Resource managers, economists, and legal scholars consider water a natural resource. The fundamental tensions raised by the concept of international water management are legal, such as sharing water in international watercourses, conserving permanent sovereignty over natural resources, and trading water in international watercourses actively or shielding it from world market interference.

Our nation’s infrastructure is deteriorating, damaging our economic growth, security, and environmental quality. Unfortunately, many needed improvements are suffering unnecessary delays from multiple, sequential, and often poorly coordinated federal, state, and tribal reviews, consultations, and approvals. In our experience, controversy, conflict, and delay are often due to a misunderstanding of the intent of NEPA and its contribution to agency planning procedures. Part of its power is its flexibility for integrating the alternative and impact analyses of other environmental laws

Strange things—sometime exciting and unexpected things—happen at the edge, a place that can inspire both creativity and craziness. We can be “on edge,” be “pushed to the edge,” or be “on the cutting edge.” As gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson once wrote: “[T]here is no honest way to explain [the edge] because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.” But if one can avoid falling off the precipice, edges often provide some unique perspectives on our social, cultural, or scientific landscape. Nature provides important lessons about why this happens.

Perhaps it is not as exotic as Portugal, but a brief tour of a narrow stretch of the American West provides a remarkably accurate depiction of U.S. energy policy. Get on I-15 and drive southwest from Salt Lake City to southern California. Leave the high mountain desert, its valley of oaks and maples, geometric grids, and charmed streets. Find the palm trees, traffic, beaches, and sun. Between these points, the landscape is a tangible manifestation of our nation’s aims, goals, and aspirations when it comes to energy. Trace this route, and you have traced U.S. energy policy itself.

Two years after the Presidential Commission’s report on the tragic Deepwater Horizon disaster, much happened in the area of oil pollution law, though only one aspect of the Oil Pollution Act was amended. On January 31, 2013, ELI convened a panel of experts to provide a review of recent OPA litigation, including the BP criminal plea agreement and the issues in the pending civil penalty action.