Professor Wins Morrison Prize for Article on Public Utilities and Clean Energy

University of Virginia School of Law professor Alison Gocke has won the 10th annual Morrison Prize for her article on the role public utility commissions can play in clean-energy transitions.

Awarded by the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, the prize honors “the most influential environmental sustainability-focused law journal article published in North America in the previous year.” Gocke will receive a $10,000 prize and was invited to present her paper, “Public Utility’s Potential,” later in the spring before a virtual conference.

Gocke co-directs the Law School’s Program in Law, Communities and the Environment, or PLACE. Her work focuses on energy law, environmental law and administrative law, with a special emphasis on the intellectual framework behind environmental regulations.

The article, published by the Yale Law Journal in 2024, examines New York’s energy infrastructure transformation in the 1940s and 1950s, driven by the state’s Public Service Commission. Gocke argues that the historic example demonstrates the powerful role that state commissions can play in today’s clean-energy transition.

“This paper examines how the New York PSC was able to implement this transition historically, and what lessons it may hold for today,” Gocke said in a Q&A about her paper.

She was inspired to write the article from her previous research into the politically contentious history of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s pipeline approvals, particularly the New York Public Service Commission’s surprising post-World War II advocacy for natural gas as a “cleaner-burning fuel” to combat air pollution caused by the widespread use of coal. She said the PSC’s proactive and ultimately successful role challenges the conventional belief that energy regulators are not focused on solving environmental challenges.

Over a 10-year period, the commission cajoled the city’s utilities into transitioning their facilities, which involved utility employees visiting each house to adapt New Yorkers’ appliances to be able to use natural gas.

“I don’t think anyone conceived of public utility regulation as a legal model that is particularly effective at managing significant transitions, but that is what I found in the records of the New York PSC,” Gocke said.

She said New York’s shift decades ago to natural gas highlights the potential for public utility commissions to facilitate the transition to cleaner energy and break down the divide between energy regulation and environmental law.

“State public utility commissions still have exclusive authority over many parts of our energy regulation,” Gocke said in the Q&A. “There’s no way to engage in energy regulation today without thinking about climate change, and, similarly, there’s no way to engage in environmental law today without thinking about energy regulation.”

Gocke said she felt “thrilled and honored” to receive the Morrison Prize.

“As we confront our current energy transition, I think it is important that we look to past examples of how the law managed energy transitions and the legal tools that are available to address energy and environmental issues,” she said. “My hope is that this piece starts a broader conversation about how historical approaches to energy regulation can help us in understanding the energy challenges of the modern day.”