Land Use Law Commons^™

Why Good Governance Of Land And Tenure Security Need To Be Part Of The Sustainable Development Goal Framework, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment, Sustainable Development Solutions Network

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

The CCSI and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s Thematic Group on Good Governance of Extractive and Land Resources published a short briefing note on including land governance in the Sustainable Development Goal framework. The note argues that incorporating good governance of land and tenure security would help meet a number of proposed sustainable development goals for the post-2015 development agenda, including reducing poverty, strengthening food security, empowering women, and alleviating commercial pressures on land. The note recommends the inclusion of an access-to-land indicator to help measure governments’ efforts.

The End Of Sustainability, Melinda Harm Benson, Robin Kundis Craig

Publications

No abstract provided.

Climate Change And Water Transfers, Jesse Reiblich, Christine A. Klein

Pepperdine Law Review

Climate change adaptation is all about water. Although some governments have begun to plan for severe water disruptions, many have not. The consequences of inaction, however, may be dire. As a report of the U.N. Environment Programme warns, “countries that adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach potentially risk the lives of their people, their ecosystems and their economies.” In the United States, according to one study, nearly 60% of the states are unprepared to deal with the impending crisis. Responding to this void, we offer what we believe is the first comprehensive, state-by-state survey of water allocation law and its …

Wildearth Guardians V. Jewell, 738 F.3d 298 (D.C. Cir. 2013), Ross Keogh

Public Land & Resources Law Review

As part of a comprehensive strategy to keep coal “in the ground,” environmental plaintiffs challenged the BLM’s leasing of federally owned coal tracts in the Powder River Basin in 2010 on climate change grounds. WildEarth Guardians was the first suit to reach a federal circuit court, where the District of Columbia Circuit Court affirmed that the BLM’s environmental analysis of the climate change impacts of the leased coal was adequate under NEPA. Notably, in reversing the district court, the circuit court found that the plaintiffs had procedural standing.

Spring 2014 Utton Center Newsletter, Utton Center, University Of New Mexico - School Of Law

Publications

No abstract provided.

A Framework To Approach Shared-Use Of Mining Related Infrastructure, Perrine Toledano, Sophie Thomashausen, Nicolas Maennling, Alpa Shah

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In April 2013, CCSI was awarded a grant from the Australian Government to develop an economically, legally and operationally rational framework to enable shared use of mining-related infrastructure, including rail, ports, power, water, internet and telecommunications. The framework was obtained by distilling best practice principles from infrastructure developments around the world, guided by expert opinion. It has most recently been refined through in-depth case studies in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Mozambique, although its principles aim to be of general relevance to all resource rich African countries. The report was finalized in March 2014.

Public Lands And The Federal Government's Compact-Based "Duty To Dispose": A Case Study Of Utah's H.B.148–The Transfer Of Public Lands Act, Donald J. Kochan

BYU Law Review

Recent legislation passed in March 2012 in the State of Utah—the “Transfer of Public Lands Act and Related Study,” (“TPLA”) also commonly referred to as House Bill 148 (“H.B. 148”)—has demanded that the federal government, by December 31, 2014, “extinguish title” to certain public lands that the federal government currently holds (totaling an estimated more than 20 million acres). It also calls for the transfer of such acreage to the State and establishes procedures for the development of a management regime for this increased state portfolio of land holdings resulting from the transfer. The State of Utah claims that the …

Agenda: Natural Resource Industries And The Sustainability Challenge, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment, University Of Colorado Boulder. The Colorado Law Energy Innovation Initiative

Natural Resource Industries and the Sustainability Challenge (Martz Winter Symposium, February 27-28)

"An International Conference hosted by The Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment and The Colorado Law Energy Innovation Initiative."

For more than two decades, sustainability has gained currency as a broad organizing principle for efforts to develop and use energy, natural resources, and the environment in ways that allow society to meet its needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. More recently, sustainability has been embraced by businesses across multiple sectors as part of a broader movement of corporate social responsibility. Hardly a day goes by without news of another corporate initiative …

Investment Treaties And Industrial Policy: Select Case Studies On State Liability For Efforts To Encourage, Shape And Regulate Economic Activities In Extractive Industries And Infrastructure, Lise Johnson

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

This paper, prepared in connection with a February 2014 conference organized by the UN Economic Commission for Africa, discusses some of the implications that investment treaties have for investments in infrastructure and the extractive industries. It focuses on liability for government conduct (1) in connection with tenders and negotiations; (2) when responding to questions regarding the legality of the investment; (3) in using performance requirements to leverage benefits and capture spillovers from the investment; (4) changing the legal framework governing an investment in response to evolving needs, circumstances, and interests; (5) administering the investment; and (6) requesting, and responding to …

Adjudications, Brigette Buynak, Darcy S. Bushnell

Water Matters!

Adjudications are lawsuits that take place in state or federal court to resolve all claims to water use in the state of New Mexico, including those of Pueblos, tribes and the federal government. These cases are required by statute to create a formal inventory of water uses and to facilitate administration of New Mexico’s surface and groundwater. The geographic scope of each case is generally described by a stream system and occasionally by a groundwater basin. By statute, the State is always the plaintiff. The mission is to formally identify and recognize all valid water rights in each area being …

The Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge: On A Rocky Road To Creating A Community Asset, 47 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1401 (2014), Rachel Salcido

UIC Law Review

This paper examines the RMA Refuge restoration in terms of key benchmarks of successful restorations: 1) biological integrity; 2) historical fidelity; 3) identifying root causes of and addressing practices leading to environmental degradation; and finally, 4) public engagement, connecting with the public and encouraging environmentalism.

Mitigating The Adverse Impacts Of Hydraulic Fracturing: A Role For Local Zoning?, John R. Nolon, Jessica A. Bacher

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article focuses on the action localities have taken toward mitigating some of the adverse impacts of hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking. The Article will explore impacts at the local level and will show the governance gap that has resulted from federal and state regulations that leave many local impacts unmitigated. Zoning laws and other practices that local governments are adopting are also discussed, explaining why state preemption over the traditional role of local governments in regulating this particular heavy industrial activity is not the ideal situation.

Preface To Protecting The Environment Through Land Use Law: Standing Ground, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Protecting the Environment Through Land Use Law: Standing Ground takes a close look at the historical struggle of local governments to balance land development with natural resource conservation. This book updates and expands on his four previous books, which established a comprehensive framework for understanding the many ways that local land use authority can be used to preserve natural resources and environmental functions at the community level. Standing Ground describes in detail how localities are responding to new challenges, including the imperative that they adapt to and help mitigate climate change and create sustainable neighborhoods. This body of work emphasizes …

Water Governance Challenges In New Mexico's Middle Rio Grande Valley: A Resilience Assessment, Melina Harm Benson, Dagmar Llewellyn, Ryan Morrison, Mark Stone

Publications

No abstract provided.

Jump In Before It's Too Late: Protecting And Increasing Streamflows In New Mexico, Sharon Wirth

Publications

Freshwater ecosystems need adequate streamflow to supply clean water for humans and maintain healthy habitat for wildlife. Over-appropriation, overuse, climate change, and drought plague New Mexico's rivers, taxing many rivers beyond sustainability. Despite the myriad of problems caused by little or no water in our rivers, policies and procedures to protect and increase streamflows in New Mexico are limited. While most Western states have made demonstrable progress in alleviating various legal and technical barriers to protecting and increasing streamflows, New Mexico has made only limited, recent progress towards solutions for our drying rivers. This article takes a critical look at …

Developing The Law Of The River: The Integration Of Law And Policy Into Hydrologic And Socio-Economic Modeling Efforts In The Willamette River Basin, Adell Louise Amos

Publications

A legal and policy infrastructure -- referred to as a "law of the river" -- exists for every river basin in the U.S. an can be as important as natural processes in terms of managing the future of the resource. Because of the way that water law and policy have evolved in the U.S., this infrastructure involves a matrix of state and federal law that governs the choices that policymakers, end users, and agencies make. This "law of the river" provides the context in which decisions are made and not made. It also draws the boundaries within which decision makers …

Front Matter, Natural Resources Journal

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Mitigating The Impacts Of The Renewable Energy Gold Rush, Amy Wilson Morris, Jessica Owley

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Environmental Limitations To Property Rights In Brazil And The United States Of America, Leonardo Munhoz

Dissertations & Theses

This thesis aims to comparatively analyze the legislative evolution that environmental protection has experienced in the Brazilian versus the American legal systems and their relationship with property rights.

Demonstrably, Brazil’s concern with the environment actually came into focus in the 1980s and it therefore received treatment within the Federal Constitution of 1988, as a diffuse right, contributing to better, stronger environmental protection.

Similarly, the protection of the environment in the American Constitution and its statutes as well as their enforcement and interpretation within the legal system are explored.

Of concern is the notion that environmental protection and third-generation rights consequently …

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: …

New Mexico Water Law Capsules, Stephanie Tsosie

Water Matters!

This article contains a list some of the key cases decided in the state and federal courts of New Mexico with very brief descriptions of the rulings. The finalized cases have been arranged by topic. This chapter is intended to be a quick and handy reference guide and not a thorough summary of the facts and law of each case. This year we have also included a list of water law statutes.

Water Conservation, Consuelo Bokum

Water Matters!

New Mexico always has had periods of water shortages, some far more long lasting and devastating than others. As warming temperature and changing weather patterns continue to develop, the likelihood that water shortages—like those felt throughout the state from 2010 through 2013—will occur with greater frequency. These changes can and have caused significant economic and environmental damage, and the risk of more harm will not improve unless we improve our water management significant.

Drought, Adrian Oglesby

Water Matters!

New Mexico is renowned for its high deserts, mild climate, and abundant sunshine. Incidentally, these physical attributes, which make New Mexico so unique and beautiful, are also characteristic of a naturally dry environment. The state has been subjected to severe drought conditions in the past, alternating with times of uncharacteristically high supplies of moisture upon which its population has at times over-relied.

This article will provide various definitions of drought and a short history of drought in New Mexico; discuss impacts of drought on the state’s human water user communities and environment; discuss in brief the priority call and water …

Priority Administration, Ed Merta

Water Matters!

Since the turn of the twenty first century, drought conditions have frequently stricken much of New Mexico. Such intervals of extreme dryness have been a permanent, recurring feature of the state’s climate for at least two thousand years, according to tree ring data and other scientific evidence. Some of these past droughts lasted for decades, exceeding in severity the Dust Bowl of the 1930sand the great New Mexico drought of the 1950s. Today, climate change models indicate that the Southwest will likely become even hotter, potentially making future droughts in New Mexico more extreme. Managing water shortages promises to become …

Active Water Resource Management, Paul Bossert, Gregory C. Ridgley

Water Matters!

For decades, most of the waters of the State of New Mexico have been the subject of water rights adjudications to establish all the water rights. Stream systems and sub-basins geographically define the adjudications. There are twelve active cases. However, complete adjudication of all New Mexico water rights is still many years away. Meanwhile, water use in the state has evolved.New water users increasingly look to acquire existing water rights rather than developing new rights. Decisions on administration, distribution, and redistribution of water have to be made.

It was widely held, though not unanimously, that the State Engineer needed greater …

Domestic Wells, Paul Bossert, Sarah Armstrong

Water Matters!

The domestic well statutes direct that the State Engineer “shall” issue a permit for certain types of temporary or low volume wells, including wells for household use. For the past fifty-five years, the Office of the State Engineer (OSE) has interpreted this to mean that such permits are granted with no evaluation, public notice, or hearing.

Water For New Mexico Rivers, Beth Bardwell, Adrian Oglesby

Water Matters!

The Rio Grande, the Pecos, the Gila, the San Juan, the Canadian—New Mexico’s rivers are synonymous with the state’s culture and natural heritage. New Mexicans overwhelmingly care about the health of the state’s rivers and that includes flows to support fish and river dependent wildlife. Rivers, wetlands, and riparian areas comprise a very small part of our landscape—a mere 1 percent. This 1 percent plays an essential role in renewing the state’s water supply for its two million residents; for sustaining the state’s second largest industry—tourism; for producing food and fiber; and for sustaining New Mexico’s web of life. Eighty …

Inter-Basin Water Transfers, Anne Minard

Water Matters!

Inter-basin water transfers move water from one watershed to another. As droughts constrict the availability of water, and cities grow larger and thirstier, such transfers are increasingly being eyed as a solution. Although inter-basin transfers usually do not increase the overall availability of water in a state, they can move water to where it is needed most. Some of the main proponents of inter-basin transfers are pro-growth city and state governments as the re-allocation of water across watersheds allows for flexibility in planning for future growth.

Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project, Jerold Widdison, Pat Page

Water Matters!

In March of 2009, the Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the“Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009". The Project is a major endeavor for northwestern New Mexico. In one sense,authorization of the project culminates years of work. In another sense, it means the beginning of many additional years of effort. There is much to be done to construct and carry the project forward to reality, including work for the federal government,the State of New Mexico, the Navajo Nation, and the city of Gallup. In view of the Project’s magnitude, this article reviews only its major aspects

The Nambé, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, And Tesuque Pueblos Settlement, Paul Bossert, Sarah Armstrong

Water Matters!

The “Aamodt case” is a complex, long-running adjudication of water rights in the Pojoaque River watershed northwest of Santa Fe. In 1966,it was filed in federal court as State of New Mexico, ex rel. State Engineer,et al. v. Aamodt, et al. The parties include the State, through the State Engineer, about 5,600 non-Indian claimants, the Pueblos of Nambé, Pojoaque,San Ildefonso, and Tesuque, and governmental entities such as the county of Santa Fe, many acequias, the Pojoaque Valley Irrigation District, and several federal and state agencies.