and Adjunct Professor of Law at NYU Law; Roberta Mann, Professor Emerita at University of Oregon School of Law; and Janet Milne, Professor of Law and Director of the Environmental Tax Policy Institute at Vermont Law & Graduate School.

Panelists will discuss strategies for incorporating clean energy and environmental issues into general tax and public policy classes, as well as suggestions for designing and implementing specialized environmental tax courses. A Q&A session will allow participants to share their insights from teaching environmental tax and enable newcomers to learn from experienced professors and practitioners.

Joseph E. Aldy is the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of the Practice of Environmental Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, a University Fellow at Resources for the Future, a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Senior Adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. His research focuses on climate change policy, energy policy, and regulatory policy. He also chairs the Faculty Steering Committee to the Salata Institute’s Climate Action Accelerator. In 2009-2010, he served as the Special Assistant to the President for Energy and Environment at the White House. Aldy previously served as a Fellow at Resources for the Future, Co-Director of the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements, Co-Director of the International Energy Workshop, and worked on the staff of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. He earned his doctorate in economics from Harvard University and MEM and bachelor’s degrees from Duke University.

Seth Hanlon is a Senior Fellow at the Tax Law Center at NYU Law. Prior to joining the Tax Law Center, Seth served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax and Climate Policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury where he helped lead the implementation of the clean energy tax incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

Prior to Treasury, Seth was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and served as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy where he coordinated the Obama Administration’s tax policies. Seth has also worked on Capitol Hill as senior tax counsel for the House Budget Committee Democratic staff and as tax counsel for Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), a senior Finance Committee member, among other roles. He was the Director of Fiscal Reform during a prior stint at American Progress, and an associate attorney at Caplin & Drysdale, Chartered, where he advised corporations, individuals, and non-profit organizations on tax law.

Seth holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and an A.B. in History and Literature from Harvard University. He is admitted to practice law in Washington, D.C.

Roberta Mann is Professor Emerita at the University of Oregon School of Law. She taught a wide range of income tax courses, including individual income tax, business tax, and tax policy. She has also taught property and trusts and estates. Before entering academia, Roberta served as a senior attorney-advisor at the Office of Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service at the National Office in Washington DC. She also served on the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Roberta has been active with the American Bar Association Tax Section, most recently serving as Vice-Chair Publications. Roberta is a fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel and serves on the board of the American Tax Policy Institute. She is the 2025 chair of the Executive Committee of the Tax Section of the American Association of Law Schools. She served on the National Tax Association Board from 2008 – 2011. Roberta’s scholarship focuses on the intersection of tax policy and environmental issues. She is a frequent speaker on tax issues at both practitioner and academic conferences: nationally, internationally, and virtually.  

Janet E. Milne is Professor of Law and Director of the Environmental Tax Policy Institute at Vermont Law School, USA, where she has taught environmental taxation since 1994. She has written extensively about environmental taxation. She edited Environmental Taxation and the Law (2017); co-edited the Handbook of Research on Environmental Taxation (2012) with Mikael Skou Andersen; and serves as co-editor of Critical Issues in Environmental Taxation. Janet is on the International Steering Committee of the annual Global Conference on Environmental Taxation and a member of the United Nation’s Subcommittee on Environmental Taxation Issues. Before joining the law faculty, Janet was tax legislative assistant to US Senator Lloyd Bentsen, Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Finance, and an attorney at Covington & Burling in Washington, DC. She received her degree from Georgetown University Law Center and clerked for Frank M. Coffin, Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.