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Juliana V. United States, Daniel Brister May 2019

Juliana V. United States, Daniel Brister

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In 2015, a group of adolescents between the ages of eight and nineteen filed a lawsuit against the federal government for infringing upon their civil rights to a healthy, habitable future living environment. Those Plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States alleged that the industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels was causing catastrophic and destabilizing impacts to the global climate, threatening the survival and welfare of present and future generations. Seeking to reduce the United States’ contributions to atmospheric carbon dioxide, Plaintiffs demanded injunctive and declaratory relief to halt the federal government’s policies of promoting and subsidizing fossil fuels, due to the …


Appalachian Voices V. State Water Control Board, Thomas C. Mooney-Myers May 2019

Appalachian Voices V. State Water Control Board, Thomas C. Mooney-Myers

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The Virginia State Water Control Board certified the issuance of permits for the construction of a natural gas pipeline that traversed over 300 miles of Virginia in addition to other states. Local environmental groups and individuals petitioned the Fourth Circuit to review the certification under the Administrative Procedure Act. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals gave deference to the agency’s actions and denied the petition for review.


Indigenous Environmental Network V. United States Department Of State, Seth Sivinski Apr 2019

Indigenous Environmental Network V. United States Department Of State, Seth Sivinski

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Pipelines are an extremely efficient way to move large amounts of oil and gas across long distances. However, pipelines have become a lightning rod for environmentalists opposing the lines’ construction and the energy sector which considers the lines a must to achieve energy independence and security. Pipelines are massive projects often crossing interstate and international boundaries. As a result, they are subject to an extensive amount of government regulation with an accompanying assortment of legal challenges. Indigenous Environmental Network v. United States Department of State is the latest case in the Keystone XL pipeline saga, wherein the United States District …


Kloker V. Fort Peck Tribes, Hallee Kansman Apr 2019

Kloker V. Fort Peck Tribes, Hallee Kansman

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Kloker v. Fort Peck Tribes investigates and deciphers the application of the Indian canons of construction to the congressional formation and establishment of the Fort Peck reservation in Montana. In general, courts interpret congressional acts creating reservations through the lens of the tribal-federal government trust relationship. Although this case examines different substantive models of legal interpretation and theories of water law, the ultimate dispute is textual in nature—questioning the plain language of the establishment legislation itself.


Maralex Resources, Inc. V. Barnhardt, Bradley E. Tinker Apr 2019

Maralex Resources, Inc. V. Barnhardt, Bradley E. Tinker

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In Maralex Resources v. Barnhardt, Maralex and property owners brought an action to protect private property from BLM inspections of oil and gas lease sites. The Tenth Circuit looked at the plain meaning of a congressional statute and held in favor of Maralex, finding that BLM lacked authority to require a private landowner to provide BLM with a key to inspect wells of their property. The Tenth Circuit held BLM has the authority to conduct inspections without prior notice on private property lease sites; however, it is required to contact the property owner for permission before entering the property.


Murray V. Bej Minerals, Llc, Brett Berntsen Apr 2019

Murray V. Bej Minerals, Llc, Brett Berntsen

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Part of a dispute some 66 million years in the making, Murray v. BEJ Minerals, LLC considered for the first time whether dinosaur fossils—specifically a one-of-a-kind specimen containing entombed “dueling dinosaurs”—qualified as “minerals” for the purposes of a property transaction under Montana law. Finding no consistent statutory or dictionary definition for “mineral,” the Ninth Circuit relied on a test previously utilized by the Montana Supreme Court to hold that the dinosaur fossils constituted minerals due to their rare and exceptional qualities and were therefore part of the property’s mineral estate. The decision was promptly nullified, however, as the Ninth Circuit …


Hoopa Valley Tribe V. Ferc, Fredrick Aaron Rains Apr 2019

Hoopa Valley Tribe V. Ferc, Fredrick Aaron Rains

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In Hoopa Valley Tribe v. FERC, the Hoopa Valley Tribe challenged the intentional and continual delay of state water quality certification review of water discharged from a series of dams on the Klamath River in California and Oregon. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the states of Oregon and California, and PacifiCorp, a hydroelectric operator, were implementing an administrative scheme designed to circumvent a one-year temporal requirement for review imposed on states by the Clean Water Act. This scheme allowed PacifiCorp to operate the series of dams for over a decade without proper state water quality certification. The United States …


Save Our Sound Obx, Inc. V. North Carolina Department Of Transportation, Mitch L. Werbell V Apr 2019

Save Our Sound Obx, Inc. V. North Carolina Department Of Transportation, Mitch L. Werbell V

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of several governmental agencies seeking to construct a new bridge in the Pamlico Sound adjacent to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. For years, state and federal agencies have put forth a massive coordinated effort to address the constant weather damage and erosion which occurs to a section of North Carolina Highway 12. The court found the agencies properly cleared NEPA’s environmental review requirements for the bridge’s construction. Additionally, the opponent-litigants’ efforts to add claims challenging the project, based on new information about a shipwreck in the bridge’s path, were futile.


Mitigating Malheur's Misfortune: The Public Interest In The Public's Public Lands, Sandra B. Zellmer Apr 2019

Mitigating Malheur's Misfortune: The Public Interest In The Public's Public Lands, Sandra B. Zellmer

Faculty Law Review Articles

The Article begins its inquiry with an in-depth look at the forty-one-day long standoff between armed militants and law enforcement officials at Malheur, which means "misfortune" in French. The occupation of the Refuge ended with one death and the prosecution of over two dozen individuals for trespass, destruction of government property, conspiracy, and related charges. It all began when the Hammonds, who held grazing permits on Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") land adjacent to the Refuge, were prosecuted for starting fires on federal land.1 The Hammonds' conviction for the incident might have been the end of the story, but another …


Native American Cultural Dissonance & Dark Heritage Solutions, Victoria Parker Mar 2019

Native American Cultural Dissonance & Dark Heritage Solutions, Victoria Parker

Student Scholarship

This paper argues that public institutions have an obligation to consider the weight of their responsibility to educate and inform the public about all forms of American history and heritage. Moreover, public institutions should embrace controversy, engage discourse and proactively work on exhibiting balanced representations by re-working or removing antiquated and false narratives surrounding Native American history. In this paper, I proffer solutions from case studies, examples, models, and my own perspective as a Native American tribal member, as to what public institutions and curators can do in the future to deal with cultural dissonance and creating awareness of (Native) …


Wildearth Guardians V. United States Bureau Of Land Management, Seth Sivinski Jan 2019

Wildearth Guardians V. United States Bureau Of Land Management, Seth Sivinski

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In WildEarth Guardians v. U.S. BLM, the District Court of Colorado showed that economic and developmental uncertainty is an area where agencies are given broad discretion in deciding whether an impact is reasonably foreseeable and requires a further conformity analysis under the Clean Air Act. This case exemplifies the tactical limitation of using climate change and the science around it to force greater analysis of projects undertaken by federal agencies. However, the court presented a potential roadmap for successful future challenges.


Solenex Llc V. Jewell, F. Aaron Rains Jan 2019

Solenex Llc V. Jewell, F. Aaron Rains

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In Solenex LLC v. Jewell, the Secretary of the Interior cancelled a highly contentious oil and gas lease in Montana’s Badger-Two Medicine area, an environmentally sensitive and culturally significant area to the Blackfeet Tribe, nearly thirty years after the lease had been issued. Solenex, a Louisiana based oil and gas company and holder of the lease, brought this action to enjoin the cancellation. The District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with Solenex and found that the Secretary’s decision took an unreasonable amount of time and violated good-faith contractual obligations. On these grounds, the court found the Secretary’s …


Sierra Club V. Virginia Electric & Power Company, Thomas C. Mooney-Myers Jan 2019

Sierra Club V. Virginia Electric & Power Company, Thomas C. Mooney-Myers

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The Sierra Club alleged Dominion violated the Clean Water Act by allowing arsenic to leak from coal ash storage pits into state waters. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found for the polluter, using a narrow definition of point source. Additionally, the Fourth Circuit deferred to agency interpretation of the polluter’s permit to find no violation occurred.


Editorial Board, Montana Law Review Jan 2019

Editorial Board, Montana Law Review

MLR Editorial Boards

Editors-in Chief Britton Fraser Riley Wavra Articles Editors Davis Connelley Ryan Douglas Elliot McGill Matthew Paoli-Asaro Joshua Thornton Managing Editor Rebekah Gryder Intake Editor Jacob Rebo Staff Kylar Clifton Kelsey Dayton Lacey Fortin Joseph Gresham Mariah Johnson Dillon Kato Katy Lindberg Brent Mead Lindsay Mullineaux Kevin Ness Remy Orrantia Deanna Rothwell Ally Seneczko Holly Suek Dimitrios Tsolakidis Joseph Weaver Peter Yould Faculty Advisor Anthony Johnstone


The 'Second Wave' Of Spanish Clinical Legal Education: Empirical, Pedagogical, And Institutional Lessons For A Pilot Course And Program At The University Of Granada, Andrew King-Ries, Masao Javier Lopez Sako, Eduardo R.C. Capulong, Pilar Fernandez Artiach Jan 2019

The 'Second Wave' Of Spanish Clinical Legal Education: Empirical, Pedagogical, And Institutional Lessons For A Pilot Course And Program At The University Of Granada, Andrew King-Ries, Masao Javier Lopez Sako, Eduardo R.C. Capulong, Pilar Fernandez Artiach

Faculty Law Review Articles

Spanish clinicians today benefit from the ‘first wave’ of early adopters. We also benefit from decades of clinical scholarship—most recently about the Western European and global clinical legal education movements—and empirical data on what lawyers actually do and need in practice. In this article, the authors summarize key empirical, pedagogical, and institutional lessons to ground the creation of a pilot course and program at the University of Granada.


The Good, The Bad, And The Unnecessary : Forest Fire Suppression Funding And Forest Management Provisions Of The Consolidated Appropriations Act Of 2018, Peter B. Taylor Jan 2019

The Good, The Bad, And The Unnecessary : Forest Fire Suppression Funding And Forest Management Provisions Of The Consolidated Appropriations Act Of 2018, Peter B. Taylor

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.


Board Of Editors Jan 2019

Board Of Editors

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.


Waiving Federal Sovereign Immunity In Original Actions Between States, Sandra B. Zellmer Jan 2019

Waiving Federal Sovereign Immunity In Original Actions Between States, Sandra B. Zellmer

Faculty Law Review Articles

There are tremendous disparities between high stakes original actions between states before the US. Supreme Court, where there is no waiver of federal sovereign immunity, and other types of cases in the lower courts, where a plethora of immunity waivers allow states and other parties to seek relief from the federal government for Fifth Amendment takings, unlawful agency action, and tort claims. Federal actions or omissions are often at the heart of the dispute, and federal involvement may be crucial for purposes of providing an equitable remedy to the state parties, but there is no reliable mechanism for bringing the …


Table Of Contents Jan 2019

Table Of Contents

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.


Loyalties And Royalties: The Osage Nation’S Energy Sovereignty Plan And Wind Farm Opposition, Summer L. Carmack Jan 2019

Loyalties And Royalties: The Osage Nation’S Energy Sovereignty Plan And Wind Farm Opposition, Summer L. Carmack

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.


Enough Is Enough : Ten Years Of Carcieri V . Salazar, Bethany C. Sullivan, Jennifer L. Turner Jan 2019

Enough Is Enough : Ten Years Of Carcieri V . Salazar, Bethany C. Sullivan, Jennifer L. Turner

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Ten years ago, the United States Supreme Court issued its watershed decision in Carcieri v. Salazar, landing a gut punch to Indian country. Through that decision, the Supreme Court upended decades of Department of the Interior regulations, policy, and practice related to the eligibility of all federally recognized tribes for the restoration of tribal homelands through the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934. The Court held that tribes must demonstrate that they were “under federal jurisdiction” in 1934 to qualify for land into trust under the first definition of “Indian” in the IRA. Carcieri has impacted all tribes by upending …


Table Of Contents Jan 2019

Table Of Contents

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.


Letter To The Reader Jan 2019

Letter To The Reader

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Interaction Of U.S. Public Lands, Water, And State Sovereignty In The West: A Reassessment And Celebration, John D. Leshy Jan 2019

The Interaction Of U.S. Public Lands, Water, And State Sovereignty In The West: A Reassessment And Celebration, John D. Leshy

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.


Brief Of Amici Curiae Indian Law Professors In Support Of Petitioner, Monte Mills Jan 2019

Brief Of Amici Curiae Indian Law Professors In Support Of Petitioner, Monte Mills

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.


Crowley Acknowledgement Jan 2019

Crowley Acknowledgement

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.


Letter To The Reader Jan 2019

Letter To The Reader

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.


Investigating A Macro Level Trial Tax: An Analysis Of The Relationship Between A Circuit's Plea Proportion And Median Sentence Length In U.S. Federal Courts, Denise Lafontaine Jan 2019

Investigating A Macro Level Trial Tax: An Analysis Of The Relationship Between A Circuit's Plea Proportion And Median Sentence Length In U.S. Federal Courts, Denise Lafontaine

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This study investigates the relationship between the proportion of cases resolved by plea in the federal court circuits and the median sentence length of those circuits. Through OLS regression, this study models the relationship, controlling for variation in circuits, year, and violent crime proportion. With an understanding of two common theoretical frameworks surrounding the trial tax discussion, this study theorized under a focal concerns perspective that as the proportion of cases resolved by plea in a circuit increases, the median sentence length of that circuit would decrease. The results of this study are consistent with results of prior research showing …


Constitutional Protections Of Property Interests In Western Water, James L. Huffman, Hertha L. Lund, Christopher T. Scoones Jan 2019

Constitutional Protections Of Property Interests In Western Water, James L. Huffman, Hertha L. Lund, Christopher T. Scoones

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.


Indigenous Law At The Supreme Court Of Canada, Russell Brown Jan 2019

Indigenous Law At The Supreme Court Of Canada, Russell Brown

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.