Law Commons^™

Live Local, Renew Local: Community Sourced Solar Energy In New Mexico, Alexandra Vk Iturralde, Elizabeth Brooke Holland, Coleman Piburn

2020 Award Winners

No abstract provided.

Can A State's Water Rights Be Damned? Environmental Flows And Federal Dams In The Supreme Court, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

Interstate rivers are subject to the doctrine of equitable apportionment, whereby the Supreme Court seeks to ensure that all states that share such rivers get a fair portion of their benefits. The Court has rarely issued an equitable apportionment decree, however, and there is little law on whether the doctrine protects river flows for environmental purposes. The ongoing Florida v. Georgia litigation in the Supreme Court raises this issue, as Florida seeks to limit consumptive uses by upstream Georgia to preserve flows in the Apalachicola River, which provide both economic and environmental benefits. This Article summarizes both the equitable apportionment …

Introduction: What You Don't Know Does Protect You, Rebecca Roose

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Property In Ecology, Jonathan H. Adler

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Jonathan P. Thompson, River Of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics, And Green Behind The Gold King Mine Disaster (2018), Clifford J. Villa

Faculty Scholarship

On August 5, 2015, contractors for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) investigating the Gold King Mine in southwestern Colorado accidently released some three million gallons of contaminated water into the Animas River, triggering weeks of front-page headlines, months of congressional hearings, and now years of litigation. River of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics, and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Disaster, a new book by Jonathan P. Thompson, suggests by its title a human folly behind this “disaster” much broader and deeper than one tragic accident wrought by EPA contractors. On this thesis, Thompson certainly delivers. However, what …

New Materialism: An Ontology For The Anthropocene, Melinda Harm Benson

Natural Resources Journal

This article argues that the Anthropocene is not simply a new geologic epoch; it is an opportunity to embrace a new ontology. In it, we can reconfigure our orientation to the material world. The current, dominant ontology casts humans as villains responsible for mass extinctions, polluted oceans, and climate change. This ontology reinforces a familiar binary—one in which humans are separate from and doing things to nature. Humans are ruining the planet, causing it to fundamentally change in ways that are not “natural” precisely because humans are the agent of change. This view is perhaps best described by environmentalist Bill …

Property Provisions Of The Joint Operating Agreement: An Update For The New 2015 Form Joa, Alex Ritchie, Gary B. Conine

Faculty Scholarship

The joint operating agreement (JOA) in the oil and gas industry helps coordinate joint operation efforts that facilitate exploration and unitization of tracts, and conservation of a depleting resource. Professor Conine’s 1988 article expanded, limited, and defined the property interests of the parties both inside and outside the contract area. This article is an update to those prior works with greater emphasis on the 1989 Form JOA, cases and developments since its publication, and the implications of the revisions to the JOA in the new 2015 Form JOA published by the American Association of Professional Landmen (AAPL).

The purposes of …

Albuquerque Journal Interviews Reed Benson, Supreme Court Hears Nm-Texas Water Dispute, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

Article by Michael Coleman

Quote:

Reed Benson, a University of New Mexico professor specializing in water law, said the Supreme Court’s task in deciding the U.S. government’s role is “very legalistic – very much a technical reading of what is and is not in the compact.”

“I actually have thought that New Mexico’s chances in front of the nine justices may be a little bit better than some people thought,” Benson said. “Some of those justices may be persuaded by the plain text argument – that New Mexico’s obligations are measured at Elephant Butte and once New Mexico delivers to …

Keeping Power In Charge: Federal Hydropower And The Downstream Environment, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines legal issues regarding hydropower, fish and wildlife at federal water projects in the West. It begins by briefly explaining the legal and institutional framework for federal water projects that generate hydropower. The following section summarizes relevant laws and policies for fish and wildlife protection in relation to federal hydropower operations, focusing primarily on the application of the ESA in this context. The article then considers the case of Glen Canyon Dam, where the Bureau and the National Park Service recently adopted a new operating plan after an extensive review that addressed hydropower, the needs of two very …

New Mexico’S Renewable Portfolio Standard: Analysis Of Existing Policy Design Elements And Compliance Obligations Beyond 2020, Gabriel Pacyniak

Faculty Scholarship

This white paper analyzes two elements of New Mexico’s current Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) in advance of the state legislature’s consideration of an RPS expansion in the 2019 legislative session. First, the paper surveys key policy design elements of the current RPS, compares those elements to other state RPSs, and identifies “policy considerations” that may inform legislative or regulatory action. Among the findings from this part of the analysis are that: 1) other states have set much higher RPS targets; 2) that New Mexico’s RPS has uniquely restrictive cost-containment measures that limit cost impacts but also prohibit the full RPS …

Imputing Regulatory Failures In Oil And Gas Licensing: A Discussion And Proposal, Joseph A. Schremmer, Charles C. Steincamp

Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that the Commission's legitimate interest in enforcing its oil and gas regulations, especially including well-plugging regulations, does not justify absolute imputation of regulatory liability to third-party operators under Kan. Stat. Ann. § 55-155(c)(4). But, under certain circumstances, the state's interest may justify imputing personal liability on the individual constituents of a license applicant where the individual is culpable for the underlying regulatory violation or the applicant has a business connection with the operator primarily responsible for the violation, and the competing public policies of groundwater protection and limited liability justify the imputation. This Article proposes a procedural …

Is There A Right To Life For The Colorado River?, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

A recent lawsuit, declaring the Colorado River has legal rights of its own, received national attention in the New York Times and High Country News. While the lawsuit had no chance of success, it highlighted important issues.

Making The Most Of Cooperative Federalism: What The Clean Power Plan Has Already Achieved, Gabriel Pacyniak

Faculty Scholarship

The fate of the EPA's Clean Power Plan-the signature Obama Administration action to reduce greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions from existing power plants under the Clean Air Act-is uncertain at best given pending litigation and the opposition of President Donald Trump. Despite this uncertainty, the development of the Clean Power Plan provides an important case study of how rulemaking under a cooperative federalism statutory structure can prompt broad, beneficial policy engagement by states and stakeholders, even in a contentious regulatory action. In the development of the Clean Power Plan, active state and stakeholder engagement and an iterative process of "trying on" …

Reducing Transportation Emissions In The Northeast And Mid-Atlantic: Fuel System Considerations, Gabriel Pacyniak, Drew Veysey, James Bradbury

Faculty Scholarship

In support of states interested in learning more about market-based policy options, the Georgetown Climate Center developed Reducing Transportation Emissions in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic: Fuel System Considerations to explore technical aspects of a possible regional cap-and-invest policy, as an illustrative example of a market-based approach to a multi-state transportation policy. The paper focuses on two subjects: which fuels might be covered under a policy, and which entities in the transportation fuel supply chain might be responsible for reducing emissions.

The recommendations made in this paper are intended to support robust market-based policies that provide flexibility and enable innovation while …

An Examination Of Policy Options For Achieving Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions In New Jersey, Gabriel Pacyniak

Faculty Scholarship

An Examination of Policy Options for Achieving Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions in New Jersey surveys emissions and energy trends, describes a “deep decarbonization pathway” for the state, and identifies the types of policies that would be necessary to achieve those reductions. Many of the policies address the power and transportation sectors, which account for more than 60 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions from New Jersey. The report also includes options for improving building efficiency, reducing methane leaks from natural gas infrastructure, restoring natural carbon sinks in forests and wetlands, and incorporating equity considerations to address the needs of frontline …

Is The "Act Of God" Dead?, Clifford J. Villa

Faculty Scholarship

In more than twenty years with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) before joining the legal academy, I saw many communities affected by fires, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. However, I never saw a case where the act of God defense prevailed against environmental liability. Confirming this personal experience, I later learned that the number of reported cases where the act of God defense had prevailed against environmental liability, under all statutes and all federal circuits, was also exactly zero.

This raises two obvious questions: (1) why does the act of God defense so often fail? and (2) …

Aldo Leopold, Estella Bergere, Mia Casita And Sheepherding In New Mexico And Colorado, Andrew Gulliford

Natural Resources Journal

Personal and regional history of Peggy Bergon, Aldo Leopold, and sheepherding.

Introduction, Natural Resources Vii Journal

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Rules And Values In Virtual Optimization Of California Hydropower, Sonya F. P. Ziaja

Natural Resources Journal

Optimization models for California’s hydropower system are designed to be decision-support tools and aids for climate adaptation decision-making. In practice, they fall short of this goal. One potential explanation is that optimization models are not more successful because they are built on, and depend on, a misrepresentation of law and politics. The legal reality of California’s hydropower system is a web of networked jurisdictions of multiple federal and state agencies, with varying levels of coordination, long periods of legally obligated stability with rigid rules, and prone to conflict, but with multiple procedures for conflict resolution. Barriers to climate adaptation from …

The Domestic Well Exemption In The West: A Case Study Of Santa Fe’S Municipal Ordinance, Maxine N. Paul

Natural Resources Journal

In the case of Bounds v. State of New Mexico, the New Mexico Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a statute that allows domestic wells to be permitted with less oversight than other water rights. The statute, known as the domestic well exemption, is common in various forms throughout the Western United States. Currently, there are an estimated 200,000 permitted domestic wells across the State of New Mexico, increasing at a rate of approximately 5,000 per year. Various scholars have argued for amendments to domestic well statutes or local regulations to make exempt well applications as rigorous as other water …

Liability And Compensation For Oil Spill Accidents: International Regime And Its Implementation In China, Yuan Yang

Natural Resources Journal

Marine oil spill accidents have long been caused by ship collisions. However, the proliferation of offshore oil and gas installations portends a marked increase in oil spills from these sources. This presents a unique enforcement challenge for international and Chinese domestic systems for oil pollution liability and compensation that were developed in response to the threat of ship-based oil pollution. This article focuses on how the international liability and compensation regime for oil pollution has been implemented in China, and whether a combination of the international regime and domestic Chinese regulations could provide an adequate mechanism for holding offshore oil …

Nasty Weather And Ugly Produce: Climate Change, Agricultural Adaptation, And Food Waste, Richard Moore

Natural Resources Journal

Food systems worldwide are threatened by climate change, as reflected, for example, in the diminished yields of fruits and vegetables and reduced production of global fisheries. This article discusses the threats of climate change on agricultural production and the need for agricultural adaptation. It posits that food insecurity must be considered in terms of climate change and its likely effects on food production. The article argues that agricultural mitigation and adaptation measures should must be pursued and communicated through the mechanisms of the Paris Agreement. In the United States, reducing food waste effectuated by the regulation on the culling of …

Fighting For Environmental Justice: The Life And Work Of Professor Eileen Gauna, Clifford J. Villa

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Natural Resources I. Journal

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Hydropower Development In India: The Legal-Economic Design To Fuelgrowth?, Surabhi Karambelkar

Natural Resources Journal

Economic liberalization beginning in the early 1990s has represented a paradigm shift in policy discourse in India, from social welfare to economic growth. With its potential benefits of generating power for the growing economy and significant revenue through electricity sales and royalty payments, hydropower development has received center-stage in the hydrorich but economically weaker Himalayan states of India. Using an institutional approach to examine the evolution of laws and policies on electricity, land, environment, and water, this article seeks to uncover how prevailing legal and economic systems prioritize hydropower generation over other water uses. It argues that federal and state …

Liquid Power: Contested Hydro-Modernities In Twentieth-Century Spain By Erikswyngedouw, John Morseau

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

State Regulation Of Oil And Gas Pools On State, Federal, Indian And Fee Lands, C. Gene Samberson

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Richardson, Elmo R., The Politics Of Conservation: Crusades And Controversies, 1897-1913, Ernest A. Engelbert

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Milner, J. B., Community Planning: A Casebook On Law And Administration, Ira Michael Heyman

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Alternatives For Recovery Of Attorney's Fees In Environmental Litigation, Fritz Ledbetter

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.