While the environmental justice movement has gained traction in the United States, the relationship between agri-food systems and environmental injustices in rural areas has yet to come into focus. This Article explores the relationship between U.S. agricultural exceptionalism and rural environmental justice through examining right-to-farm laws.

This abstract is adapted from Monte Mills & Martin Nie, Bridges to a New Era: A Report on the Past, Present, and Potential Future of Tribal Co-Management on Federal Public Lands, 44 Pub. Land & Resources L. Rev. 49 (2021), and used with permission.

Proposed oil and gas pipelines have faced a myriad of legal challenges in the past several years. Even where pipeline proponents have prevailed, the cost and delay of protracted litigation has often caused cancellation of pipeline projects. In addition, presidential transitions have led to abrupt reversals of pipeline policies, which courts have often reviewed skeptically.

The Joe Biden Administration has proposed reversing a number of the Donald Trump Administration’s changes to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations by again requiring federal agencies to evaluate the direct, indirect, and cumulative environmental impacts of projects under environmental review. On April 20, 2022, the first phase of those amendments was finalized, and on April 21, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a panel of experts to explore the changes to NEPA implementation, and how they might impact climate change policy and environmental justice.

President Joe Biden’s Executive Order No. 14008 of January 2021 called for the Administration to conserve at least 30% of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030. To accomplish this ambitious “30 by 30” effort, the Order directed federal agencies to work with tribal governments, among others, to propose lands and waters as qualifying for conservation. This Comment examines "areas of critical environmental concern" and their potential role in the 30 by 30 program, particularly their potential to enlist tribal governments in helping to manage lands of tribal cultural significance. 

On January 28, 2021, President Joseph Biden issued Executive Order No. 14008 initiating the “30 by 30” program to “conserve” 30% of the nation’s lands and waters by 2030, but to date, the Administration has yet to clarify the standards defining "conservation" lands. In September 2021, Nada Culver, the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and Chris French, the deputy chief of the Forest Service’s National Forest System (NFS) confirmed at an annual Public Lands Council meeting that they believe the nation’s grazing lands “should [be] include[d]” in the 30 by 30 count.

We are told the transition to a zero-carbon economy will depend upon the United States’ ability to assure a sufficient supply of rare earths and minerals such as cobalt, nickel, or lithium. The Biden Administration is intent on promoting some new form of a critical mineral policy, and calls for reforming the 1872 Mining Law have persisted for well over one hundred years. This Article is designed to provoke a meaningful conversation about a critical minerals policy informed by our past.

I magine, on account of an economic downturn associated with massive defense spending, or a change in regulatory philosophy, or a pandemic, the U.S. Congress enacted legislation duly signed by the president to sell virtually all federal wild lands to the highest bidder without restriction. Would such action be constitutional?

New oil and gas pipeline construction is increasingly controversial, with environmental and indigenous groups warning of leaks and spills, increased reliance on fossil fuels, and infringement upon indigenous land. Recent setbacks to three projects—the Dakota Access Pipeline, Keystone XL Pipeline, and Atlantic Coast Pipeline—reflect shifting legal, economic, and policy pressures facing new construction. On September 30, 2020, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a panel of experts who explored the emerging challenges facing oil and gas pipelines and discussed their future.

Heralded in 1970 as the nation’s environmental Magna Carta, the National Environmental Policy Act’s (NEPA’s) luster seems faded and its future uncertain. While Trump Administration initiatives threaten to diminish further and perhaps even dismantle aspects of NEPA, this Article chronicles how the current assault merely continues NEPA’s unfortunate trajectory, examining how the courts, the U.S. Congress, and the executive branch each have whittled away at the Act. NEPA consequently sits at a critical juncture: it could soon fade away or it could hew back toward its original promise.