On May 25, 2017, the Colorado legislature passed House Bill 17-1990 addressing the 2015 Colorado Supreme Court decision of St. Jude’s Co. v. Roaring Fork Club LLC denying a private club’s ability to obtain an instream water right. Colorado, as a prior appropriation state, requires its water users to demonstrate that the water will be […]
Colorado water law provides a simplified procedure to change a water right when the only change is in the point of diversion of a surface water right where there are no intervening diversions or inflows between the old and new locations. C.R.S. § 37-92-305(3.5). This simplified procedure makes it easier to replace old diversion structures […]
On June 19, 2017, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled against the petition of Kinder Morgan CO2 Co., LP — the operator of oil and gas leaseholds — disputing the Montezuma County Assessor’s 2009 corrective tax assessment on leaseholds for the prior tax year which resulted in a retroactive assessment of over $2 million in property […]
On June 5, 2017, the Colorado Supreme Court issued a decision in Vallagio at Inverness Residential Condo. Ass’n v. Metro Homes, Inc., 2017 CO 69, June 5, 2017 (“Vallagio”) that will likely benefit condominium developers in Colorado by helping to alleviate litigation costs related to construction defects claims, thereby incentivizing new construction of condominiums along […]
President Trump announced on June 1 that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. The announcement follows months of uncertainty about whether President Trump would fulfill his campaign pledge to withdraw U.S. participation in the deal (which was signed by 195 countries with only two countries in opposition–Nicaragua (because it wasn’t stringent enough) […]
On April 26, 2017, President Trump issued an Executive Order (“EO”), “Review of Designations under the Antiquities Act,” to address what he called a “massive federal land grab.” The EO directs Interior Secretary Zinke to review all monument designations made under the Antiquities Act since 1996 that either exceed 100,000 acres or were “made without […]
As noted in a prior blog post, Wyoming’s Supreme Court Justices agree most of the time. In fact, in 2016 more than 95% of the Court’s orders and opinions were unanimous. This post highlights a recent disagreement between the members of the Wyoming Supreme Court in the case of Anadarko Land Corp. f/k/a Union Pacific […]
A recent decision from the Colorado Court of Appeals (“Court”) could mean a new focus for the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC). On March 23, a three-judge panel issued a split decision in Martinez v. Colo. Oil & Gas Conservation Comm’n, 2017 COA 37, with two of the three Judges rejecting the COGCC’s […]
On Tuesday, April 4, 2017, Judge Stephen P. Friot, United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, dismissed a nationally significant lawsuit brought over earthquakes linked to oil and gas wastewater injection wells on jurisdictional grounds. See Sierra Club v. Chesapeake Operating, LLC, et al., No. CIV-16-134-F (W.D. Okla., Order dated 4/4/2017) (unpublished), […]