Oil, Gas, and Mineral Law Commons^™

Montana Trout Unlimited V. Montana Department Of Natural Resources, Kelly Brady

Public Land & Resources Law Review

A proposed copper mine located near tributaries of the highly protected Smith River in central Montana set off a series of lawsuits over the use of water in the state. After a number of administrative hearings and subsequent trials, the only substantial question left was the status of “mine dewatering.” The Montana Supreme Court decided whether 1,500,000 gallons of water removed annually from the inner workings of a mine should require a water use permit as a beneficial use or if it exists outside of the regulatory jurisdiction of the Montana Department of Natural Resources under the Montana Water Use …

Montana Environmental Information Center. V. Montana Department Of Public Service Regulation, Sadie Giles

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Montana Environmental Information Center v. Montana Department of Public Service Regulation provides insight into the discretion of the Public Service Commission and its impact on renewable energy development in Montana, especially in the wake of the repeal of the Renewable Power Production and Rural Economic Development Act. This case evaluates the Commission’s decisions to grant waivers to NorthWestern Energy for its 2015 and 2016 renewable energy purchase obligations under the Act. The Court found the Commission’s decisions were arbitrary and unsupported by substantial evidence and appropriate reasoning. Montana’s renewable portfolio standards had proven effective in promoting renewable energy and economic …

Tribal Sovereignty And The Limits Of Federal Evidence: Authenticating Indian Status In United States V. Harper, Anthony J. Shirey

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In United States v. Harper, the Tenth Circuit reversed a conviction for violent crimes committed in Indian Country because the government failed to provide admissible evidence proving that the defendant was an “Indian” under federal law. At first glance, the ruling appears to turn on a technical evidentiary issue concerning the exclusion of a tribal membership verification letter under the business records exception. Yet the case reveals something deeper: a jurisdictional framework that conditions the recognition of tribal identity on federal evidentiary norms, and in doing so, limits the functional sovereignty of tribal governments in federal courts. This Note seeks …

Friends Of The Inyo V. United States Forest Service, Sarah J. Leopard

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Friends of the Inyo v. United States Forest Service provides necessary guidance for categorical exclusion analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the United States Forest Service wrongfully construed NEPA as permissive of applying different categorical exclusions to various components of the same mining project until the project was excluded in its entirety from further environmental review. The Court’s holding establishes two essential rules for evaluating mining proposals on public lands: (1) a categorical exclusion, when applied under § 220.6, must cover the entire scope of a proposed project; and (2) the …

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

Public Land & Resources Law Review

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 …

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 …

Maine's Coastal Conveyance Of Oil Act: Jurisdictional Consideration, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

Maine's Coastal Conveyance of Oil Act is the most comprehensive oil discharge control law in the United States. Such broad regulatory legislation inevitably raises questions of constitutionality and, as expected, the oil industry has brought a challenge to the Maine statute. In American Oil Co. et al. v. Environmental Improvement Commission, a declaratory judgment action, the Maine act has been alleged to violate the commerce, due process, equal protection and admiralty clauses of the United States Constitution. Although each allegation of constitutional conflict raises substantial problems, the most troublesome attack is that based upon the admiralty clause. Here the basic …

Recent U.S. Government Policy Literature On Critical And Strategic Minerals, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Critical and strategic minerals have become increasingly important in U.S. government civilian and military policymaking in recent years. This is demonstrated by the heavy use of such minerals in many critical civilian and military infrastructures. This work will discuss how this subject has been addressed in laws, presidential documents, and works by government agencies along with congressional oversight committees and support agencies. It will stress how the United States is heavily dependent on strategic minerals from adversarial foreign countries such as China and will examine U.S. efforts to increase its ability to produce such materials in the United States by …

No Lawyer, No Jail: A Critical Case Study Of Pragmatism And The Flaws Of “Purposeful” Decision Making In Argersinger V. Hamlin, Alisa Smith, Sarah K. Stice

Seattle University Law Review

By releasing conference notes and internal communications, Supreme Court Justices provide insight into the otherwise private decisionmaking process, shedding light on how case outcomes and legal reasoning are framed and negotiated. The watershed case of Argersinger v. Hamlin (1972) extended the constitutional right to counsel to some, but not all, misdemeanor defendants. The case was argued twice, and the Court relied on empirical and authoritative sources to answer complex and practical questions about requiring counsel. This case study employs critical discourse analysis to uncover what influenced the Justices’ decisions and how they framed, shaped, and constructed social realities to foreground …

The Race To Erase: Destruction Of Government Documents Undermines Freedom-Of-Information Laws, Frank D. Lomonte

Seattle University Law Review

In August 2019, reporters with Chattanooga’s daily newspaper, the Times Free Press, filed what seemed to be a routine request for access to emails and other public records held by their local county government. The seemingly unremarkable request set the newspaper’s staff on a months-long journey of unpleasant surprises. The first was a demand to pay the county $717 in advance before being allowed to inspect the documents. The second was that—during prolonged haggling over the fee assessment— the county attorney’s office simply destroyed almost all of the disputed records. Third, and most glaringly, the journalists discovered that Tennessee law …

When You’Re Arrested For A Felony In Seattle, You’Ll Meet Me., Austin Field

Seattle University Law Review

In this Essay, Austin Field, a practicing public defender, uses a first-person perspective to describe what it is like to meet a criminal defendant for the first time. He explains the process from start to finish, detailing everything from the way he introduces himself to how bail works.

"I’ll ask you for your name. Most of the time, you tell me. I check your name against my list. On any given day I’m supposed to interview between five and fifteen people. I have a lot of questions for you. We only have about ten minutes."

The Public Square In A Private-Property Obsessed Country: What New York City’S Pops Regulations Get Right And Why Other Cities Should (Mostly) Copy Them, Carson Mcgregor

Seattle University Law Review

When New York City (NYC) was first becoming the metropolitan monolith it is today, it had a problem: the city streets were chock full of skyscrapers, and sunlight, air, and usable open space were at a premium. In response, the City promulgated its first Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) regulations, which allowed developers to build skyward in exchange for providing public space on the street level. Unfortunately, in July of 2023, the New York Times (NYT) discovered that New Yorkers received only a fraction of what they were promised. Building owners received billions of dollars’ worth of added floor space, …

Modern Day Colonialism Through HawaiʻI’S Quiet Title And Partition Laws, Cheyann Fujii

Seattle University Law Review

This Note will attempt to highlight important aspects of Hawaiian history to provide readers with a clear picture on how Native Hawaiians are still impacted by colonialism, specifically when plaintiffs bring a quiet title or partition action against Native Hawaiian owners of kuleana lands. Before colonization, the concept of private land ownership did not exist in Hawai‘i, and Native Hawaiians adopted a feudal system by dividing land into geographical areas. Missionaries and businessmen brought Western ideas to Hawai‘i and influenced legislation such as the Great Māhele and the Kuleana Land Act of 1850, which solidified the concept of private property. …

Data Advantage And Merger Review: Can Entrenchment Theory Reform Antitrust Enforcement?, Shin-Ru Cheng

Seattle University Law Review

A merger involving giant digital companies is likely to dampen competition, as it allows those companies to combine and control data access, enabling them to entrench their dominant positions in relevant markets and extend those positions into related markets. While competition law in many jurisdictions aims to prohibit mergers that may substantially lessen competition or create a monopoly, arguably the review of digital mergers is failing because antitrust agencies lack an effective approach to identify data-generated anticompetitive harms. This Article demonstrates that entrenchment theory, recently reintroduced in the 2023 U.S. Merger Guidelines, would help reform the process of antitrust enforcement. …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Caution: Potholes In E-Scooter Data Collection, Dakota Rakestraw

Seattle University Law Review

Lime scooters keep ending up in major waterways in Washington state metro areas, a testament to the ubiquity of e-scooters in the metropolitan landscape. How they get there is unclear. Why they get there is even murkier. Perhaps the answer lies in the implications of modern geolocation data collection through e-scooters and gaps in current data collection regulation curbing individual liberties.

Since September 2020, electric scooters have run Seattle’s streets and have dramatically overtaken ridesharing bike trips. For example, from September 2020 to September 2021, there were about 1.4 million scooter and bike trips with September 2021 seeing 300,000 scooter …

Machinists Preemption In The New Administrative Law, Andrew J. Ziaja

Seattle University Law Review

This Article assesses Machinists preemption—a labor-specific form of implied field preemption—while freshly considering implications both for and of new developments in administrative law. The radical transformation of administrative law in the Supreme Court, particularly its newfound emphasis on clear-statement rules, provides opportunities to reconsider the Machinists rationale. Aligning with scholars who have called to question the doctrine’s “ossifying” influence on labor and employment policy, it argues that the modern-day version of Machinists preemption clashes with the Supreme Court’s newly constrained view of delegated power and its differing conceptions of the major questions doctrine.

On the other hand, Machinists preemption might …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Defining Deference: Impacts Of Abandoning Chevron On Emerging Technology Governance And Administrative Law, R. Aubrey Davis Iii

Seattle University Law Review

Emerging technologies, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI), often lead to unforeseen legal outcomes. Notable abuses in areas such as facial recognition, employment bias, and housing discrimination are well known. However, legislative responses to these issues either have been largely reactive or there has been no legislative response at all. In lieu of legislation, agencies have sought to fill the gap. For example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently proposed a rule mandating voter notification for all AI-generated political phone calls citing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991 as authority. However, the TCPA was originally passed to curtail telemarketing, not …