Colorado Environmental Law Journal

Introduction Picture Alaska’s largest caribou herd, wild salmon, eleven major rivers, and Alaskan Native communities’ spiritual, cultural, and historic lands.[2] Now picture a 211 mile-long road cutting through that ecologically diverse landscape to reach a mining district that could put the entire area in peril with little to no economic gain.[3] That is the Ambler Mining District road project approved by the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) to traverse Gates of the Artic National Park and Preserve and state and tribal lands.[4] Several tribal and Continue reading →

INTRODUCTION In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic upended the world as we knew it. COVID-19 impacted almost every aspect of society and the planet—even ocean ecosystems. As global economies sunk into recession, the demand for seafood persisted. Yet, fishing vessels served as perfect vectors for the novel coronavirus because their confined spaces increased transmission of the airborne pathogens.[2] The pandemic emerged against the backdrop of an ocean ecosystem chronically suffering from the effects of overfishing. The United States and other countries have existing programs for fishery Continue reading →

  Local and state governments use impact fees to pay for the costs of development. Impact fees improve economic efficiency by internalizing external costs such as the loss of open space and the increased truck traffic that compromises local public infrastructure. Colorado recently expanded the use of impact fees to cover the reasonably foreseeable direct and indirect costs of oil and gas development. Impact fees provide revenue to pay for fiscal costs not covered by severance taxes, property taxes, royalty payments, and mill levy revenues. Continue reading →

  I. INTRODUCTION “The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.” – Charles Kettering[2] For over four decades, Colorado, like virtually every other state, has been content to allow the federal government to regulate the discharge of dredged and fill material into the waters within its borders. During this time, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) has dutifully navigated the Clean Water Act (“CWA” or “Act”) Section 404 program through the ever-intensifying challenges of Colorado’s complicated water Continue reading →

  Introduction It was April 2017 when a gas explosion destroyed a home in Firestone, Colorado and killed two people—brothers-in-law Mark Martinez and Joey Irwin.[2] The explosion was caused by a severed gas line, likely cut when the home was built years earlier.[3] In the investigation that followed, it was determined that non-odorous gas had been leaking into the family’s home for months.[4] The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (“COGCC” or “Commission”) levied a fine against the oil and gas company responsible for the Continue reading →

Introduction Global land trade has become a subversive form of neocolonialism that obscures environmental exploitation and human rights abuses. It involves the importation and exportation of land in the international market through purchase or lease. Most of the land that is foreignized through this process is in the Global South.[2] Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, interest in undeveloped land in South America, Africa, and Asia has increased.[3] The targets are often, although not exclusively, less-developed former colonies in the Global South that have Continue reading →

One of the bedrock principles of federal Indian law is a centuries-old understanding that the tribes, as “domestic dependent nations,” have a “government-to-government” relationship with the federal government, which has a trust obligation concerning the tribes, their sovereignty, and their cultural resources. Although this relationship was first judicially articulated in the nineteenth century, it was interpreted to require federal “consultation” with the tribes under a series of executive orders beginning in the 1970s and the National Historic Preservation Act (“NHPA”). However, this government-to-government consultation has Continue reading →