Warigia Bowman

The University of New Mexico’s (UNM) Natural Resources and Environmental Law (NREL) Program is thrilled to welcome Professor Warigia Bowman. Prof. Bowman is a nationally known expert in in water, natural resources, energy, public policy and regulatory issues. She joins UNM from the University of Tulsa College of Law. Her recent scholarship has focused on the impacts of Covid-19 and coal on the Navajo Nation, reforming the doctrinal concept of safe yield in western water law, and consumer willingness to pay for a resilient electrical grid, among other issues.

Prof. Bowman also has deep roots in the state – she is a third generation New Mexican and her entire k-12 education was in New Mexico public schools. 

"I am thrilled to return to my home state of New Mexico," said Prof. Bowman "UNMSOL is embedded in a Research 1 University with the critical mission of educating the next generation of attorneys for this beautiful and culturally rich state. New Mexico faces a variety of environmental challenges including the need to carefully steward the state's waters in an era of climate change. I look forward to helping craft appropriate solutions for New Mexico's delicate and varied ecosystems." 

"We are so fortunate to have Prof. Bowman join UNM School of Law,"

said incoming NREL Program Director Gabe Pacyniak. "Our students and community will benefit tremendously from having Warigia’s breadth of expertise—which includes water law, natural resources, and energy—not to mention her personal connections and knowledge of New Mexico."   

Prof. Bowman earned her doctorate from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where she was the Hauser Fellow for Nonprofit Management, her Juris Doctorate with honors from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, and her undergraduate degree in history from Columbia College of Columbia University in New York, where she was the Harry S. Truman Scholar for Public Service. After law school she served as an Honors Trial Attorney at the US Department of Justice in the Environment and Natural Resources Division. 

Scholarship, Presentations, and Engagement

Prof. Nadine Padilla will publish her article, Abandoned Mines, Abandoned Treaties: The Navajo Nation’s Struggle to Remediate Abandoned Uranium Mines, in Spring 2025 with the Colorado Law Review. This article provides an update on recent settlement agreements that will fund cleanup of abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo reservation and argues the federal government has continuing trust and treaty obligations to remediate all remaining abandoned mines. Prof. Padilla has presented on related work this past April at the University of Utah Medical School and was quoted on the topic in Bloomberg Law. She also presented on “Oak Flat and the Protection of Indian Sacred Sites” at the UNM Department of Anthropology and Department of Native American Studies; on “Environmental Justice and Tribal Nations” at the U.S. EPA this past December, on “Sackett v. EPA and its Potential Implications for Tribal Nations” at the National Association of Wetland Manager’s Tribal Workshop in March, and on teaching at the intersection of federal Indian Law and Environmental Law at Vermont Law School just recently in June. Last year, Prof. Padilla joined the Board of Conservation Voters New Mexico, an advocacy organization committed to ensuring a healthy environment.

Prof. Reed D. Benson published his latest article, Green Money for Western Waters: New Environmental Grant Programs and Federal Water Policy, in 54 Environmental Law Reporter 10040 (2024). The article examines choices made by Congress and the Bureau of Reclamation in authorizing and implementing new programs to award competitive grants for environmentally-focused projects. He has also begun work on the 9^th edition of the Water Resource Management casebook with co-authors Karrigan Bork, Vanessa Casado Perez, and Burke Griggs. Reed joined Michigan Law Professor Chris Walker for a discussion at UNM Law on the future of Chevron deference in the federal courts. He also presented a CLE lecture titled “What Is Public? Recreational Stream Access Rights in New Mexico and the Mountain West.” Reed is retiring this summer after 22 years of teaching, including the last 16 at UNM Law.

Prof. Elizabeth Elia’s article Embrace the Suck: Why States and Localities Should Use Property Rights to Fix Broken Housing Voucher Programs will be published in the Lewis & Clark Law Review in early 2025. In June, Prof. Elia spoke at the Association of Law, Property, and Society on the topic “Is Anything of Purely Local Concern Anymore?,” investigating the future of Home Rule jurisdiction in the face of climate-based land use crises in years to come. She also spoke at the ABA Real Property Trusts & Estates CLE conference in May about Legislative Exactions and the impact of the Supreme Court’s Sheetz v. County of El Dorado, CA, and will be speaking about the case as part of an American Laws Institute CLE in July.

Prof. Gabe Pacyniak has posted “Clean Fuel Standard Directed Benefit Mechanisms,” a white paper that overviews the ways state low-carbon fuels policies use directed benefit mechanisms to promote equity. New Mexico enacted a Clean Fuels Standard enabling law this past legislative session, and Gabe and co-author Cara Lynch (Class of ‘18) were both appointed to serve on an implementation advisory committee. Prof. Pacyniak presented a work-in-progress “Completing the Local Turn in U.S. Climate Policy,” which identifies benefits and challenges to federal and state efforts to broadly diffuse funding for climate solutions to local entities, at the Berkeley-Penn Energy Law Scholars' Workshop in June. He will also be presenting about his work co-convening UNM’s Just Transition Grand Challenge in July at the Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Association Annual Meeting in Krakow, Poland. 



Utton Center Staff Attorney and Water Governance and Policy Analyst Rin Tara, and Utton Writer in Residence John Fleck, published their paper "Last Call: The Limitations of New Mexico’s Existing Water Management Framework in the Face of Reduced Colorado River Water Deliveries" in Volume 35, Issue 1 of the University of Colorado Environmental Law Journal. The paper outlines New Mexico’s water supply risks as the Colorado River shrinks, suggesting approaches for managing those risks. It is the first of a trio of papers Tara and Fleck have written exploring the political and legal history of Upper Colorado River Basin water management institutions, focusing on the roots of the current water management crisis in the Colorado River Basin. The second and third papers - A Horse Named “Stream Depletion Theory”: The History and Negotiation of the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact, and Unfinished Business: 21st Century Questions Posed by Ambiguities in the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact and the Law of the River, were written with Colorado River Basin historian and scholar Eric Kuhn.

Tanya Trujillo and Pat Parenteau

The NREL Program and Utton Center hosted lectures by two distinguished speakers at UNM Law in Spring 2024. Tanya Trujillo, who served in the Biden Administration as Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at the Interior Department, spoke on "Navigating Challenges in Complex River Systems in the Era of Climate Change." Pat Parenteau, Professor Emeritus at Vermont Law School, addressed "The Supreme Court and the Future of Environmental Law." Both Trujillo and Parenteau also held separate events primarily for UNM students. 

Other Spring 2024 programs at UNM Law covered such topics as Colorado River water management, the future of Chevron deference in the federal courts, public rights to access rivers and streams for recreational use, and wildfire resilience in the Southwest.

NREL Program Rises to 25th in Rankings

The University of New Mexico continues to climb the US News and World Report rankings for Environmental Law, reaching the top 25 for the first time. "UNM Law offers many opportunities for students in environmental law, and our Clinic and faculty do important work in the community," said outgoing NREL Program Director Reed Benson. "It’s great to be nationally recognized as a leading school for environmental law." UNM is tied for #25 in the latest Environmental Law rankings, sharing that spot with Florida, Texas A&M, Virginia, and Yale.

Just Transition Grand Challenge Learns from Colorado's Experience

Photo credit: Tracy Wenzl

UNM’s Just Transition Grand Challenge, a collaboration between the School of Law and main campus faculty that seeks to promote an inclusive and equitable transition to a resilient and low-carbon economy, kicked off its speaker series this spring with Wade Buchanan, director of Colorado’s Office of Just Transition.

Colorado’s Office of Just Transition was created in 2019 to assist workers and communities that will be negatively impacted by the closure of coal mines and coal-fired power plants in the state. Buchanan provided an overview of his office’s work, including efforts to replace lost property taxes and increase economic diversity in affected communities, as well as to assist workers in transitioning to other equivalent-paying jobs or attaining secure retirements.

The event was heavily attended by NM state policymakers, and the Grand Challenge is planning additional speakers for the coming year.

Three UNM Students Earn Foundation Scholarships

Top row, left to right: CK Ellwood, Aiden Kneller, Bottom: Vanessa Springer

The Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law (formerly Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation) has awarded scholarships to three UNM Law students in the Class of 2025. CK Ellwood, Aiden Kneller, and Vanessa Springer all received Foundation scholarships, among 32 students selected after a competitive process involving over 100 applicants. Springer also received a Diversity Outreach Scholarship and the Foundation’s David P. Phillips Award, which recognizes one outstanding student each year. 

"Top students from dozens of schools apply for these scholarships, and it’s great that the Foundation rewarded these three deserving Lobos," said NREL Program Director Reed Benson.

Utton Center Supports the American Indian Law Center's Pre-Law Summer Insitute

The Pre-Law Summer Institute is a nationally respected pre-law summer program that prepares American Indians and Alaskan Natives for the challenges of law school. The Utton Transboundary Resource Center’s Stephanie Russo Baca and Adrian Oglesby are both teaching in the program this year. They are honored to be part of this esteemed program and are excited to be able to interject a little water law into their classes when possible (some students are showing an interest in water law already!). Many thanks to the American Indian Law Center for inviting Stephanie and Adrian to teach, they cannot wait to see all the great things this year’s cohort will go on to achieve.   

Sixteen UNM Law Students Receive NREL Certificate

Sixteen UNM Law students received the NREL Certificate at graduation this year.

Alumni Spotlight: Mark Rosebrough, USDA

Mark Rosebrough atop Mt. Taylor

Mark Rosebrough (Class of ’18) serves as an Associate Regional Attorney in the Albuquerque office of the USDA Office of the General Counsel. In this role, Mark serves as the supervisor of an office which provides general counsel services to all USDA agencies in New Mexico and Arizona, though the majority of his office’s work is done on behalf of the U.S. Forest Service. His primary practice areas are in the fields of water law, federal land use, and real property law. He also provides advice and counsel in the fields of mining, environmental, Indian, and transactional law. Mark was first introduced to the USDA Office of the General Counsel when he was an intern in the Albuquerque office after his first year of law school. This experience opened Mark’s eyes to the exciting and meaningful work done by federal agency attorneys. This realization set him on a path to obtain the Natural Resources and Environmental Law Certificate which, in turn, prepared him to do the work he now does. 

Mark served on the Board of Directors of the Natural Resources, Energy and Environmental Law Section of the State Bar of New Mexico from 2019-2022, including a stint as Chair of the Board of Directors in 2021. 

Mark is a 5th generation New Mexican who is happiest when spending time with his wife Lindsey and children Carson and Aspen in the wilds of New Mexico. He is most likely to be found wandering around New Mexico’s high desert landscapes.

About the Natural Resources and Environmental Law Program

New Mexico is a place with a stunning variety of scenic beauty and natural and cultural resources, which makes it an ideal backdrop for the study of natural resources and environmental law and policy on a national scale. UNM Law’s natural resources and environmental law (NREL) program offers students a robust variety of experiences, including a full range of courses in the field, the NREL certificate program, the NREL clinic, the Natural Resources Journal (the oldest U.S. law review in the field), the Utton Transboundary Resource Center (a research center dedicated to natural resources and environmental issues), an externship program, and the Environmental Law Society. Students can also earn a dual degree in law and water resources.