The Stegner Center’s twentieth annual symposium, to be held on March 5 & 6, 2015, will focus on the topic “Air Quality: Health, Energy, and Economics.” Across the nation, great strides have been made addressing air pollution over the last several decades, especially following adoption of the federal Clean Air Act in 1970. Nevertheless, in the West and other parts of the country, air quality remains a vexing environmental, economic, and public health dilemma. Families in polluted areas face increased health impacts, including asthma, businesses choose not to locate because of air quality concerns, and the overall quality of life is diminished. This Symposium will consider the multifaceted problem of air pollution, with panels and speakers addressing the drivers of air pollution, health and environmental impacts, tensions with energy needs and economic development, its relationship with social structures and ethics, and possible legal and regulatory solutions . The Symposium, as usual, will be interdisciplinary in nature, and include speakers from the sciences and social sciences, academia, government, industry, and the legal profession.
In commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Wilderness Act, the Stegner Center held an all-day conference on September 26 on “The Wilderness Act at 50 and the Mountain West.” The conference examined the Wilderness Act from its initial beginnings to the modern day. There was also a panel discussion on “Protecting Wilderness in Utah” and noted historian and award-winning author Douglas Brinkley delivered the keynote address on “U.S. Presidents and the Wilderness Act.”
The Stegner Center will host a seminar on “The High Cost of Non-Compliance: Risk Management and Environmental Protection Duties from the Industry Perspective” on November 21, 2014 at the Utah Department of Environmental Quality Boardroom in Salt Lake City, Utah. This seminar will open with a presentation by keynote speaker Carol Dinkins, Partner, Vinson & Elkins, on “What Can Happen to a Company When Things Go Wrong: Balancing Duties to Shareholders, Customers and Public.” This presentation will set the stage for the day’s discussion on responding to catastrophic industrial accidents, appropriate regulatory responses to industrial non-compliance, environmental health and safety management systems, and the interaction of regulators, the regulated community and community leaders.
Emily Hammond, a Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School, will join the Stegner Center as the tenth annual Stegner Center Young Scholar on March 11 and 12, 2015. During her residency, Emily will deliver a Young Scholar Lecture at the College of Law, make a CLE presentation at a local law firm, and meet with faculty and students. Her Young Scholar Lecture will be published in the environmental and natural resources law issue of the student-edited Utah Law Review.
The Stegner Center will host three speakers as part of our lecture series this academic year. On October 23, Mary Wood, Philip H. Knight Professor of Law and Faculty Director, Environmental and Natural Resources Law, University of Oregon will deliver a presentation based on her book Nature’s Trust: Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age. On December 2, Jim Steenburgh, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Utah, will deliver a lecture based on his book Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth: Weather, Climate Change, and Finding Deep Powder in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains and Around the World. On December 4, Independent Filmmaker Toby McLeod will screen several films from his series Standing on Sacred Ground about the impact of development proposals on the sacred lands of indigenous people around the world.
The Stegner Center’s popular noon hour green bag series will include the following speakers. Additional green bags will be announced.
- November 4, “Our Public Lands: the Battle for their Economic Sustainability via Recreation,” with Peter Metcalf, CEO and director of Black Diamond Equipment
- February 10, “Scaling Wind, a new documentary” with Edwin Stafford, Professor of Marketing, Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University
For program details, including times and locations, see the Stegner Center online calendar at http://law.utah.edu/research/stegner/.