22nd Annual Stegner Center Young Scholar Lecture with Joseph A. Schremmer

EVENT DETAILS:

More and more, technology and demand for zero-carbon energy are helping transform ordinary elements of the earth into desirable natural resources. Wind, sunlight, the porosity of subsurface rock strata, and geothermal heat are a few examples of resources that have emerged in recent decades as a result of these influences. Property law, meanwhile, is busy catching up. This lecture will address the recognition and definition of property rights in these emergent resources in our increasingly codified common law system. In particular, it will ask how the law determines which kinds of property interests may be acquired in emergent resources separately and apart from the land where they are found. The lecture will trace states’ growing reliance on legislation to answer this and other basic property law questions involving emergent resources, and it will suggest a broader role for common law, custom, and usage–yes, custom and usage!–in fashioning property regimes for emergent resources.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Professor Joe Schremmer holds the Eugene Kuntz Chair of Law in Oil, Gas, & Natural Resources at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. He teaches courses on oil and gas, energy, natural resources, and first-year property and contract law. His scholarly work focuses on property rights in natural resources, especially subsurface natural resources. Schremmer’s recent articles examine correlative rights, waste, subsurface trespass, property in pore space, and issues involving split estates. He has authored multiple books on oil and gas law, including Advance Introduction to U.S. Oil and Gas Law (Edward Elgar 2026) and The Law of Oil and Gas: Cases and Materials (Foundation Press) (with Martin, Kramer, Hall, & Righetti). As of 2024, he is the sole update and revision author of Kuntz, A Treatise on the Law of Oil and Gas (Matthew Bender). Schremmer is also the faculty director of the College of Law’s Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Law Center and the Energy and Natural Resources Graduate Program.

Before joining OU Law in 2023, Schremmer was the Judge Leon Karelitz Oil and Gas Law Professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law. Before that, he practiced law in Wichita, Kansas for six years, where he was recognized multiple times as a Rising Star by Super Lawyers. His practice involved most aspects of upstream oil and gas production, including title examination, transactional work, practice before the state conservation commission, and civil litigation. In law school, Schremmer served as the editor-in-chief of the Kansas Law Review and received the Samuel Mellinger Award recognizing the top overall graduate in the areas of scholarship, leadership, and service.

The Young Scholars Program was founded in 2005, with the generous support of the Cultural Vision 30 Year Endowment Fund, which has provided annual support for this program. This program is designed to recognize and establish a relationship with promising scholars early in their academic careers. Recipients are selected based on their accomplishments, the quality of their academic work, and their promise in the field of environmental and natural resources law and policy. A list of past scholars can be viewed online.

The views expressed in this lecture and in the event description are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect the views of the S.J. Quinney College of Law or the University of Utah.

For questions about this event, email events@law.utah.edu.

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