Natural Resources Law Commons^™

Opening The Range: Reforms To Allow Markets For Voluntary Conservation On Federal Grazing Lands, Shawn Regan, Temple Stoellinger, Jonathan Wood

Utah Law Review

For nearly a century, the federal government has authorized ranchers to graze livestock on large areas of federal lands in the western United States. Federal-land grazing has generated substantial conflict in recent decades, as conservation interests and others have lobbied and litigated against what they view as inappropriate and destructive use of federal lands. This has produced a predictable backlash among ranching interests, including efforts to roll back the regulations relied on by environmental litigants and aggressive confrontations with federal regulators. But such conflict is not inevitable. Competing demands on these lands can be resolved through voluntary means and positive …

Flipped Constitutional Supremacy: Inferior Local Law Blocking Federal Policy, Steven Ferrey

Utah Law Review

All cities and towns in the U.S. utilize electric power. Electric power needs to be generated. Now, energized by larger issues of rapid climate change, the U.S. and all nations must transition to lower-carbon-emission sources of power generation, of which wind power currently is the most prominent and used technology. Any community hostile to wind power can pass a highly restrictive amendment to its zoning ordinance that makes the community unattractive or costprohibitive to wind or other power generation projects. There is no requirement under state law for states to allow tens of thousands of cities and towns carte blanche …

Climate Insecurity, Shi-Ling Hsu

Utah Law Review

Global climate change causes climatic events such as hurricanes, droughts, floods, and heat waves to occur more frequently and with greater severity. In addition to inflicting direct harms, climatic events disrupt the flow of commerce and natural resources, creating shortages of goods and services, sometimes temporarily, sometimes not. Climate change is getting worse, so climatic events will escalate over time, and as events cumulate, there is the potential for multiple events to heap harm on top of harm, exponentially increasing misery and disruption. What looms is the prospect of shortages of basic life necessities.

A vast literature on food and …

Creating A Transparent Methodology For Measuring Success Within A Continuum Of Conservation For The America The Beautiful Initiative, Jamie Pleune

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

On January 27, 2021, the Joseph Biden Administration identified the national goal of conserving at least 30% of our lands and waters by 2030. With this order, the America the Beautiful Initiative (“ATB Initiative”) was born, and the United States joined many other nations in adopting the 30 x 30 conservation target. However, beneath the lofty aspiration lay ambiguity. The Administration has not defined the term “conservation” or explained how it will be measured. Without a clear definition or metric for measuring the outcome of conservation projects, the ATB Initiative will lose credibility. The Biden Administration should avoid this result …

Owning The Right To Migrate: A Proposal For Migration Corridors In The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Alyssa Florack-Hess

Utah Law Review

The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), one of the world’s most treasured regions, consists of an interconnected patchwork of federal, state, and private lands. The GYE’s elk, mule deer, and pronghorn antelope (pronghorn) rely on this vast range to complete their seasonal migrations, but development increasingly threatens this natural cycle. Moreover, the GYE’s existing wildlife management framework fails to resolve the tension between wildlife and growth, leaving both wildlife and local communities vulnerable. After reviewing the scope of the GYE’s ecological challenges, this Note proposes a new solution: a policy establishing affirmative easements across designated migration corridors in the GYE and …