Land Use Law Commons^™

Nyu Cardozo Robotaxi Symposium, Heyman Center On Corporate Governance, The Guarini Center On Environmental, Energy & Land Use Law

2026 Event Invitations

In the past year, interest in robotaxis in New York has surged. Last summer, Waymo started testing its vehicles on Manhattan streets. In January, Governor Hochul proposed automated vehicle pilot programs upstate. But in February, she withdrew her proposal under pressure. And in March, Waymo’s testing permit expired. The future of robotaxis in New York is an open question. This Symposium will explore the legal and policy issues that robotaxis raise. Our goal is to enrich the public conversation by bringing together experts from around the country to share their knowledge and experience. There will be two panels: one on …

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 …

Maroonage: A Framework For Environmental Justice And Racial Freedom, Ryan Whyte

Fordham Environmental Law Review

Environmental hazards cause significant harm across society, with certain communities bearing the brunt of these burdens. In response, environmental advocates formed the environmental justice movement to promote equal environmental treatment for all. Closely related to this concept of environmental justice is environmental racism, which focuses on how people of color are disproportionately affected by environmental risks. While efforts to address environmental justice and racism have led to some successes, they have not fully addressed the persistent challenges affecting communities of color.

This Note seeks to apply a maroonage framework to address environmental racism and achieve environmental and racial justice for …

Groundwater Laws And Regulations: Survey Of Twenty-One U.S. States, Rebekah Acosta-Hueston, Abigail Adkins, Khadija Alibhai, Olivia Alland, Matthew C. Allen, Dan Archibald, Jeffrey Berk, John Broussard, Justin Cias, Bradford Eckhart, Blakely Fahning, Jackson Field, Michael Flores, Ellen Earl Gillis, Emma Golightly, Merrick Hayashi, David Hernandez, Kate Keithley, Matthew Maslanka, Erin Milliken, Lucas Mylet, Abigail Nichols, James O’Donnell, James Osteen, Connor Pabich, Cheryl Patterson, Rhyan Phillips, Sarah Rathmell, Margaret Reed, Laura Smith, Kelsi Sorrells, Brooke Thoendel, Ani Tookoian, Sandhya Wagle, Margaret Ward, Mackenzie Watson, Carolyn Wheeler, Ashley Wilde

EENRS Program Reports & Publications

This report constitutes the third and final volume in an ongoing project designed to explore and articulate the groundwater quantity laws and regulations of all fifty U.S. states that could then be used for comparative research. This particular report presents surveys for twenty-one states from across the country. The first volume featured thirteen state surveys while the second volume contained sixteen additional state surveys. Both can be found on the project website at: https://www.law.tamu.edu/US-Groundwater-Laws.

Professor Gabriel Eckstein at Texas A&M University School of Law and Professor Amy Hardberger at Texas Tech University School of Law developed an analytical rubric …

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.

What The Free-Roaming Cats Dragged In: Regulatory Concerns With Privatized Local Services, Jonathan Korger

Northwestern University Law Review

The United States entrusts local governments to provide citizens with a wide range of public services, and animal control makes up a small but essential piece of these local responsibilities. In recent years, American localities have largely privatized how they manage the nation’s growing free-roaming cat population, relying primarily on animal-loving volunteers and a controversial practice called trap-neuter-return (TNR). Academics have long debated the merits of privatization, but TNR raises a novel question: how should local governments think about regulating a privatized public service when altruism, instead of profits, motivates the service deliverer? This Note argues that TNR demonstrates the …

A Case For Idaho And Other Western States Owning Their Own Land, Alisha Urrutia

Idaho Law Review

Idaho and other states in the western United States have struggled with federal ownership and management of public lands for decades. Since 1976, when the Federal Land Management and Policy Act was enacted and the Homestead Act was repealed, states in the west have challenged the constitutionality and legal authority of the BLM to hold onto and manage western lands in a myriad of ways. This article discusses some of the most recent challenges to this system, including a lawsuit filed by the State of Utah in August of 2024. This article expands on these challenges, citing legal and political …

Encampments And Property Law, Terry Skolnik

Indiana Law Journal

Although encampments have become increasingly common, they remain under-theorized, especially in the field of property law. Homeless encampments are ubiquitous in many cities. Social movements—such as Occupy Wall Street, the Freedom Convoy Movement, and college campus protests related to the war in Gaza—involve encampments that aim to catalyze social change. Yet surprisingly, legal scholars have devoted relatively little attention to encampments. This is a major oversight. Encampments matter for a range of moral, philosophical, and legal reasons that are hiding in plain sight and generate important theoretical and practical consequences that require deeper scrutiny.

This Article aims to fill this …

State Intervention In Local Zoning: Lessons From Housing Applied To Data Centers, Matthew De Boer

Fordham Law Review

There is growing regulatory tension at the intersection of data center development and local land use law. As states aggressively court data centers with tax incentives and economic policies, they have largely declined to regulate where and how these facilities are sited. Local governments, left to absorb the consequences, have responded unevenly, attempting to fit extraordinary land, water, power, and noise-intensive data centers into zoning frameworks designed for far less demanding industrial uses. The result has been a cycle of uncertainty and conflict: developers face unpredictable approvals, moratoria, and litigation, while residents bear escalating infrastructure strain, environmental impacts, and diminished …

The Status Of Private Covenants In Gross In Maine, Geoffrey Forney

Maine Law Review

In State v. Moosehead Mountain Resort, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court recently held that the State may enforce a restrictive covenant in gross. The decision appears to create new law by departing from the established rule in Maine, as laid down in an earlier decision in Brown v. Heirs of Fuller, that restrictive covenants in gross are not enforceable in equity. Although the holding in Moosehead Mountain is arguably narrow because the case only addressed the government's ability to enforce covenants in gross, the Law Court's omission of any reference to or discussion of its decision in Brown leaves open …

The Disparate Impact Of The California Wildfires On Minority Communities: Exposing Environmental Injustice & Zoning Flaws, Jasmyn Hardin

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unsettling Ground: Rethinking Land Tenure Security In Indonesia’S Legally Plural Setting, Widya Naseva Tuslian

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

This study examines the inconsistencies in various regulations regarding land and land management in Indonesia, which give rise to divergent interpretations and legal uncertainty—ultimately becoming a source of conflict that is not easily resolved. The study focuses on the protracted conflict among local residents living in 26 subdistricts in Surabaya who hold “Surat Ijo” certificates. The residents believe that, as certificate holders, they have the status of owners. Meanwhile, citing various laws and regulations on land governance, the Surabaya city government maintains that these certificates affirm the residents’ status as tenants of land assets owned by the Surabaya city government. …

Soil And Sovereignty: An Analysis Of Federal And State Laws Affecting Foreign Investment In U.S. Agricultural Land, Brantley Swindell

Mercer Law Review

Foreign ownership of U.S. agricultural land has risen significantly in recent years. From 2014 to 2023, the share of agricultural acres owned by foreign interests increased by 67%. Although the share of agricultural acres owned by foreign countries and interests only amounts to just over 3% of the total U.S. private farmland, the U.S. federal government and many states have passed laws to prohibit, restrict, limit, regulate or create requirements for foreign ownership of agricultural land and real property. As of 2025, twenty nine states have passed laws to regulate such foreign ownership.

This Comment outlines the regulations on foreign …

"Equitable Takings" And The Limits To Their Normative Foundations, Dylan Oliver Malagrino

Akron Law Review

This article constructs the concept of “equitable takings”—a new term of art to describe judicially crafted doctrines or decisions that result in a de facto redistribution of property interests without formal legislative authorization or compensation. It argues that the normative foundations of these equitable takings are insufficient to justify their growing influence in property law. This article examines key judicial decisions, surveys scholarly perspectives, and offers a critical evaluation of the principles that courts invoke to justify these takings. It ultimately contends that these equitable takings risk undermining both the rule of law and the stability of property doctrine. Equitable …

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 …

Navigating Compliance In A Geopolitical Era: The Case Of Chinese Multinationals In The United States, Ji Li

Seattle University Law Review

This Article examines how Chinese multinational companies (MNCs) approach compliance in the United States amid deepening geo-political rivalry and intensified regulatory scrutiny. Drawing on original survey data, this Article maps variations in compliance structures, staffing, and governance mechanisms across Chinese firms and identifies key determinants such as industry-specific regulatory intensity, listing status, and organizational imprinting from headquarters. The analysis employs a dual institutional framework to explain how compliance systems emerge from the interplay between host-state regulatory demands and home-state institutional legacies, producing hybrid structures that blend local adaptation with headquarters-driven replication. Findings reveal that while certain compliance features—such as committee …