Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Keyword
-
- Climate change (9)
- Environmental law (8)
- Environment (6)
- NEPA (6)
- Alexander Blewett III School of Law (5)
-
- EPA (5)
- Environmentalism (5)
- Indian law (5)
- Natural resources law (5)
- Public Land & Resources Law Review (5)
- Renewable energy (5)
- Clean Water Act (4)
- Climate Change (4)
- ESA (4)
- Endangered Species Act (4)
- Environmental (4)
- Montana (4)
- Montana Law (4)
- Native American law (4)
- Natural Resources (4)
- Ninth Circuit (4)
- PLRLR (4)
- Public lands (4)
- Public lands law (4)
- University of Montana Law School (4)
- Administrative law (3)
- Agency Deference (3)
- BLM (3)
- CERCLA (3)
- Climate Science (3)
Articles 91 - 120 of 125
Full-Text Articles in Law
Murray V. Bej Minerals, Llc, Brett Berntsen
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 …
Save Our Sound Obx, Inc. V. North Carolina Department Of Transportation, Mitch L. Werbell V
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.
Wildearth Guardians V. United States Bureau Of Land Management, Seth Sivinski
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
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 …
Massachusetts Lobstermen’S Association V. Ross, Daniel Brister
Massachusetts Lobstermen’S Association V. Ross, Daniel Brister
Public Land & Resources Law Review
President Obama established the first––and only––national monument in the Atlantic Ocean on September 15, 2016. Located 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and comprised of 4,913 square miles of marine ecosystems rich in biodiversity, the protected area includes four underwater mountains and three submarine canyons. Plaintiff commercial lobster and fishing associations, seeking to overturn the designation, asserted that the Antiquities Act does not permit a president to establish marine national monuments. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia disagreed, upholding a president’s authority to protect offshore areas and vast ecosystems as objects of scientific interest, and dismissing …
Brief Of Amici Curiae Indian Law Professors In Support Of Petitioner, Monte Mills
Brief Of Amici Curiae Indian Law Professors In Support Of Petitioner, Monte Mills
Public Land & Resources Law Review
No abstract provided.
Enough Is Enough : Ten Years Of Carcieri V . Salazar, Bethany C. Sullivan, Jennifer L. Turner
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 …
Loyalties And Royalties: The Osage Nation’S Energy Sovereignty Plan And Wind Farm Opposition, Summer L. Carmack
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.
The Interaction Of U.S. Public Lands, Water, And State Sovereignty In The West: A Reassessment And Celebration, John D. Leshy
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.
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
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.
Indigenous Law At The Supreme Court Of Canada, Russell Brown
Indigenous Law At The Supreme Court Of Canada, Russell Brown
Public Land & Resources Law Review
No abstract provided.
Constitutional Protections Of Property Interests In Western Water, James L. Huffman, Hertha L. Lund, Christopher T. Scoones
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.
Western Organization Of Resource Councils V. United States Bureau Of Land Management, Seth Sivinski
Western Organization Of Resource Councils V. United States Bureau Of Land Management, Seth Sivinski
Public Land & Resources Law Review
To what extent must the BLM analyze potential climate change impacts where millions of acres of public lands and federal mineral estates are being considered for coal development? Western Organization of Resource Councils v. BLM addresses this, setting the scope for NEPA-mandated environmental impact analysis and reasonable alternative consideration by federal agencies. Judge Brian Morris of the District of Montana eschewed BLM’s assertions that considering climate impacts would be speculative, instead requiring BLM to acknowledge scientific reality and include modern climate science in its NEPA review analysis.
Highway Culverts, Salmon Runs, And The Stevens Treaties: A Century Of Litigating Pacific Northwest Tribal Fishing Rights, Ryan Hickey
Public Land & Resources Law Review
Isaac Stevens, then Superintendent of Indian Affairs and Governor of Washington Territory, negotiated a series of treaties with Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest during 1854 and 1855. A century and a half later in 2001, the United States joined 21 Indian tribes in filing a Request for Determination in the United States District Court for the District of Washington. Plaintiffs alleged the State of Washington had violated those 150-year-old treaties, which remained in effect, by building and maintaining culverts under roads that prevented salmon passage. This litigation eventually reached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which held in favor …
Collaboration Through Nepa: Achieving A Social License To Operate On Federal Public Lands, Temple Stoellinger, L. Steven Smutko, Jessica M. Western
Collaboration Through Nepa: Achieving A Social License To Operate On Federal Public Lands, Temple Stoellinger, L. Steven Smutko, Jessica M. Western
Public Land & Resources Law Review
As demand and consumption of natural gas increases, so will drilling operations to extract the natural gas on federal public lands. Fueled by the shale gas revolution, natural gas drilling operations are now frequently taking place, not only in the highly documented urban settings, but also on federal public lands with high conservation value. The phenomenon of increased drilling in sensitive locations, both urban and remote, has sparked increased public opposition, requiring oil and gas producers to reconsider how they engage the public. Oil and gas producers have increasingly deployed the concept of a social license to operate to gain …
Public-Private Conservation Agreements And The Greater Sage-Grouse, Justin R. Pidot
Public-Private Conservation Agreements And The Greater Sage-Grouse, Justin R. Pidot
Public Land & Resources Law Review
In 2015, the Obama Administration announced its conservation plans for the greater sage-grouse, an iconic bird of the intermountain west.Political leadership at the time described those plans as the “largest landscape-level conservation effort in U.S. history,”and they served as the foundation for a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) that a listing of the bird was not warranted under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”). The Trump Administration appears poised to substantially amend the plans, although an array of interested parties have urged that the plans be left intact. Regardless of the outcome of this debate, conservation of …
Streamlining The Production Of Clean Energy: Proposals To Reform The Hydroelectricity Licensing Process, Travis Kavulla, Laura Farkas
Streamlining The Production Of Clean Energy: Proposals To Reform The Hydroelectricity Licensing Process, Travis Kavulla, Laura Farkas
Public Land & Resources Law Review
Hydroelectric power is an efficient and clean source of power. In an era when air emissions dominate public concern about the environmental effects of the energy sector, it is a paradox that among the most highly regulated energy projects are hydroelectric dams, which do not combust fuel. This is partly due to a failure of successive statutory enactments,which have transformed hydroelectric licensing from a regulatory “one-stop shop” with a single regulator, to a process chained to a bewilderingnumber of often conflicting regulatory agencies, often riven with delay. Hydroelectric licensing has also failed because its capacious standard of review encourages special-interest …
Keeping Power In Charge: Federal Hydropower And The Downstream Environment, Reed D. Benson
Keeping Power In Charge: Federal Hydropower And The Downstream Environment, Reed D. Benson
Public Land & Resources Law Review
No abstract provided.
Language Matters: Environmental Controversy And The Quest For Common Ground, Scott Slovic
Language Matters: Environmental Controversy And The Quest For Common Ground, Scott Slovic
Public Land & Resources Law Review
No abstract provided.
Center For Biological Diversity V. Zinke, Ryan Hickey
Center For Biological Diversity V. Zinke, Ryan Hickey
Public Land & Resources Law Review
The oft-cited “arbitrary and capricious” standard revived the Center for Biological Diversity’s most recent legal challenge in its decades-long quest to see arctic grayling listed under the Endangered Species Act. While this Ninth Circuit decision did not grant grayling ESA protections, it did require the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its 2014 finding that listing grayling as threatened or endangered was unwarranted. In doing so, the court found “range,” as used in the ESA, vague while endorsing the FWS’s 2014 clarification of that term. Finally, this holding identified specific shortcomings of the challenged FWS finding, highlighting how …
Friends Of Animals V. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, Bradley E. Tinker
Friends Of Animals V. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, Bradley E. Tinker
Public Land & Resources Law Review
In Friends of Animals v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, the Ninth Circuit held that the plain language of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act allows for the removal of one species of bird to benefit another species. Friends of Animals argued that the Service’s experiment permitting the taking of one species––the barred owl––to advance the conservation of a different species––the northern spotted owl––violated the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The court, however, found that the Act delegates broad implementing discretion to the Secretary of the Interior, and neither the Act nor the underlying international conventions limit the taking of …
Public Employees For Environmental Responsibility V. United States Epa, F. Aaron Rains
Public Employees For Environmental Responsibility V. United States Epa, F. Aaron Rains
Public Land & Resources Law Review
Prior to 2016, the EPA acknowledged that human activities significantly contribute to climate change. However, on March 9, 2017, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that significant debate regarding the issue remained in the scientific community. In response to these statements, a nonprofit organization filed a FOIA request with the EPA seeking any documents or records Pruitt may have used when formulating his statements or substantiating his position. The EPA refused to comply with the request, citing undue burden and improper interrogation and this action followed. Upon review, the District Court for the District of Columbia found the plaintiff’s FOIA request …
Markle Interest, L.L.C. V. U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Peter B. Taylor
Markle Interest, L.L.C. V. U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Peter B. Taylor
Public Land & Resources Law Review
This action is an appeal of a grant of summary judgment to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service on the designation of critical-habitat for the dusky gopher frog under the ESA. Landowner appellants originally sought declaratory and injunctive relief against the Service, the Department of Interior, and agency officials challenging the designation of their private property as critical-habitat for the dusky gopher frog. The court’s holdings recognize loss of property value as a “particularized injury” for standing under the ESA in addition to addressing the landowners’ three principal arguments: 1) the critical habitat designation violated the ESA and the …