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The Unfulfilled Promise Of Indian Water Rights Settlements, Heather Tanana, Elisabeth Paxton Parker Dec 2022

The Unfulfilled Promise Of Indian Water Rights Settlements, Heather Tanana, Elisabeth Paxton Parker

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

As climate change threatens an already-scarce resource, quantifying tribal water rights is critical to providing additional certainty to an uncertain future. In order to protect the future of their communities, it is critical that tribal water rights move from merely theoretical paper rights to actualized wet water rights.


Comments Submitted In Response To Request For Information To Inform Interagency Working Group On Mining Regulations, Laws, And Permitting, Robert B. Keiter, Jamie Pleune, Heather Tanana, Brigham Daniels, Tim Duane, Elisabeth Parker Jan 2022

Comments Submitted In Response To Request For Information To Inform Interagency Working Group On Mining Regulations, Laws, And Permitting, Robert B. Keiter, Jamie Pleune, Heather Tanana, Brigham Daniels, Tim Duane, Elisabeth Parker

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

On March 31, 2022, the Department of Interior announced the formation of an interagency working group to develop recommendations for improving Federal hardrock mining regulations, laws, and permitting processes, and invited public comment to help inform the efforts of the working group. The Request for Information sought, among other things, recommendations on “opportunities to reduce time, cost, and risk of permitting without compromising strong environmental and consultation benchmarks.” Members of the Wallace Stegner Center of Land Resources and the Environment, at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah submitted comments based on their shared expertise in mining law, …


Identifying Barriers In Usda Programs And Services; Advancing Racial Justice And Equity And Support For Underserved Communities At Usda, Anne Castle, Heather Tanana, Bidtah Becker, Chelsea Colwyn, Jaime Garcia, Ana Olaya Aug 2021

Identifying Barriers In Usda Programs And Services; Advancing Racial Justice And Equity And Support For Underserved Communities At Usda, Anne Castle, Heather Tanana, Bidtah Becker, Chelsea Colwyn, Jaime Garcia, Ana Olaya

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

On July 19, 2021, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a notice in the Federal Register seeking input from the public on how USDA can advance racial justice and equity for underserved communities as part of its implementation of Executive Order 13985. This letter responds to the agency’s request. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides a number of programs that could improve access to clean drinking water for Tribes. While these programs have improved conditions for some tribes, several barriers exist which prevent Tribes from fully realizing the benefits of these programs. Our comments recommend: (1) removing …


Trump, Energy Policy, And Hard Look Review, Lincoln L. Davies, Tyler Hubbard, Christopher Sanders Jan 2019

Trump, Energy Policy, And Hard Look Review, Lincoln L. Davies, Tyler Hubbard, Christopher Sanders

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

For those concerned about climate change, the Trump administration’s energy policy is alarming. It aims to unravel every corner of the Obama administration’s climate legacy, consistent with an overall sweep of deregulation. Substantively, the Trump policy also departs starkly from the approach of the last decade, embracing traditional energy sources—fossil fuels and nuclear power—above all else. The Trump administration’s moves on energy beg the question: What limits, if any, does this policy approach face? This chapter begins to answer that question. Employing the lens of arbitrary and capricious, or “hard look,” review from administrative law, the chapter outlines principles that …


The Control Of Methane And Voc Emissions From Oil And Gas Operations In The Western United States, Arnold W. Reitze Jr. Apr 2018

The Control Of Methane And Voc Emissions From Oil And Gas Operations In The Western United States, Arnold W. Reitze Jr.

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses the regulation of hydrocarbon emissions, including the emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from the oil and gas industry in the western United States. It covers the regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Bureau of Land Management, and other Federal agencies. It also discusses the state laws of the major oil and gas producing western states: California, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. It covers operations on public, state, and private lands, but it does not cover oil and gas operations on Indian lands that are the subject of the author’s previous article.


Harvest The Wind, Harvest Your Dinner: Using Law To Encourage An Offshore Energy-Food Multiple-Use Nexus, Robin Kundis Craig Apr 2018

Harvest The Wind, Harvest Your Dinner: Using Law To Encourage An Offshore Energy-Food Multiple-Use Nexus, Robin Kundis Craig

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Most scholars discuss the food-water-energy-climate nexus as it emerges on land. Less attention has been paid to the food-water-energy-climate nexus as it exists in the ocean, but that nexus exists—and it is beginning to be strained. This Article, a companion piece to the forthcoming “It’s Not Just an Offshore Wind Farm,” explores the international drive to combine offshore wind facilities with marine aquaculture, an emerging example of the water-energy-food nexus in the marine environment. Many nations are becoming increasingly interested in both offshore wind farms and open ocean marine aquaculture, but both enterprises take up considerable space in the marine …


Drought And Public Necessity: Can A Common-Law “Stick” Increase Flexibility In Western Water Law?, Robin Kundis Craig Mar 2018

Drought And Public Necessity: Can A Common-Law “Stick” Increase Flexibility In Western Water Law?, Robin Kundis Craig

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Drought is a recurring—and likely increasing—challenge to water rights administration in western states under the prior appropriation doctrine, where “first in time” senior rights are often allocated to non-survival uses such as commercial agriculture rather than to drinking water supply for cities. While states and localities facing severe drought have used a variety of voluntary programs to re-allocate water, these programs by their very nature cannot guarantee that water will in fact be redistributed to the uses that best promote public health and community survival.

Using the example of the Brazos River drought of 2010 to 2013, this Article explores …


Intellectual Property Policies For Solar Engineering, Jesse L. Reynolds, Jorge L. Contreras, Joshua D. Sarnoff Feb 2018

Intellectual Property Policies For Solar Engineering, Jesse L. Reynolds, Jorge L. Contreras, Joshua D. Sarnoff

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Governance of solar geoengineering is important and challenging, with particular concern arising from commercial actors’ involvement. Policies relating to intellectual property, including patents and trade secrets, and to data access will shape private actors’ behavior and regulate access to data and technologies. There has been little careful consideration of the possible roles of and interrelationships among commercial actors, intellectual property, and intellectual property policy. Despite the current low level of commercial activity and intellectual property rights in this domain, we expect both to grow as research and development continue. Given the public good nature of solar geoengineering, the relationship between …


It's Not Just An Offshore Wind Farm: Combining Multiple Uses And Multiple Values On The Outer Continental Shelf, Robin Kundis Craig Jan 2017

It's Not Just An Offshore Wind Farm: Combining Multiple Uses And Multiple Values On The Outer Continental Shelf, Robin Kundis Craig

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Marine aquaculture and marine-based alternative energy, especially offshore wind, are increasingly competing for space on the Outer Continental Shelf and the water column above it with each other and with more traditional ocean uses. The laws governing this increasingly crowded space need to become better aware of changing uses of and values for the ocean and to promote rational planning of how this space is used in the future.

In one approach, various regions of the U.S. coast are actively engaged in comprehensive marine spatial planning. Marine spatial planning is a process designed to prioritize, balance, and rationally allocate the …