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Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Public lands

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The Emerging Law Of Outdoor Recreation On The Public Lands, Robert B. Keiter Jul 2021

The Emerging Law Of Outdoor Recreation On The Public Lands, Robert B. Keiter

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Outdoor recreation is assuming a prominent role across the public lands, presenting the responsible federal agencies with difficult, new management challenges. Since World War II, recreational uses of public lands have been on a steady upward trajectory, which has only accelerated during this century. Today, an increasingly diverse array of outdoor activities, each pressing for greater access to the public domain, is spawning considerable controversy while raising corresponding environmental concerns. The outdoor recreation industry is now an economic powerhouse and, together with recreation participants, is becoming a notable political force. Curiously, prevailing law says very little about recreation on the …


Unbecoming Adversaries: Natural Resource Federalism In Wyoming, Tara Kathleen Righetti, Robert B. Keiter, Jason Robison, Temple Stoellinger, Sam Kalen Jan 2021

Unbecoming Adversaries: Natural Resource Federalism In Wyoming, Tara Kathleen Righetti, Robert B. Keiter, Jason Robison, Temple Stoellinger, Sam Kalen

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Wyoming’s unique cultural and physical landscape fostered dynamic federalism relationships that have oscillated between adversarial and cooperative. Too often, though, the State and its federal and tribal counterparts have found themselves in the role of unbecoming adversaries. As current and former natural resources faculty members at the University of Wyoming (UW) College of Law, we are privileged to offer a retrospective on this subject upon the law school’s centennial. In 2021, the State is facing new and daunting challenges that are straining its core industries and budget, including economic changes associated with the COVID-19 global pandemic and rapidly transforming energy …


The Blm’S Duty To Incorporate Climate Science Into Permitting Practices And A Proposal For Implementing A Net Zero Requirement Into Oil And Gas Permitting, John C. Ruple, Jamie Gibbs Please, Nada Wolff Culver Jan 2021

The Blm’S Duty To Incorporate Climate Science Into Permitting Practices And A Proposal For Implementing A Net Zero Requirement Into Oil And Gas Permitting, John C. Ruple, Jamie Gibbs Please, Nada Wolff Culver

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Almost one quarter of all U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions come from fossil fuels extracted from public lands, and these resources are managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This article argues that the BLM has a statutory duty to respond to climate change, which includes the duty to avoid exacerbating climate change. The article then moves the legal discussion from aspiration to action by proposing a legal strategy, using the existing legal framework, by which the BLM can achieve net zero emissions from all new mineral development activity. While the article focuses on oil and gas development, the …


Natural Resources And Natural Law Part I: Prior Appropriation, Robert W. Adler Mar 2018

Natural Resources And Natural Law Part I: Prior Appropriation, Robert W. Adler

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In recent years there has been a resurgence of civil disobedience over public land policy in the West, sometimes characterized by armed confrontations between ranchers and federal officials. This trend reflects renewed assertions that applicable positive law violates the natural rights (sometimes of purportedly divine origin) of ranchers and other land users, particularly under the prior appropriation doctrine and grounded in Lockean theories of property. At the same time, Native Americans and environmental activists on the opposite side of the political-environmental spectrum have also relied on civil disobedience to assert natural rights to a healthy environment, based on public trust …


Taking Account Of The Ecosystem On The Public Domain: Law And Ecology In The Greater Yellowstone Region, Robert B. Keiter Jan 1989

Taking Account Of The Ecosystem On The Public Domain: Law And Ecology In The Greater Yellowstone Region, Robert B. Keiter

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Greater Yellowstone's future will be shaped by, and ultimately will reflect, evolving national public values. The ecosystem concept interjects a provocative new image into the debates that are now influencing and molding public lands policy. Scientifically, the concept demonstrates the indisputable interconnectedness of jurisdictionally fragmented public lands. And the concept has great power as a metaphorical device, rooted in scientific fact yet evocative enough to stir the hearts and minds of an American public now strongly committed to the preservationist ideal and its national parks heritage. Already the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem concept has fused two world-renowned national parks, several well-known …