The Great Salt Lake 2025 Legislative Update
DATE: Monday, March 10 2025
TIME: 12:15 pm - 1:30 pm MST
LOCATION: College of Law and Virtual Event
A Wallace Stegner Center Greenbag
ABOUT THE EVENT:
Join The Great Salt Lake Project for a discussion on 2025 legislation impacting the Great Salt Lake.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Ben Abbott, Brigham Young University
Ben is a professor of environmental science and sustainability at Brigham Young University and the executive director of the water conservation group Grow the Flow. He has a B.S. in watershed and Earth systems science from Utah State University and a Ph.D. in ecology from University of Alaska Fairbanks. He works on renewable energy, global hydrology, climate change, and Earth stewardship. He is particularly interested in science communication and improving our commitment to environmental stewardship. He has four children who take after him in their love of animals, biking, and TV.
Steven E. Clyde, Clyde Snow & Session
Steven is now of-counsel to Clyde, Snow & Session, but remains as the Co-Chair of the firm’s Natural Resources and Water Law Group. Throughout his 50 years of practice, Mr. Clyde has focused on natural resources law, including oil and gas, public land law, and mining law, with a primary emphasis on water law. He is a member of the Utah Water Task Force, helping revise Utah’s water laws and policy and also a non-voting member and the Legislature’s Water Development Commission. He has been involving in crafting some of the recent legislation designed to improve water conservation and to help shepherd saved and conserved water to Great Salt Lake. Throughout his career he has represented many clients in the buying and selling of water rights and the conversion of water rights from agricultural irrigation use to domestic, municipal, and industrial use for development of real property, particularly in the resort areas of Summit County, Utah. He is outside counsel to the Central Utah Water Conservancy District, the sponsor of the Central Utah Project, and taught water law as an adjunct professor at the S. J. Quinney College of Law for several years.
Brigham Daniels, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law
Brig Daniels is a professor at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law; co-director of the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment; and director of the Center’s Great Salt Lake Project.
His current scholarship focuses on saving Great Salt Lake. Daniels’s previous work has received research grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation and the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.
He has won several teaching awards. He teaches courses relating to water, environmental, natural resources, and property law. He founded the College of Law’s Environmental Policy Accelerator.
Outside of the classroom, Daniels has served on the boards of several environmental nonprofits and has represented and consulted for a wide range of public, nonprofit, and commercial entities.
Daniels graduated from Stanford Law School. He also earned a PhD from Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. He received a MPA and undergraduate degree from the University of Utah, where he also was awarded a Harry S Truman Scholarship.
Prior to returning to the University of Utah, he taught as professor at BYU Law and the University of Houston Law Center and was a lecturing fellow at Duke Law School.
Beth Parker, University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law
Beth Parker is a Senior Attorney and Wallace Stegner Center Senior Fellow at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, Wallace Stegner Center, Law & Policy Program, where she also teaches Air Pollution Law & Policy, coaches the College of Law’s Pace Environmental Moot Court team, and teaches an Environmental Policy Accelerator class focusing on the Great Salt Lake. She is also the Law & Policy Lead for the Great Salt Lake Project at the College of Law. Beth formerly taught Federal Indian Law at Brigham Young University Law School and is a co-founder of the Utah Tribal Relief Foundation and former chair of the Indian Law Section of the Utah State Bar. In January of this year, Beth co-authored an amicus brief in support of the Navajo Nation in Arizona v. Navajo Nation.
Beth’s research interests center around air quality, water law, indigenous rights and the environment, tribal governance and sovereignty, conservation, environmental justice, and climate change. Prior to joining the Stegner Center, Parker represented and advised numerous tribes throughout the Western United States on a broad spectrum of issues, including water law, environmental issues, the development of tribal codes, self-governance, tribal sovereign immunity, climate change initiatives, economic development, and tribal healthcare. She also practiced natural resources law.
Beth enjoys traveling, river rafting, and skiing with her family. As a former river guide and ski instructor, Beth has a deep appreciation for the natural environment.
For questions about this event, email events@law.utah.edu.
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