Western Lands, Western Waters

On November 9^th, a federal judge upheld the Biden Administration’s approval of the Willow Project in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A). This order by the court is related to two cases challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s March 2023 Record of Decision (ROD) for the Willow Project, which approved oil production on leases held by ConocoPhillips Alaska.

Rural counties have been pushing for groundwater protection programs for several years, as unchecked groundwater pumping has threatened some smaller communities’ opportunity to grow. Despite momentum from the public in support of groundwater regulation, the Arizona Legislature faced significant pushback from private water companies’ interests, agricultural associations, and homebuilders which led to the regulation not being included in the water bill.

In April 2009, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) published a rule establishing the boundaries of the Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf population and removing federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections from the gray wolf populations in the Northern Rocky Mountain region for all states except Wyoming.

With the exception of the more recent rule change in Wyoming, for over a decade the management of the gray wolf population in the Northern Rocky Mountain region has been left to the individual states.

Environmental justice, or the question of unequal distribution of benefits and burdens across certain communities, has become a focus of many politicians in recent years. Without federal legislation, state legislatures have considered their own environmental justice statutes, often using input from affected communities.

American youth are approaching the issue of government responsibility for climate destruction from several angles. These innovative approaches might provide an avenue to holding the government accountable through judicial review in the absence of the United States’ involvement in international environmental law.

Amid the national commentary surrounding proposals contained in the Bureau of Reclamation’s 476-page Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS)—there are four concepts to remember regarding its role in the future of the Colorado River.