Many members of the business community are increasingly concerned that western water scarcity is a threat to producing and selling their products, and more generally, to maintaining the healthy social and economic conditions that are needed to sustain strong economies. A variety of initiatives are now underway to address this concern, and to address water management issues both within and outside of their sphere of operations.
Mike Bernier Director of Sustainability and Environmental Affairs, Swire Coca-Cola
Todd Reeve Chief Executive Officer,BEF/Business for Water Stewardship
Water Markets and Private Investments in Western Agriculture: A Road Forward?
Thursday, September 24th, 2020
Using market forces to shift the distribution and use of western water resources is a controversial topic. Some individuals fear that private investments in western agriculture will doom the sector, as water will inevitably flow to higher-paying uses and users in urban settings. To others, these investments allow agriculture to become more efficient and resilient, and when done correctly, can minimize any pain associated with large-scale water reallocations.
James Eklund Founder and CEO, Eklund Hanlon LLC
Peter Fleming General Counsel, Colorado River Water Conservation District
Gone are the days when funding western water needs was merely a task of gaining Congressional authorization and appropriations for new dams and reservoirs. Today, federal funds are limited, and much of what needs to happen does not involve new infrastructure. A vast toolbox of potential funding strategies are, at least theoretically, available, although many options are unproven. Many such strategies are under consideration in Colorado for implementing the State Water Plan.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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