Colorado Environmental Law Journal

In 2015 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revised its National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ozone from 75 ppb to 70 ppb. This increasingly stringent standard will test the abilities of certain areas to maintain attainment, particularly areas that project continued or increasing oil and gas extraction activities in the future, like states in the Rocky Mountain region. These states have a history of wavering in and out of attainment with the ozone NAAQS and have developed sophisticated strategies to achieve attainment. However, maintaining Continue reading →

This Note analyzes whether policies designed to promote the use and adoption of electric vehicles serve two important values: (1) that a policy’s benefits should exceed its costs and (2) that a policy furthers—or, at minimum does not frustrate—distributive justice goals. Using these two values, this Note analyzes the Colorado and federal tax credits for electric vehicle purchases, and it also analyzes a proposed government-funded interstate electric vehicle charging corridor. Although electric vehicles offer many potential environmental advantages over conventional vehicles, the tax incentives and charging Continue reading →

This Note discusses the history and development of Cancer Alley under the regulatory framework of the Clean Air Act, analyzing how industrial interests infiltrate the environmental regulation at the design, implementation, and enforcement level and ultimately hinder how the Act protects public health and the environment. Cancer Alley is an eighty-five mile stretch of land along the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to New Orleans in Louisiana. This area, also known as “Petrochemical America,” is home to more than 150 petrochemical industrial plants and refineries, Continue reading →

[1]*It is a privilege to be here in Boulder, which is a place I think of as a hub of climate action, with its young climate warriors, its renewable energy visionaries, and its dedicated league of citizens determined to create a safe future. And it is a supreme honor to give the lecture named after the two legal giants who have so shaped Indian law, natural resources law, and public lands law with their brilliant vision and dedication to justice. My honor is magnified by Continue reading →

[1]*I want to join others in thanking Alice Madden, Shaun LaBarre, the Getches-Wilkinson Center and the sponsors for making this conference possible. It is just exactly the kind of conference I love to attend where people from different perspectives and different disciplines talk about these issues in a more sophisticated way than they’re usually talked about. There is some optimism in the title of my talk today. I will focus on the electricity sector today, but a lot of what I say is more generally Continue reading →

  Introduction Over the last decade, U.S. oil production has nearly doubled in volume on the strength of what has come to be known as a “shale revolution.”[2] Due to a confluence of market and technological forces, the process of hydraulic fracturing—or “fracking,” in common parlance—has served as the primary driver for this dramatic uptick in domestic petroleum activity.[3] Although fracking has proliferated through many parts of the country, Colorado—which sits on top of the Niobrara Shale—has become a particular hotbed for oil and natural Continue reading →

Introduction The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish (“NMDGF” or “Department”), acting pursuant to new administrative regulations, denied a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”)[2] application to import and release Mexican wolves—lobos—into New Mexico in November 2015. The FWS, acting pursuant to its own regulations, decided to proceed with Mexican wolf reintroduction. Acting without a state permit, FWS released two Mexican gray wolf pups at a location on federal land in New Mexico in early 2016.[3] The NMDGF brought suit to challenge FWS’s actions. Continue reading →