Melissa Powers

Melissa Powers is the Jeffrey Bain Faculty Scholar, Professor of Law, and Founder of the Green Energy Institute at Lewis & Clark Law School. She serves on the Center’s board of directors.

Powers teaches climate change law, electricity regulation, renewable energy law, the Clean Air Act, administrative law, and torts. Her research interests include energy law (with a specific focus on laws designed to promote renewable energy), domestic policies aimed at mitigating climate change, and U.S. pollution control laws. She is also interested in comparative law study in each of these areas.

Powers serves on the boards of the Northwest Environmental Defense Center and the Environmental Law Collaborative, and she previously served as a co-chair of the Research Committee and as a Governing Board member of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law.. She has taught as a visiting professor at several schools, including the University of Trento, Italy, in 2008, 2011, 2012, and 2025; the University of Navarra, Spain, in 2011; and the University of Maine School of Law in 2007.

Powers began her legal career as an attorney at public interest environmental law firms doing pollution control litigation. From 2003-2008, she was a Clinical Professor at the Pacific Environmental Advocacy Center (PEAC), the environmental law clinic at Lewis & Clark. She received her JD, magna cum laude, from Lewis & Clark Law School in 2001, and her BA in environmental sciences from the University of California at Berkeley in 1992.