Natural Resources Law Commons^™

Pace Financing: A Legal Guide To Energy And Water Efficiency Funding, James P. Cargas

PEEL Alumni Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court’S Old Habits In A New Era? Native Nations, Statehood, And An Indigenous-Led Future For Natural Resources, Monte Mills

Articles

art I of this essay looks back and, relying on Winans and Winters, illustrates the Court’s longstanding commitment to a recognition of tribally reserved rights while requiring a collaborative approach that acknowledges some state interest and authority. Part II then briefly assesses the modern era of Indigenous leadership in natural resources, reviewing the ways in which Native Nations are implementing a new framework of collaborative stewardship for lands, waters, wildlife, and other ecological systems. Finally, Part III considers how the lessons or impacts of this broader movement might be relevant in future conflicts raising questions of statehood and tribal …

Planning A New Paradigm: Tribal Co-Stewardship And Federal Public Lands Planning, Monte Mills, Martin Nie

Articles

Planning is a critical part of the federal government’s management of the nation’s public lands. Over the last half century, Congress has mandated that each of the four major public land management agencies; the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service, develop and rely on plans to guide their oversight of public lands and resources. Virtually every activity or decision affecting these public lands can be traced back to language in—or missing from—a plan. But, despite the importance of planning, the process by which each agency develops and …

Water Flowing Down Wall Street, Vanessa Casado-Pérez

Faculty Scholarship

Water scarcity is a perennial problem with dire consequences for the United States and governments around the world. A lack of adequate water resources is a systematic cause of environmental harm, economic damage, and societal division. Climate change has exacerbated these problems making water even more valuable and essential.

Financial actors have turned water into the new oil. These large financial actors profiteer from buying and selling water without any interest in its actual use as an input of production. Instead, they typically seek to hold these rights until dire situations, like droughts and fires, cause temporary, but large, spikes …

Conservation Law Clinic Students Help Draft New Indiana Prescribed Burn Legislation, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

A new Indiana law that expands the state’s prescribed burning capacity was signed by Indiana Governor Mike Braun on April 30, in part due to efforts by Indiana University Maurer School of Law students through the school’s Conservation Law Clinic.

The law expands a prescribed fire training program administered through the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and defines the standard of liability for those certified through the training program. Before the bill was signed, Indiana was one of only a few states nationwide without a certification program or standard of liability clearly defined through legislation. This new law will allow …

Montana Environmental Information Center V. Montana Department Of Environmental Quality, Alexis Karbowicz

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Protecting The Waters 4-10-2025, Andrew Clark, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Better Than He Found It 4-24-2025, Danna Lorch, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Destined For Law: From Legal Dream To Valedictorian 05-13-2025, Jane Govednik

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Human Rights Denied: Forced Evictions And Housing Injustice In The Democratic Republic Of Congo, Francesco Seatzu

Pace International Law Review

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) grapples with a pervasive and alarming phenomenon of forced evictions orchestrated by multinational corporations operating within its cobalt and copper mining sites. This comprehensive inquiry, undertaken collaboratively by Amnesty International and the DRC-based Initiative for Good Governance and Human Rights, meticulously scrutinizes the multifaceted human rights implications emanating from four mining projects situated in the Kolwezi region of the DRC. The investigative report documents a troubling pattern of systematic disregard for the fundamental rights and dignity of affected populations, compounded by a stark failure on the part of mining operators to adhere to extant …

Frankel: Law Of Seashore, Waters And Water Courses: Maine And Massachusetts, Harriet Putnam Henry

Maine Law Review

The advance announcement of Law of Seashore, Waters and Water Courses: Maine and Massachusetts served to arouse a sense of anticipation among practitioners in Maine. The brochure foretold of a thorough analysis of the relationship of the colonial ordinances to the law pertaining to the land-sea interface, rivers, and great ponds. The book was described as "An Exhaustive Handbook on Water Rights in Maine and Massachusetts . . . valuable for lawyers, public officials and property owners." In the Frankel book, realization fell far short of anticipation.

Suggested Revisions In Maine's Planning And Land Use Control Enabling Legislation—Part Ii, Orlando E. Delogu

Maine Law Review

The process which transfers land from its natural or an unintensively used agricultural state to house lots, shopping centers, or industrial sites is often referred to as land subdivision. No more long-lasting or fundamental series of changes with respect to the land can be imagined; yet the process in Maine is not only unregulated by the state and by most local levels of government, but is not at present capable of being regulated in any meaningful sense of the word. No state statutes exist which impose even the most reasonable standards, limitations, or procedural safeguards on either the process of …

Legislative Discouragement Of Maine's Marine Industrial Growth, John H. Pursel

Maine Law Review

At common law the public rights to navigation and fishing could not be alienated by the King. Dry land and the land beneath the sea could be alienated but only so long as the public rights to navigation and fishing were preserved. This common law doctrine was rejected in 1842 by the United States Supreme Court as binding precedent for limiting the alienation of the public domain by the legislatures of the various states. In Martin v. Wadell the Court reasoned that this common law principle was not applicable because the people of the United States through their act of …

Environmental Jurisdiction In The Congress And The Executive, Edmund S. Muskie

Maine Law Review

Extraterrestrial exploration and a historic lunar success have helped give modern man a unique perspective on the earth and his natural environment. We have looked on our planet from the reaches of outer space and have seen how small, how alone, and how vulnerable we are. We have travelled to the moon and photographed Mars, but we have finally realized that no matter how far or how fast we grow, no matter how far afield our explorations take us, and no matter how great our vision, we must always return to earth. This is a discomfiting realization for a civilization …

Uncommon Controversy, David Getches

Maine Law Review

In the mid-nineteenth century the Indians of the Northwest were pressured by government agents into signing treaties ceding most of the land they had historically occupied to the United States. In each treaty, besides reserving small tracts of land for themselves, the Indians specifically reserved the right to fish "at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations." Because the lands which the Indians were permitted to reserve were selected so as "not to interfere with existing [non-Indian] claims, or with the progress of settlements," many traditional fishing places were located outside the reservations. The Indians' grudging acceptance of the treaties …

Constitutional Dilemmas Posed By State Policies Against Marine Pollution - The Maine Example, Daniel Wilkes

Maine Law Review

The physical fact about coastal pollution is that, since many of its harms are irreversible, it must be prevented and not just dealt with as it arises. The legal fact about coastal pollution is that legislation which aims to prevent pollutants must survive attacks under the due process, equal protection, commerce, and privileges and immunities clauses of the federal Constitution if we are not to lose entirely the enjoyment of our coastal waters. As the following discussion of the "Environmental Protection Package" passed by the First Special Session of the 104th Maine Legislature and the earlier Wetlands Act shows, judicial …

Conservation, Policy And The Role Of Counsel, David J. Halperin

Maine Law Review

The conservation interests in the State of Maine have been roused to a furor by the decision of Maine's highest court in State v. Johnson. The case, in substance, holds that Maine's Wetlands Act is unconstitutional when applied to prohibit the filling of a specific segment of salt water marsh. While both the decision and the underlying statute are of considerable substantive interest, the case deserves particular study for the light it sheds on the role of counsel in helping the legal process accommodate new policy concerns. A note of caution must, of course, be sounded before seeking to generalize …

Ransoming The Maine Environment, G. Graham Waite

Maine Law Review

The call for natural resource conservation is widely heard today. Purity of air and water are goals that most persons seem to endorse, at least in the abstract. The dollar costs of governmental programs for achieving relatively clean air and water doubtless are high, making questions of who bears them important. Some recent decisions of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court suggest that in Maine the major costs will be paid by taxpayers at large rather than by individual resource users.

A Proposal To Protect Maine From The Oilbergs Of The 70'S, Eugene C. Coughlin Iii

Maine Law Review

The oil industry is moving into Maine with plans to develop new oil ports and to build oil refineries along the coast. Although the Portland harbor is one of the busiest oil ports on the eastern seaboard, the enormous increase in oil transportation over Maine waters, as envisioned by the oil magnates, poses frightening consequences for Maine people. Responding to this threat and to a growing conservation lobby, as well as an aroused public, the 104th Legislature passed measures that hopefully will begin to cope with the problem. Hailed as landmark conservation legislation, the new laws go further than past …

Uncommon Controversy, David Getches

Maine Law Review

In the mid-nineteenth century the Indians of the Northwest were pressured by government agents into signing treaties ceding most of the land they had historically occupied to the United States. In each treaty, besides reserving small tracts of land for themselves, the Indians specifically reserved the right to fish "at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations." Because the lands which the Indians were permitted to reserve were selected so as "not to interfere with existing [non-Indian] claims, or with the progress of settlements," many traditional fishing places were located outside the reservations. The Indians' grudging acceptance of the treaties …