Past Events – Page 2 – Getches-Wilkinson Center – For Natural Resources, Energy, And the Environment

June 23, 2020June 23, 2020

Seventh Annual Martz Winter Symposium

A Green New Deal for Public Lands?

Friday, February 28th, 2020

The Seventh Annual Clyde O. Martz Winter Symposium will probe a provocative set of questions about the past and future of one third of our nation’s lands. Challenges to be addressed include: Are current public land laws and management regimes sufficient to tackle the overwhelming problem of climate change? Do the public lands serve all of the public, including historically marginalized groups? Should public lands management be integrated into the broader ecological, economic, and social fabric? How should public land managers address changing visitation and access patterns in the age of the internet and social media? Our panelists come from diverse backgrounds, professions, and points of view, and they will address these questions in visionary and practical ways. The conference is for all who enjoy our public lands as well as those who want to learn more about them.

Event Video

June 23, 2020June 23, 2020

2020 Ruth Wright Distinguished Lecture

Public Land Policy after the Trump Administration:
Is This a Turning Point?

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Professor John Leshy

University of California-Hastings College of Law

Since the Civil War, a strong, bipartisan consensus has developed in support of the national government’s owning large amounts of land. Over the last half-century, that consensus has favored managing more and more of these lands primarily for inspiration, education, human-powered recreation, and environmental conservation.

The Trump Administration has moved aggressively to open previously protected public lands to fossil fuel and other forms of intensive development and to roll back protections in a host of other ways, including starving and shrinking the agencies that manage these lands.

Is this the harbinger of a fundamental change in the trajectory of public land policy, or is it an aberration? Professor Leshy will be drawing upon material from his much-anticipated book, forthcoming from Yale University Press, with the working title Our Common Ground: A History of America’s Public Lands.

Event Video

October 31, 2019October 31, 2019

12th Annual Schultz Lecture in Energy

Energy as a Locally Desirable Land Use

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Professor Hannah Wiseman

Florida State University College of Law

Energy generation is a classic example of a locally undesirable land use (LULU). Everyone needs energy, but many residents fervently oppose proposals to build a wind farm on a local mountaintop or hydraulically fracture a gas well near their neighborhood. The response is therefore typically a “not in my back yard,” or NIMBY, argument. But changes in technology, markets, and the law are making energy different from other LULUs. These changes allow communities to make more choices about the types of energy they prefer and to better address concerns about undesirable energy development within their locality. From a technological perspective, advances in energy storage and distributed (on-site) energy generation mean that large generating equipment and transmission lines can sometimes be avoided in places where there is strong opposition to these land uses. Technological changes such as horizontal drilling also allow oil and gas companies to locate miles from the target formation, thus avoiding certain surface locations. (Pipelines are still a challenge, though.) In terms of markets, energy development is moving towards economically competitive distributed solar and mid-scale renewable generation coupled with battery storage—also aided by subsidies and mandates. Finally, a range of legal solutions, such as community choice aggregation, updated building and zoning codes, locally-applicable taxes on hydraulically fractured wells, and bonding requirements increasingly empower communities to better align energy development with residents’ preferences, or, at minimum, to better address the damages of energy development.

Event Video

June 20, 2019July 15, 2019

40th Annual GWC Summer Conference

Charting a Better Course for the Colorado River: Identifying the Data and Concepts to Shape the Interim Guidelines Renegotiation

Thursday, June 6th and Friday, June 7th, 2019

On June 6-7, 1869, John Wesley Powell’s expedition down the Colorado was prepping for passage through the Canyon of Lodore, an arduous journey that ultimately cost the expedition a ship and a third of the expedition’s provisions. Exactly 150 years later we gear up for a journey through Colorado River rapids of a different kind: How best to navigate through the upcoming negotiation of the new Interim Guidelines. The existing Interim Guidelines (IG)—which expire after 2026—have been instrumental in slowing reservoir declines, delaying curtailments, and establishing a collaborative environment for subsequent innovations, but truly sustainable water management is still an unrealized goal. With the help of emerging drought contingency plan (DCP) programs, is the new negotiation (IG 2.0) the last best opportunity to craft a lasting solution to the river’s broken water budget? If so, what data, concepts, frameworks, and principles are key to success?

Event Program

Day One Video

Day Two Video

Speaker Presentations

Audio File Day One

Audio File Day Two

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019

6th Annual Clyde O. Martz Winter Symposium

The Changing Landscape of Public Lands

Thursday, February 28 and Friday, March 1, 2019

Event Program

The Symposium opened Thursday evening with a look at natural resources challenges at the State level, including the future of oil and gas regulations and western water issues.

On Friday, we turned to federal issues. As the Trump administration enters the second half of the President’s term in office, the time is ripe for an exploration of the past, present, and future of public lands law. The administration’s management of public lands has become a flashpoint for many of the controversies of our day. These efforts intersect with numerous policies and an array of legal issues – from the constitutional authority of the President – to regulatory design. We are joined by scholars, former political appointees, and practitioners across a range of specialties to address these issues in a manner that has broad practical import for policymakers, litigators, the outdoor recreation industry, and those who enjoy our public lands. In her keynote address, former Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell will speak about the current state of public lands management.

The Getches-Wilkinson Center is hosted the 2019 Martz Winter Symposium in collaboration with the Colorado Law Review and the Colorado Natural Resources, Energy & Environmental Law Review. It is our hope that these dialogues and the forthcoming law review articles will generate solutions that can be implemented by practitioners on the ground and will inform future lawyers entering the field.

Day One Video: Armchair Discussion with Dan Gibbs, Director-Colorado Department of Natural Resource

Day Two Video: The Changing Landscape of Public Lands

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019

11th Annual Schultz Lecture in Energy

Climate and Energy Law in the Trump Administration

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Jody Freeman
Harvard Law School, Archibald Cox Professor of Law
Director, Environmental and Energy Law Program

Professor Freeman discusses the major policy reversals on climate and energy during the Trump administration and describe their implications and legal vulnerabilities. Among other things, she covers the administration’s rules freezing fuel efficiency standards, rescinding and replacing the clean power plan, and rolling back methane standards.

January 30, 2019January 30, 2019

Inaugural Ruth Wright Distinguished Lecture

Cost-Nothing Analysis:
Environmental Economics in the Age of Trump

Professor Lisa Heinzerling, Georgetown Law

The annual Distinguished Lecture Series is a cooperative venture between the Getches-Wilkinson Center (GWC) and the Colorado Natural Resources, Energy, & Environmental Law Review to host a distinguished figure in the fields of natural resource, energy, and environmental law and policy. The Distinguished Lecture series provides a public forum for thought-leadership, allowing the speakers to reflect on their experiences and provide insights on the current challenges facing natural resources, energy, and the environment. The articles and transcripts resulting from these lectures are published in the Law Review.

Now in its fifth year, Colorado Law is excited to announce a new endowment to bolster support of the Distinguished Lecture series so that we will be able to bring this free event to our community for years to come. Thanks to a generous gift by the Wright Family Foundation to the GWC, we are thrilled to launch the Ruth Wright Distinguished Lecture in Natural Resources to honor her inspiring legacy as a leader in western natural resources, land conservation, and environmental policy and advocacy.

Cost-Nothing Analysis: Environmental Economics in the Age of Trump

Cost-benefit analysis has always resisted environmental protection. For this reason, presidents since Nixon have used cost-benefit analysis to stifle environmentally protective regulation. The present administration has taken this practice one step further by ignoring or eliminating benefits entirely in many instances — thus ushering in an era of cost-nothing analysis. Cost-nothing analysis assumes it costs us nothing to degrade the environment, even as the evidence grows that it may cost us everything. “

June 8, 2018June 25, 2018

2018 GWC Summer Conference What Lies Beneath: Reason to Care (and be Excited) About Groundwater Use and Management in the Southwest

Event Video

Women in Energy Law and Regulation Conference

This conference brought together women in electricity law and regulation to discuss the most pressing questions facing legislators and regulators today. Each of the panel topics was selected for its relevance in ongoing debates about the right way to structure and implement legal oversight of the electricity system. The event was anchored by the law school’s annual Schultz Lecture, held the evening before the conference. This year, the Schultz Lecture was delivered by former FERC Commissioner Collette Honorable (video below). The Conferencel also featured a conversation among energy journalists covering conference topics (and others like them). This was an opportunity for an open conversation with other panelists and the audience about ways in which law professors, policymakers, and others can support the work of independent journalism in chronicling energy developments.

October 22, 2017April 20, 2018

Schultz Lectureship in Energy – 2017 The State of U.S. Energy Policy Following the Paris Agreement: Who is Leading?

Colette Honorable, Former FERC Commissioner, Partner Reed Smith LLP

The 2017 Shultz Lecture focused on the evolution of energy policy in the U.S. and beyond following the Paris Agreement and the 2016 presidential election. The presentation highlighted the events following the withdrawal of the U.S. from the climate accord – in particular the incredible response from grassroots organizations, local and state leaders, and industry- and the unprecedented showing of leadership from the people.

Presentations Day 1-Session 1

Presentations Day 1-Session 2

Sam Routson and Mike Young Documents

Presentations Day 1-Session 3

Presentations Day 2-Session 4

Presentations Day 2-Session 5

Presentations Day 2-Session 6