Victor B. Flatt is the Tom & Elizabeth Taft Distinguished Professor in Environmental Law, and the Director of the Center for Law, Environment, Adaptation, and Resources (CLEAR). He also has an appointment as a Distinguished Scholar in Carbon Markets and Carbon Trading at the Global Energy Management Institute at the University of Houston's Bauer College of Business, and is a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform. Flatt teaches courses in environmental law, interagency environmental cooperation, international environmental law, climate change, and the practice of carbon trading.
His scholarship has focused on the administration of environmental statutes, particularly the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. Recently, he has focused on the legislative and regulatory mechanisms needed to address climate change in the United States. In particular, he has written about and advised policy makers on offsets, and the impact of offsets on a carbon market. He has published articles in many notable journals, including the Notre Dame Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, Washington Law Review, and Ecology Law Quarterly. Six of his articles have been finalists or selected as one of the best environmental law articles in of the year in the compendium the Journal of Land Use and Environmental Law. Flatt has also published numerous op-eds on environmental, energy, and resource issues, and does a regular blog regarding climate change issues and energy for the Houston Chronicle. He represented then U.S. Senators Clinton, Boxer, Leahy, Jeffords, and Kerry, in their challenge to the Bush Administrations New Source Review rules.
Before coming to Chapel Hill, Flatt served as the first A.L. O'Quinn Chair in Environmental Law at the University of Houston Law Center, where he was also director of the Center for Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Law. He has visited at the University of Washington, Seattle University, the University of Georgia, and Roger Williams University. He received his B.A. in Chemistry and Mathematics, magna cum laude, from Vanderbilt University, where he was a Harold Stirling Vanderbilt Scholar. He received his J.D., cum laude and Order of the Coif, from Northwestern University School of Law, where he was a John Henry Wigmore Scholar. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Danny J. Boggs of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, before beginning practice in environmental compliance at Hillis Clark Martin & Peterson in Seattle, Washington. Professor Flatt began his teaching career at the University of Washington's Graduate School of Public Affairs in 1993, and became and associate professor at Georgia State University College of law in 1995.
Professor Flatt serves on the national board of the environmental non-profit Build Clean, and is a former national board member of Lambda Legal.
Curriculum Vitae
Research Appendicies