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- Publications (22)
- Federal Lands, Laws and Policies and the Development of Natural Resources: A Short Course (Summer Conference, July 28-August 1) (16)
- The Past, Present, and Future of Our Public Lands: Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Public Land Law Review Commission’s Report, One Third of the Nation’s Land (Martz Summer Conference, June 2-4) (15)
- The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (Summer Conference, June 6-8) (12)
- The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8) (9)
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- Articles by Maurer Faculty (7)
- GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works (5)
- Celebrating the Centennial of the Antiquities Act (October 9) (4)
- Utah Law Faculty Scholarship (4)
- Coalbed Methane Development in the Intermountain West (April 4-5) (3)
- Faculty Scholarship (3)
- Public Lands Mineral Leasing: Issues and Directions (Summer Conference, June 10-11) (3)
- The Public Lands During the Remainder of the 20th Century: Planning, Law, and Policy in the Federal Land Agencies (Summer Conference, June 8-10) (3)
- Articles (2)
- Challenging Federal Ownership and Management: Public Lands and Public Benefits (October 11-13) (2)
- Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works (2)
- Innovation in Western Water Law and Management (Summer Conference, June 5-7) (2)
- Introduction to the Legal Foundation of Federal Land Management (December 1-3) (2)
- Outdoor Recreation: Promise and Peril in the New West (Summer Conference, June 8-10) (2)
- Scholarly Works (2)
- Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6) (2)
- The Future of Natural Resources Policy (December 6) (2)
- The National Forest Management Act in a Changing Society, 1976-1996: How Well Has It Worked in the Past 20 Years?: Will It Work in the 21st Century? (September 16-18) (2)
- U.S. Supreme Court Briefs (2)
- Water as a Public Resource: Emerging Rights and Obligations (Summer Conference, June 1-3) (2)
- Winter, Wilderness, and Climate--Threats and Solutions (October 12) (2)
- A Life of Contributions for All Time: Symposium in Honor of David H. Getches (April 26-27) (1)
- A Trust for Whom?: Managing Colorado's 3 Million Acres of State Land: A Critique of the Constitutional Amendment (February 5) (1)
- Best Management Practices and Adaptive Management in Oil and Gas Development (May 12-13) (1)
- Best Practices for Community and Environmental Protection (October 14) (1)
Articles 1 - 30 of 156
Full-Text Articles in Law
Intersectional Management: An Analysis Of Cooperation And Competition On American Public Lands, Robin M. Rotman, Abigail M. Hunt
Intersectional Management: An Analysis Of Cooperation And Competition On American Public Lands, Robin M. Rotman, Abigail M. Hunt
Faculty Publications
The United States government holds public lands in trust for the whole of the American people. This article focuses on National Monuments under the Antiquities Act. It argues that the federal government should renew its approach to the management of these lands by incorporating principles of environmental justice and long- term environmental viability. The article begins by examining the historical and legal foundations of federal lands in the United States, with a focus on the Antiquities Act. It then reflects on recent litigation and political controversy surrounding Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, to illustrate how the …
An Expedition To The Public Lands: Public Lands Of The Mid-Atlantic Region, Madeleine G. Ulman
An Expedition To The Public Lands: Public Lands Of The Mid-Atlantic Region, Madeleine G. Ulman
CAFE Symposium 2023
This hypothetical "expedition" explores the complex history and managerial challenges of four different public lands in the Mid-Atlantic region: Pinelands National Reserve, Assateague Island National Seashore, Shenandoah National Park, and Monongahela National Forest. Additionally, the conceptual ideas of nature as commodity and nature as static or unpeopled in the context of public lands will be discussed in this expedition.
A Critical 21st Century Role For Public Land Management: Conserving 30% Of The Nation’S Lands And Waters Beyond 2030, Robert L. Glicksman, Sandra B. Zellmer
A Critical 21st Century Role For Public Land Management: Conserving 30% Of The Nation’S Lands And Waters Beyond 2030, Robert L. Glicksman, Sandra B. Zellmer
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
The international goal of conserving 30 percent of the world’s lands and water to stave off the ravages of climate change and widespread species extinctions has come to the United States. The Biden Administration’s 30 by 30 Initiative commits the nation to placing 30 percent of its lands and waters in some kind of protected status by 2030. Because a substantial portion of the nation’s land base is owned by the federal government, 30 by 30 goals will be beyond reach if conservation commitments do not cover federal lands and resources. And because nearly 70 percent of the federal lands …
The Emerging Law Of Outdoor Recreation On The Public Lands, Robert B. Keiter
The Emerging Law Of Outdoor Recreation On The Public Lands, Robert B. Keiter
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Outdoor recreation is assuming a prominent role across the public lands, presenting the responsible federal agencies with difficult, new management challenges. Since World War II, recreational uses of public lands have been on a steady upward trajectory, which has only accelerated during this century. Today, an increasingly diverse array of outdoor activities, each pressing for greater access to the public domain, is spawning considerable controversy while raising corresponding environmental concerns. The outdoor recreation industry is now an economic powerhouse and, together with recreation participants, is becoming a notable political force. Curiously, prevailing law says very little about recreation on the …
The Blm’S Duty To Incorporate Climate Science Into Permitting Practices And A Proposal For Implementing A Net Zero Requirement Into Oil And Gas Permitting, John C. Ruple, Jamie Gibbs Please, Nada Wolff Culver
The Blm’S Duty To Incorporate Climate Science Into Permitting Practices And A Proposal For Implementing A Net Zero Requirement Into Oil And Gas Permitting, John C. Ruple, Jamie Gibbs Please, Nada Wolff Culver
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
Almost one quarter of all U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions come from fossil fuels extracted from public lands, and these resources are managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This article argues that the BLM has a statutory duty to respond to climate change, which includes the duty to avoid exacerbating climate change. The article then moves the legal discussion from aspiration to action by proposing a legal strategy, using the existing legal framework, by which the BLM can achieve net zero emissions from all new mineral development activity. While the article focuses on oil and gas development, the …
Chapter 2: Western Public Land Law And The Evolving Management Landscape, John C. Ruple
Chapter 2: Western Public Land Law And The Evolving Management Landscape, John C. Ruple
Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and the Environment publications
Our nation’s history, and the history of the lands that we inhabit, are inextricably intertwined. Ranchers, miners, loggers, and intrepid homesteaders of the Old West embodies manifest destiny era ideals that set our nation on a trajectory which continues to shape the choices we make today. Laws enacted to speed westward expansion and resolve land ownership indelibly marked the Western landscape, where the vast majority of our public lands are found today.
The US government acquired the Western frontier with federal blood and treasure, and then enacted laws conveying much of that landscape to states, railroads, and the indomitable men …
Not Yet America's Best Idea: Law, Inequality, And Grand Canyon National Park, Sarah Krakoff
Not Yet America's Best Idea: Law, Inequality, And Grand Canyon National Park, Sarah Krakoff
Publications
Even the nation’s most cherished and protected public lands are not spaces apart from the workings of law, politics, and power. This Essay explores that premise in the context of Grand Canyon National Park. On the occasion of the Park’s 100th Anniversary, it examines how law — embedded in a political economy committed to rapid growth and development in the southwestern United States — facilitated the violent displacement of indigenous peoples and entrenched racialized inequalities in the surrounding region. It also explores law’s shortcomings in the context of sexual harassment and discrimination within the Park. The Essay concludes by suggesting …
Rethinking Public Land Use Planning, Mark Squillace
Rethinking Public Land Use Planning, Mark Squillace
Publications
The public land use planning process is broken. The land use plans of the principal multiple-use agencies—the United States Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”)—are unnecessarily complex, take too long to complete, monopolize the time and resources of public land management agency staffs, and fail to engage the general public in any meaningful way. Moreover, the end result is too often a plan that is not sufficiently nimble to respond to changing conditions on the ground, a problem that appears to be accelerating due to climate change.
It might seem easy to chalk up these problems to …
Understanding The Complicated Landscape Of Civil War Monuments, Jessica Owley, Jess Phelps
Understanding The Complicated Landscape Of Civil War Monuments, Jessica Owley, Jess Phelps
Articles
This essay examines the controversy regarding confederate monuments and attempts to contextualize this debate within the current preservation framework. While much attention has been paid to this topic over the past year, particularly with regard to "public" monuments, such discussion has generally failed to recognize the varied and complicated property law layers involved which can fundamentally change the legal requirements for modification or removal. We propose a spectrum or framework for assessing these resources ranging from public to private, and we explore the messy space in-between these poles where most monuments actually fall. By highlighting these categories, we provide an …
Natural Resources And Natural Law Part I: Prior Appropriation, Robert W. Adler
Natural Resources And Natural Law Part I: Prior Appropriation, Robert W. Adler
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
In recent years there has been a resurgence of civil disobedience over public land policy in the West, sometimes characterized by armed confrontations between ranchers and federal officials. This trend reflects renewed assertions that applicable positive law violates the natural rights (sometimes of purportedly divine origin) of ranchers and other land users, particularly under the prior appropriation doctrine and grounded in Lockean theories of property. At the same time, Native Americans and environmental activists on the opposite side of the political-environmental spectrum have also relied on civil disobedience to assert natural rights to a healthy environment, based on public trust …
Breathing Air With Heft: An Experiential Report On Environmental Law And Public Health In China, Erin Ryan
Breathing Air With Heft: An Experiential Report On Environmental Law And Public Health In China, Erin Ryan
Scholarly Publications
This article explores the gritty intersections of daily life and environmental law in modern China, an industrial powerhouse still struggling to reconcile economic opportunity with breathable air, clean water, healthy food, and safe products. With comparative perspective on analogous challenges in the United States, the article reports on these critical domestic challenges for China at a pivotal moment in its reemergence as a dominant world power. China’s continued geopolitical rise may well hinge on its ability to respond successfully to the environmental causes of growing social unrest. In 2011, in the midst of this maelstrom, I brought my husband, young …
Public Lands, Conservation, And The Possibility Of Justice, Sarah Krakoff
Public Lands, Conservation, And The Possibility Of Justice, Sarah Krakoff
Publications
On December 28, 2016, President Obama issued a proclamation designating the Bears Ears National Monument pursuant to his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which allows the President to create monuments on federal public lands. Bears Ears, which is located in the heart of Utah’s dramatic red rock country, contains a surfeit of ancient Puebloan cliff-dwellings, petroglyphs, pictographs, and archeological artifacts. The area is also famous for its paleontological finds and its desert biodiversity. Like other national monuments, Bears Ears therefore readily meets the statutory objective of preserving “historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific …
"At Bears Ears We Can Hear The Voices Of Our Ancestors In Every Canyon And On Every Mesa Top": The Creation Of The First Native National Monument, Charles Wilkinson
"At Bears Ears We Can Hear The Voices Of Our Ancestors In Every Canyon And On Every Mesa Top": The Creation Of The First Native National Monument, Charles Wilkinson
Publications
No abstract provided.
Whose Lands? Which Public?: The Shape Of Public-Lands Law And Trump's National Monument Proclamations, Jedediah Britton-Purdy
Whose Lands? Which Public?: The Shape Of Public-Lands Law And Trump's National Monument Proclamations, Jedediah Britton-Purdy
Faculty Scholarship
President Trump issued a proclamation in December 2017 purporting to remove two million acres in southern Utah from national monument status, radically shrinking the Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument and splitting the Bears Ears National Monument into two residual protected areas. Whether the President has the power to revise or revoke existing monuments under the Antiquities Act, which creates the national monument system, is a new question of law for a 112-year-old statute that has been used by Presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama to protect roughly fifteen million acres of federal land and hundreds of millions of marine acres. …
Illegal Marijuana Cultivation On Public Lands: Our Federalism On A Very Bad Trip, Hope M. Babcock
Illegal Marijuana Cultivation On Public Lands: Our Federalism On A Very Bad Trip, Hope M. Babcock
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Fueled by increasing demand for marijuana, illegal cultivation of the drug on public lands is causing massive environmental harm. The federal government lacks the resources to wage what would be a difficult and costly campaign to eradicate these illegal grow sites and instead focuses its limited resources on enforcing the federal marijuana ban. Marijuana decriminalization might allow legally grown marijuana to squeeze out its illegal counterpart, but the political likelihood of decriminalization is low. The key is reducing demand for the illegal drug by changing public buying preferences. However, doing this depends on an available legal alternative. This Article discusses …
Agenda: Flpma Turns 40, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment
Agenda: Flpma Turns 40, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment
FLPMA Turns 40 (October 21)
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administers approximately 245 million acres of our public lands and yet, for most of our nation's history, these lands seemed largely destined to end up in private hands. Even when the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 ushered in an important era of better managing public grazing districts and "promoting the highest use of the public lands," such use of our public lands still was plainly considered temporary, "pending its final disposal." It was not until 1976 with the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) that congress adopted a policy that …
Agenda: Winter, Wilderness & Climate: Threats & Solutions, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment, The Wilderness Society, Protect Our Winters
Agenda: Winter, Wilderness & Climate: Threats & Solutions, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment, The Wilderness Society, Protect Our Winters
Winter, Wilderness, and Climate--Threats and Solutions (October 12)
In partnership with the Getches-Wilkinson Center, join The Wilderness Society and Protect Our Winters for an interactive presentation about energy development and climate impacts on public lands.
This event was held on Wednesday, October 12, 2016, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m., in the University of Colorado Law School, Wolf Law Building, Wittemyer Courtroom.
Slides: Winter, Wilderness & Climate: Threats & Solutions, Jim Ramey, Lindsay Bourgoine
Slides: Winter, Wilderness & Climate: Threats & Solutions, Jim Ramey, Lindsay Bourgoine
Winter, Wilderness, and Climate--Threats and Solutions (October 12)
Presenters:
Jim Ramey, The Wilderness Society
Lindsay Bourgoine, Protect Our Winters
56 slides
Natural Resources Law, Jan G. Laitos, Sandra B. Zellmer
Natural Resources Law, Jan G. Laitos, Sandra B. Zellmer
Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship
This treatise is a thorough assessment of the important and growing field of natural resources law. It provides comprehensive coverage of the laws, policies, and decision-making processes pertinent to the "core "commodity natural resources - rangeland, timber, mineral resources, energy resources, and water. It also covers the management and protection of non-commodity resources, such as wildlife, wilderness, and other types of preservation and recreation lands. As an essential addition to any environmental, natural resources, or public lands library, the book puts natural resources law in context with a review of the National Environmental Policy Act, a history of natural resources …
No Entry To The Public Lands: Towards A Theory Of A Public Trust Servitude For A Way Over Abutting Private Land, Shelby D. Green
No Entry To The Public Lands: Towards A Theory Of A Public Trust Servitude For A Way Over Abutting Private Land, Shelby D. Green
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This article explores the problem of inadequate access and why owners of private property abutting public lands cannot fence out the public if their sole or primary purpose is to deny access to public land. The reasons why such landowners should not be allowed to put up fences, even on their own land, if the effect is to hinder the public's access to public land are several. First, it is opportunistic and unjustly interferes with citizens' ability to enjoy the interest they hold in public lands. Second, it denies citizens access rights rooted in the common law. Third, and perhaps …
Grazing In Wilderness Areas, Mark Squillace
Grazing In Wilderness Areas, Mark Squillace
Publications
Domestic livestock grazing is naturally in tension with wilderness. Wilderness areas are not truly "untrammeled by man" when they host managed livestock grazing. Yet the compromise that allowed livestock grazing in wilderness areas was surely one of the greatest in the history of the conservation movement. Without it, Congress might never have passed a wilderness bill or designated countless wilderness areas throughout the country. The grazing exception--and the Congressional Grazing Guidelines that afford specific protections for grazers--made it possible to secure bipartisan support for wilderness bills in even the most conservative western states.
Notwithstanding this success, the ecology of some …
Federal Wild Lands Policy In The Twenty-First Century: What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, Michael Blumm, Andrew B. Erickson
Federal Wild Lands Policy In The Twenty-First Century: What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been, Michael Blumm, Andrew B. Erickson
Faculty Articles
The protection of federally owned wild lands, including but not limited to designated wilderness areas, has long been a cardinal element of the American character. For a variety of reasons, designating wild lands for protection under the Wilderness Act has proved difficult, increasingly so in recent years. Thus, attention has focused on undesignated wild lands, that is, unroaded areas managed by the principal federal land managers, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). These areas can benefit from a kind of de facto protected status if they are Forest Service areas that have been inventoried for …
The Durability Of Private Claims To Public Property, Bruce R. Huber
The Durability Of Private Claims To Public Property, Bruce R. Huber
Journal Articles
Property rights and resource use are closely related. Scholarly inquiry about their relation, however, tends to emphasize private property arrangements while ignoring public property — property formally owned by government. The well-known tragedies of the commons and anticommons, for example, are generally analyzed with reference to the optimal form and degree of private ownership. But what about property owned by the state? The federal government alone owns nearly one-third of the land area of the United States. One could well ask: is there a tragedy associated with public property, too? If there is, here is what it might look like: …
Hero For The People, Hero For The Land And Water: Reflections On The Enduring Contributions Of David Getches, Charles Wilkinson
Hero For The People, Hero For The Land And Water: Reflections On The Enduring Contributions Of David Getches, Charles Wilkinson
Publications
No abstract provided.
Agenda: The Future Of Natural Resources Policy, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center
Agenda: The Future Of Natural Resources Policy, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center
The Future of Natural Resources Policy (December 6)
This forum will provide a post-election perspective on some of the challenges and opportunities that natural resources, public lands, and energy policymakers in Washington are likely to face in the next four years. An expert panel will discuss the dynamics in the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, and Congress, and how their evolving policies are likely to affect Colorado in the coming years.
Moderator: Dean Phil Weiser, University of Colorado Law School
Panelists:
Jay Jensen, Associate Director for Land & Water Ecosystems, White House Council on Environmental Quality
Scott Miller, Visiting Assistant Professor, University of Colorado Law …
Background Reading: Department Of The Interior, 2013 Departmental Overview, United States. Department Of The Interior, Ken Salazar
Background Reading: Department Of The Interior, 2013 Departmental Overview, United States. Department Of The Interior, Ken Salazar
The Future of Natural Resources Policy (December 6)
18 pages (DO-5 through DO-22).
"Background Reading"
The Future of Natural Resources Policy: This forum will provide a post-election perspective on some of the challenges and opportunities that natural resources, public lands, and energy policymakers in Washington are likely to face in the next four years. An expert panel will discuss the dynamics in the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, and Congress, and how their evolving policies are likely to affect Colorado in the coming years.
Agenda: A Life Of Contributions For All Time: Symposium In Honor Of David H. Getches, University Of Colorado Boulder. School Of Law, University Of Colorado Law Review
Agenda: A Life Of Contributions For All Time: Symposium In Honor Of David H. Getches, University Of Colorado Boulder. School Of Law, University Of Colorado Law Review
A Life of Contributions for All Time: Symposium in Honor of David H. Getches (April 26-27)
On April 26-27, 2012, Colorado Law honored David H. Getches with a symposium to celebrate his life and legacy of trailblazing scholarship. “A Life of Contributions for All Time” featured a keynote address by Distinguished Professor Charles Wilkinson entitled, “Hero for the People, Hero for the Land and Water: Reflections on the Enduring Contributions of David Getches.” Top scholars in the fields of natural resources, water, and American Indian law reflected on Dean Getches’ contributions and their own insights into these fields, including Professor John Leshy, John Echohawk, Professor Carole Goldberg, Professor Joe Sax, Professor Rebecca Tsosie, Justice Greg Hobbs, …
Governance Of Public Lands, Public Agencies, And Natural Resources, Robert L. Glicksman
Governance Of Public Lands, Public Agencies, And Natural Resources, Robert L. Glicksman
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Climate change presents serious challenges to the agencies that manage the federal public lands. These changes require new management strategies that may be difficult to design and implement because of internal agency resistance to altering traditional ways of doing business. In addition, there is likely to be a lack of fit between some of the laws from which the agencies derive their management authority and the problems posed by climate change, which differ from those Congress envisioned when it adopted those laws and which undermine some of the key assumptions underpinning those laws. This chapter describes the manner in which …
Solar Energy Development On The Federal Public Lands: Environmental Trade-Offs On The Road To A Lower-Carbon Future, Robert L. Glicksman
Solar Energy Development On The Federal Public Lands: Environmental Trade-Offs On The Road To A Lower-Carbon Future, Robert L. Glicksman
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
The federal government has endorsed more extensive use of the federal public lands for the production of solar power, both to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change and to bolster the security of domestic energy supplies. Spurred by grant money made available under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in 2010 approved nine utility-scale solar projects on public lands in California and Nevada. These projects were designed to avoid adversely affecting the habitats of endangered and threatened species that frequent the desert southwest and cultural resources important to …
Beyond Trust Species: The Conservation Potential Of The National Wildlife Refuge System In The Wake Of Climate Change, Robert L. Fischman, Robert Adamcik
Beyond Trust Species: The Conservation Potential Of The National Wildlife Refuge System In The Wake Of Climate Change, Robert L. Fischman, Robert Adamcik
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Over the last two decades, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) has come to define its conservation mission in the context of species protection. The concept of “trust species” is now a common focal point for the myriad responsibilities of the FWS. This has become problematic for one of the major programs of the agency: management of the world’s largest biodiversity conservation network, the national wildlife refuge system (“NWRS”). A major legislative overhaul of the NWRS charter and the imperatives of climate change adaptation have weakened the concept as a reliable touchstone for NWRS management and expansion. The FWS …