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Full-Text Articles in Law
Heat Waves And A Public-Private Partnership In Alaska, Karen Sandrik, Sarah Matsumoto
Heat Waves And A Public-Private Partnership In Alaska, Karen Sandrik, Sarah Matsumoto
Alaska Law Review
The recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act represents the largest single step that Congress has taken to combat harms from climate change. In its over $360 billion commitment, the Act incentivizes clean energy development and generation, includes methods to directly lower residential utility bills and increase home efficiency, promotes cleaner transportation and agricultural practices, and funds states' and cities' efforts to meet their individual climate goals. While many environmental organizations applauded the Act's passage, some—even simultaneously—expressed concern about its tradeoffs: the Act continues to invest in fossil fuels, subsidizing pipeline construction and guaranteeing new oil and gas leases, specifically expanding leasing in …
Keynote Address: Alaska Native Peoples And The Environment, Elizabeth Saagulik Hensley, Esq.
Keynote Address: Alaska Native Peoples And The Environment, Elizabeth Saagulik Hensley, Esq.
Alaska Law Review
No abstract provided.
Coastal Marine Debris In Alaska: Problems With Plastics, Pollution, & Policy, Savannah Artusi
Coastal Marine Debris In Alaska: Problems With Plastics, Pollution, & Policy, Savannah Artusi
Alaska Law Review
Plastics pollute people and the planet throughout their lifecycle, from intensive extraction of raw materials to chemical leaching during their use to entangling animals in discarded plastic products. Plastic waste is especially troublesome in Alaska, where the state's extensive shoreline and coastal communities are disproportionately inundated with plastic marine debris. Current policies internationally, in the United States, and in Alaska have not done enough to prevent plastic waste from ending up on Alaska's coasts, to hold plastic producers accountable for that waste, or to provide Alaskan communities the support needed to remove the waste themselves. This Note offers several proposals …
Wilderness V. Oil: Resource Balancing In The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Megan Mason Dister
Wilderness V. Oil: Resource Balancing In The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Megan Mason Dister
Alaska Law Review
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a national wildlife refuge in a remote region of Alaska, has captured the national spotlight for decades due to conflicting viewpoints on how to manage the refuge's resources. ANWR is home to a large population of diverse species and Alaska Native communities. However, it may also contain large quantities of oil. Debates over ANWR resource management often provide only two options: preserve the Coastal Plain as wilderness or allow energy development. In 2017, a congressional budget resolution opened a portion of ANWR (the Coastal Plain) to oil and gas leasing for the first time. …
Protecting Subsistence Lands While Boosting The Bottom Line: The Enhanced Federal Tax Incentive Available To Alaska Native Corporations For Donations Of Conservation Easements, Timothy Troll, Konrad Liegel
Protecting Subsistence Lands While Boosting The Bottom Line: The Enhanced Federal Tax Incentive Available To Alaska Native Corporations For Donations Of Conservation Easements, Timothy Troll, Konrad Liegel
Alaska Law Review
Alaska Native corporations face a dilemma. They own land of immense and significant cultural and ecological value. Their lands are critical for maintaining the Alaska Natives' subsistence needs. But they are also corporations established under the law to maximize the economic value of their land holdings to provide financial dividends to their Native shareholders. This paper explores the enhanced federal tax incentive for donations of perpetual conservation easements that became available in 2015 to Alaska Native corporations. The tax incentive offers Alaska Native corporations a way to protect the aboriginal lands conveyed to them under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement …
The Kenai Rule In Four Acts: Bear Baiting, Firearms, And Hunting: Comment & Analysis Of Alaska V. Bernhardt, Jon C. Nachtigal, Mike Stocz
The Kenai Rule In Four Acts: Bear Baiting, Firearms, And Hunting: Comment & Analysis Of Alaska V. Bernhardt, Jon C. Nachtigal, Mike Stocz
Alaska Law Review
The Kenai Rule, enacted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2016, prohibits (a) the hunting of brown bears with bait in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, (b) most hunting in the Skilak Wildlife Recreation Area, and (c) the discharge of firearms along the Kenai and Russian Rivers. The Kenai Rule was challenged by the State of Alaska and Safari Club International in Alaska v. Bernhardt. This Comment provides an overview of the case as it was heard in the District Court of Alaska. This discussion includes arguments and counterarguments surrounding the application of four legislative acts: the …
Strangers In Their Own Land: A Survey Of The Status Of The Alaska Native People From The Russian Occupation Through The Turn Of The Twentieth Century, Jon W. Katchen, Nicholas Ostrovsky
Strangers In Their Own Land: A Survey Of The Status Of The Alaska Native People From The Russian Occupation Through The Turn Of The Twentieth Century, Jon W. Katchen, Nicholas Ostrovsky
Alaska Law Review
The federal government's scattershot treatment of Alaska Natives has long created confusion over the legal status and rights of Alaska Natives and Alaska Native entities. This confusion was center stage in the recent Supreme Court case, Yellen v. Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, involving "Indian Tribe" entitlement to CARES Act relief funds. To better understand the reason uncertainty remains after more than 150 years since the purchase of Alaska from Russia, and more than sixty years after Alaska's statehood, we must look to the unique history of Alaska Natives. Starting in the mid-1700s, this Article surveys the laws …
Alaska's Lengthy Sentences Are Not The Answer To Sex Offenses, Margot Graham
Alaska's Lengthy Sentences Are Not The Answer To Sex Offenses, Margot Graham
Alaska Law Review
Individuals convicted of sex offenses in Alaska are serving extremely long sentences in prison. The Alaska legislature restricted the ability of those convicted of sex offenses to have their cases referred to three-judge panels for sentencing outside the presumptive sentencing range set by the legislature. The Alaska Supreme Court then held that different forms of sexual penetration are distinct and separate offenses, meaning that the associated charges cannot be merged and the sentences must run consecutively. Thus, Alaska has embraced lengthy sentences for sex offenses. Unfortunately, this punitive practice is doing little to protect Alaskan communities or rehabilitate the people …
Ancsa Corporation Proxy Wars, Aaron M. Schutt
Ancsa Corporation Proxy Wars, Aaron M. Schutt
Alaska Law Review
When Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971 (ANCSA), it directed the creation of twelve regional and over two hundred village corporations chartered under Alaska state law. The Act made governance of those corporations largely subject to Alaska state law, including the laws and regulations applicable to corporate elections. This Article reviews the legal history of the corporate proxy wars and related election issues that the ANCSA corporations and candidates for their boards of directors have waged over the past nearly fifty years in proxy complaints filed with the Alaska Division of Securities, and in state and …
It Takes A Village: Repurposing Takings Doctrine To Address Melting Permafrost In Alaska Native Towns, Sasha Kahn
It Takes A Village: Repurposing Takings Doctrine To Address Melting Permafrost In Alaska Native Towns, Sasha Kahn
Alaska Law Review
Dozens of Alaska Native villages face an existential crisis as Alaska's permafrost melts, causing soil erosion and instability. Adapting to these rapidly changing conditions is unworkable, so most villages will have to physically move to locations atop bedrock. The estimated costs for these moves are enormous, and not even the combination of available federal and state administrative resources can adequately cover them. One possible avenue for funding is a state inverse condemnation regulatory takings claim, which posits that state action has caused the property destruction in the villages. Alaska has a unique relationship to its oil extraction industry, which has …
Renewed Debate Over Alaska's Establishment Clause: Hunt V. Kenai Peninsula Borough And The Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Mary Beth Barksdale
Renewed Debate Over Alaska's Establishment Clause: Hunt V. Kenai Peninsula Borough And The Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Mary Beth Barksdale
Alaska Law Review
In 2019, a pastor of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a "Pastafarian," raised concerns about the entanglement of Alaskan local government and religion. His commentary highlighted the need to take a fresh look at Alaska's establishment clause jurisprudence. While Hunt v. Kenai Peninsula Borough addressed legislative prayer, further questions remain open about the limits of public spending on religious institutions, the need to honor Alaska’s religious diversity, and the role of religion in everyday Alaskan government. While the Alaska jurisprudence has not changed much since the 1980s, the Pastafarians have demonstrated that establishment clause debates are alive and …
The Plaintiff's Plight: Altering Alaska's Rule 82 To Better Compensate Plaintiffs, Matthew Naiman
The Plaintiff's Plight: Altering Alaska's Rule 82 To Better Compensate Plaintiffs, Matthew Naiman
Alaska Law Review
Alaska is unique among the fifty states in its use of a version of the English rule of attorneys' fees in civil cases. Alaska Rule of Civil Procedure 82, in combination with several other rules, effectuates a fee shift such that the losing party pays a portion of the winning party's attorneys' fees. Rule 82 has two fee schedules: one for monetary judgments and one for non-monetary judgments. The monetary judgment fee awards are based in part on the amount of the judgment, while the non-monetary judgment fee awards are based on the victorious party's actual, reasonable attorneys' fees. This …