Administrative Law Commons^™

2025, Richard Delgado

Seattle University Law Review

"In a cutting and provocative social critique in one of the more extended Rodrigo Chronicles, Richard Delgado in 2025 employs skillful narrative—one of CRT’s many contributions to legal scholarship —to tell a gripping story of just how far the nation has descended into darkness with President Trump’s re-election. In Delgado’s vision, law professors—along with other political opponents of the President: immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, women, the underserved—have targets on their backs."

-excerpt from Kevin Johnson's review of 2025

Veiled Justice: Secularism And The Hijab Across Democracies, Mohamed ‘Arafa

Seattle University Law Review

For much of 2022, Iran was gripped by widespread protests led by women who openly challenged the regime’s authority, particularly its compulsory veiling laws, following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. Women around the globe came around and showed solidarity with the women in Iran. However, in non-Islamic countries and societies, one can still make out many prejudices and stereotyping connected to the question of whether and to what extent veiling is mandatory for women according to Shārīe’ā law. Is wearing the hijab a choice, or rather, an essential religious practice that religious Muslim women need to obey? …

Rewriting The Playbook: The X’S And O’S Of The House Settlement And The Future Of Student-Athletes’ Voice In Their Compensation, Matthew K.V. Glazer

Seattle University Law Review

Since the formation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the 1900s, collegiate athletes (student-athletes) have been prohibited from using their own name, image and likeness (NIL) for profit. But on July 1, 2021, the NCAA changed course and began allowing student-athletes to profit from their own NIL. In the past few years, U.S. college athletics have undergone significant changes, most notably introducing monetary compensation for student-athletes’ NIL. While these changes were long overdue and ultimately beneficial, they have significantly disrupted the landscape of college sports, giving rise to numerous challenges that some experts have compared to the “Wild …

Mr. Trump Goes To Washington Part Ii: A Review Of Richard Delgado's 2025, Kevin Johnson

Seattle University Law Review

Richard Delgado’s The Rodrigo Chronicles have captivated a generation of law students and legal scholars.  Mapping the terrain of race, racism, and Critical Race Theory (CRT), the skillful, and long-running narrative series stands as a testament to Delgado’s dedication to justice for all.

The Rodrigo Chronicles are simply one of Delgado’s many intellectual contributions and part of an unparalleled scholarly legacy.  As one of the founders of CRT, he produced a landmark body of scholarship –authoring the field's primary text,  making the argument for the regulation of hate speech,  forcefully challenging the Black/white binary of civil rights that long dominated …

Stafford Act's Requirement To Consider Climate Change In State Hazard Mitigation Plans, Olivia N. Guarna

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Climate change is fueling an unprecedented number of extreme weather and climate disasters with dire costs on human life and property. States and local governments now face a responsibility to adapt to these increasing disaster risks to improve community resilience and avoid an ever-growing magnitude of loss. Congress passed the Stafford Act in 1988 to provide a means for sustained and coordinated federal aid in response to disasters. The Stafford Act includes a comprehensive non-emergency hazard mitigation program. Hazard mitigation assistance empowers states, tribes, and local governments to engage in planning and mitigation activities that improve disaster outcomes and minimize …

The Martha Wright-Reed Act: How The Fcc Took One Step Forward For Communication Equality For Deaf Individuals In Correctional Facilities And How It Could Be Expanded, Ashley Seebold

Seattle University Law Review

For decades, phone companies preyed on incarcerated individuals and their loved ones due to the lack of regulation of jail phone calls.2 In 2021, the average cost of a fifteen-minute jail phone call was about $3.3 In 2022, the average cost rose to $5.74, while some individuals faced an extreme charge of $24.82 for the same amount of time.4 In the early 2000s, consumer advocate and concerned grandmother Martha Wright-Reed called upon the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to fix the imbalance so she could speak to her incarcerated grandson.5 Eventually, in 2023, the FCC answered her call to action and …

Editors And Staff Members

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Letter From The Editors

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Using Data To Discern Whether Nepa Causes Delay, And What Can Be Done About It, John C. Ruple, David E. Adelman, Jamie Pleune

Public Land & Resources Law Review

This article proceeds in three principal parts. Part I provides an overview of NEPA that is focused on the requirements contained in the Act itself, the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, and developments involving agency NEPA regulations. Part II summarizes what we know about factors causing or contributing to delays in permitting in general and NEPA compliance in particular. The central question examined in Part II is the extent to which changes to NEPA respond to barriers to development and are therefore likely to be effective. Part III offers recommendations and is …

Testing Prior Appropriation As Drought And Climate Change Push States Toward Water Code Reform: Lessons From And For Oregon, Adell L. Amos

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Part I outlines approaches to addressing the challenges that have arisen in water management under state water codes that have been considered—some adopted, and some still under consideration—in Oregon. This section examines some historical material on Oregon water law and describes the current moment as a way for setting the stage for the work that is currently underway. The dynamics described for Oregon are replicated in many western states. So, while the details are Oregon-related, the storyline is a familiar one in the West.2 Part II describes the efforts of a working group of water law attorneys that the Oregon …

Salt In The Public Wound: The Public Trust Doctrine And The Great Salt Lake, Shoshana Grossman

Public Land & Resources Law Review

This paper analyzes how the Utah PTD applies to the non- navigable tributaries that affect the GSL, and whether Utah must consider the PTD in water rights management. Section I explains the GSL case, outlining the issues, the Physicians’ claims, and Judge Scott’s order. Section II outlines the PTD in Utah. Section III first compares the GSL to other decisions applying the PTD to non-navigable water resources and water rights. Section III then assesses whether Utah’s PTD applies to non-navigable tributaries that affect navigable resources like the GSL, and what that may mean for water allocation in Utah. The paper …

"In Keeping With The Constitution’S Original Design": History And Tradition In Federal Indian Law, Meghanlata Gupta

Public Land & Resources Law Review

This Article examines the Supreme Court’s use of history and tradition in federal Indian law. In recent years, the Court has increasingly relied on Founding-era practices and historical traditions to determine constitutional meaning in areas such as firearm regulation, substantive due process, and religious liberty. At the same time, while the Founding-era record contains substantial evidence that Native nations were understood and treated as independent, sovereign political communities, this evidence has not yet been fully incorporated into the Supreme Court’s Indian law jurisprudence. Examining decisions from Oliphant to Castro-Huerta, this Article describes the Court’s approaches to historical analysis in Indian …

Leveraging Citizen Science To Advance Environmental Justice In Climate-Vulnerable Communities Post-Loper Bright, Lauren Valli

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v.

Raimondo removed the judicial obligation to defer to the Environmental

Protection Agency’s statutory interpretations, overturning forty years of

Chevron v. NRDC jurisprudence. Now, generalist judges must

independently evaluate complex scientific data when determining

statutory meaning, creating the risk that well-resourced industry parties

will use their litigation advantages to secure pollution-permissive statutory

interpretations. Without deference to EPA’s technical understanding and

public welfare considerations, environmental litigation outcomes

increasingly depend on which party can most persuasively present

environmental data in court. This interpretation shift widens the

environmental enforcement gap and disproportionately harms historically …

U.S. V. Washington: Considering The Continuing Injunction Of The Boldt Decision, Nicholas Brown

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Judge George Hugo Boldt’s 1974 opinion in United States v. Washington was a landmark decision in the recognition of treaty fishing rights for tribes in western Washington. Not only did it recognize the entitlement to 50% of harvestable yields of fish within the tribes’ usual and accustomed fishing sites, but it also provided a permanent injunction to protect future fishing rights for generations to come. Now, over fifty years since the original “Boldt decision” was made, judges in the Ninth Circuit are debating whether the continued injunction to litigate intertribal disputes over treaty fishing rights is proper. This article considers …

Western Watersheds Project V. Schultz, Cv 22-149-M-Dlc-Kld, 2025 Lx 449507, 2025 Wl 2410283 (D. Mont. Mar. 27, 2025), Luke A. Zagar

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Western Watersheds Project v. Schultz delineates what the Forest Service is required to consider for revising Allotment Management Plans as prescribed by NEPA. Environmental plaintiffs sued, arguing that the Forest Service’s reliance on an older baseline assessment was arbitrary and capricious and that the revised AMP failed to consider major impacts on the grizzly bear population. The District of Montana held that the reliance on an older baseline assessment was acceptable but simultaneously found the AMP to be arbitrary and capricious under the “hard look” standard.

San Luis Obispo Coastkeeper V. Cnty. Of San Luis Obispo, 161 F.4th 590 (9th Cir. 2025), Erika C. Rader

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In San Luis Obispo Coastkeeper v. Cnty. of San Luis Obispo, the Ninth Circuit addressed how to consider a mandatory preliminary injunction for an Endangered Species Act claim when multiple listed species may be affected by the requested relief. The Plaintiffs brought ESA and state law claims to compel the County of San Luis Obispo to change its operation of the Lopez Dam on Arroyo Grande Creek, which they claimed adversely affected South-Central California Coast steelhead trout. The tidewater goby and California red-legged frog, both listed species, are also present in Arroyo Grande Creek. The Ninth Circuit determined the …

Unleashing Consultation: Tohono O’Odham Nation V. Department Of Interior And The Case For Reforming The National Historic Preservation Act, Elizabeth Tobey

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The Ninth Circuit’s 2025 decision in Tohono O’odham Nation v. Department of Interior highlights an ongoing failure by federal land management agencies to consult meaningfully with tribal nations as mandated by the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act. This article argues that the NHPA’s framework for tribal consultation enables federal land management agencies to sidestep meaningful engagement with tribes, undermining both cultural resource protection and the federal Indian trust responsibility. To address these deficiencies—particularly in the context of renewable energy development on federal public lands, directly at issue in Tohono O’odham Nation—this article proposes amendments to the NHPA informed by …

Wilderness Watch V. U.S. Forest Service, No. Cv 23-133-M-Dwm, 2025 Wl 2985292 (D. Mont. Oct. 23, 2025)., Gardner Dee

Public Land & Resources Law Review

This comment argues that the District of Montana’s decision in Wilderness Watch v. U.S. Forest Service correctly applied the Ninth Circuit’s Kofa framework to strike down a multi-agency native trout restoration project in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, holding that the Forest Service unlawfully prioritized Yellowstone cutthroat trout conservation over the Wilderness Act’s mandate to preserve wilderness character. Dee further contends that while large wilderness watersheds offer valuable climate refugia for native coldwater fish, watershed-scale restoration projects will continue to conflict with the Act’s prohibitions on motorized and mechanized intrusions so long as agencies rely on helicopter transport and rotenone application at …

Climate Lies And Unjust Profits, Vanessa Casado-Pérez, Yotam Kaplan, Yael Lifshitz, Niv Meyerson

Faculty Scholarship

The climate crisis has reached a perilous tipping point. Our entrenched reliance on fossil fuels remains unchecked, as fossil fuel corporations wield their power to block meaningful reform and entrench their profits. The political horizon offers little relief—an incoming administration is poised to dismantle vital environmental protections, stripping away the few safeguards that stand between us and climate catastrophe.

In this grim landscape, communities across the nation are turning to the courts with renewed urgency, seeking justice and reform through climate litigation. Yet past efforts have fallen short, stymied by two formidable barriers. First, by centering on greenhouse gas emissions …

Poor Esg: Regressive Effects Of Climate Stewardship, Zohar Goshen, Assaf Hamdani, Alex Raskolnikov

Faculty Scholarship

The rise of inequality and global warming are the two ultimate challenges of our time. After decades of congressional failure to address climate change, the private sector has stepped in and adopted a set of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies as a market-based solution to a public policy failure. ESG advocates hope that corporate executives would save our planet. Where Congress failed, ESG will succeed.

This Article argues that if ESG-driven climate stewardship ever achieves the scale necessary to have a real impact on global warming, it will hurt the poor. Legislative interventions to combat climate change are nearly …

Alaska Dep’T Of Fish And Game V. Federal Subsistence Bd., Mj Fiedler

Public Land & Resources Law Review

A subsistence hunt in Kake, Alaska, during the COVID-19

pandemic sparked a lawsuit from the State of Alaska Department of Fish

and Game challenging the authority of the Federal Subsistence Board to

open the hunt. This lawsuit is a recent addition to a long history of the

State of Alaska’s resistance to federal enforcement of the Alaska National

Interest Lands Conservation Act provision establishing priority for rural

subsistence users. The Ninth Circuit ultimately affirmed the Federal

Subsistence Board’s authority to open the subsistence hunt.

A Guide To The Best Reading Of Environmental Law: Presumptions For Stability In Statutory Interpretation, Sanne H. Knudsen

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Administrative law is in flux and its doctrines flexible. Recent doctrinal shifts—like the ousting of Chevron and the introduction of the major questions doctrine—raise significant questions about how courts will determine the best reading of statutes and carve out a role for agency expertise in statutory interpretation. For environmental law, a field that relies heavily on federal agencies for implementation, the flux and flexibility of administrative law presents challenges. But they also present opportunities.

On the one hand, the recent changes to administrative law pose a destabilizing and deregulatory risk for environmental law unless courts develop a consistent methodology for …

The Federal Trust Responsibility In An Era Of Coastal Retreat: Climate Relocation, Fiduciary Governance, And The Future Of Tribal Self-Determination, Samuel Kohn

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Climate-driven displacement is no longer a speculative concern for Indian Country. Across our country, from Alaska, to the Gulf Coast, and the Pacific Northwest, Tribal communities confront accelerating erosion, sea-level rise, permafrost thaw, and chronic flooding that threaten not just individual structures, but the territorial foundations of Tribal sovereignty itself. Schools, clinics, water systems, housing, and transportation networks are increasingly exposed to conditions that render continued habitation unsafe or impossible. These impacts do not present as isolated disasters; they manifest as cumulative, slow-onset processes that erode the capacity of Tribal governments to govern in place.

This Symposium Essay advances the …

The Tribal Energy Act: A Necessary Step Toward The Electrification Of The Navajo Nation, Carington Lowe, Michael Hamersky

Pepperdine Law Review

The Navajo Nation stands as a sovereign nation, yet many families still lack access to electricity because of enduring historical, structural, and regulatory barriers. This Article identifies the legal and technical barriers that have hindered meaningful progress and argues that supplementing the utility grid with distributed energy resources, such as biodigesters, offers a viable path toward electrification, particularly for remote and rural communities within the Navajo Nation. Biodigesters convert organic waste generated through community practices, such as sheep raising, into biogas through an anaerobic process. This form of energy reflects circular economy principles while also aligning with Diné cultural practices …

A Giving Tree Approach: Balancing Transparency And The Deliberative Process In Judicial Review, Anteo W. Chevere

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Sea Changes In Sue-And-Settle Policy: The Tides Of Transparency And Expediency, Evan B. Fitzgerald

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Checkmate Or Stalemate: The Epa, California, And The Future Of Waivers Under The Clean Air Act, William B. Gale

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

A Right Without A Remedy: The Court’S Failure To Quantify The Agua Caliente’S Federal Reserved Water Rights, Lauren Block

Washington Law Review

The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians has inhabited the Coachella Valley region since time immemorial. Through a series of 1870s executive orders, the United States government reserved land for the Tribe to establish a permanent home within the bounds of their ancestral homeland. Underlying this permanent home is the Coachella Valley aquifer, a groundwater source that has been in a continuous state of overdraft for decades. Against the backdrop of climate change, water scarcity, and other concerns, the Tribe sued Coachella Valley’s water management agencies in 2013, alleging the Tribe owned a portion of the water in the aquifer …

Outbound Investment Restrictions And International Law’S Challenge, Harlan Grant Cohen

Seattle University Law Review

The Outbound Investment Rule, restricting U.S. investment in certain Chinese advanced technology sectors, has largely been portrayed as an incremental measure, a modest extension to fill loopholes in the existing investment screening regime. But while perhaps the logical next step in the securitization of the economy, the Outbound Investment Rule actually reflects a momentous shift in the relationship between governments and business, one playing out in the United States and around the world and worth attention. Unlike traditional investment screening, the Outbound Investment Rule operates like a sanctions regime, designed not to protect the U.S. economy, but to hamper the …