The WAGLAC Fall meeting will be held in Seattle, WA in early October, 2021.

The WAGLAC Winter meeting will be held in San Diego, CA during the week of President's Day, 2022. Meeting details to follow.

"California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) led a multistate coalition in urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to use its authority under the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act to adopt stricter regulations to curb emissions from hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). HFCs are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide in their ability to trap heat over a twenty-year timeframe and the fastest growing source of emissions in the United States and the world. In this petition, the coalition argues that, in order to address climate change and meet President Biden’s climate goals, it is critical that the EPA exercise its authority to regulate HFCs to the fullest extent and take bold action to cut emissions of this harmful super pollutant, including adopting regulations like California’s stringent HFC prohibitions."

Judge Hendricks of U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina rejected the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League motion to vacate the Trump WOTUS Rule. Thus, the WOTUS Rule will remain in effect while the Biden Administration reviews the Rule.

West Hawaii Today

July 17, 2021

"A federal judge ruled Maui County must get permits to operate injection wells that environmental groups said are polluting the ocean.

Several environmental groups filed a lawsuit in 2012 over the injection wells, saying effluent from the Lahaina Wastewater Reclamation Facility was entering the ocean and damaging coral reefs and sea life."

July 12, 2021

"As Margaret Byfield stood on stage in Lewiston, Mont., this spring - beneath a slide warning of the "30x30 Land Grab" - she quoted Thomas Jefferson; James Madison; and then her late father, Sagebrush Rebellion II icon E. Wayne Hage.

Byfield's organization is leading the push against the Biden administration's conversation pledge - a plan the Interior Department rebranded earlier this year as the "America the Beautiful" agenda.

The Biden proposal, which some environmental advocates have pushed for years under the "30 by 30" moniker, calls for conserving 30% of the nation's land and waters by 2030, in a parallel attempt to protect biodiversity and address climate change. Administration officials have been very careful in how they describe the initiative, even floating that working ranchlands could be included - a possibility that has et off alarm bells among some environmentalists who consider the proposal too watered down."

Clay Smith, the American Indian Law Deskbook chief editor, summarizes Indian law decisions assigned headnotes by Westlaw to facilitate the Deskbook’s annual revision.

Please reach out to Clay for questions regarding obtaining a copy of the American Indian Law Deskbook.

Williams v. Big Picture Loans, LLC, ___ F. Supp. 3d ___, 2021 WL 2930976 (E.D. Va. Jul. 12, 2021): Waiver of right to serve as a class representative in a tribal dispute resolution procedure contained in a payday loan agreement could not be enforced with respect to claims against a non-tribal defendant who funded the lending enterprise.

Keweenaw Bay Indian Community v. Khouri, ___ F. Supp. 3d ___, 2021 WL 2936439 (W.D. Mich. Jul. 13, 2021): Challenges under federal common law, federal statutes, an 1842 treaty and the Fourteenth Amendment to state sale, use and tobacco products taxes and refund procedures were rejected except for a federal-common-law per se challenge to the use tax whose legal incidence was borne by the tribal consumer and where no apportionment for on- and off-reservation use was statutorily authorized. No monetary relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 was available against the state defendants with respect to amounts collected under the use tax.

Ronald H. v. State Dep’t of Health & Social Services, ___ P.3d ___, 2021 WL 3011904 (Alaska Jul. 14, 2021): State agency provided the active efforts to prevent the breakup of an Indian family required under the Indian Child Welfare Act.

If you are interested in following cannabis law developments, please sign up for the AG Alliance cannabis newsletter by emailing Cole White at [email protected].

We rely on our readers to send us links for the WAGLAC Newsletter. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two weeks) case, statute or article relating to natural resources, environment, Indian law or federalism that you would like us to consider for inclusion in the Newsletter, please send it to Clive Strong. For a complete database of all previously published WAGLAC newsletters, please follow the link below.