Annual Boehl Lecture to focus on federal-local land use coordination

The annual Boehl Distinguished Lecture in Land Use Policy will be held at 6 p.m. Feb. 17 in Room 275 at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law. This year’s lecture will be presented by Michelle Bryan, Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Land Use & Natural Resources Center at the University of Montana Alexander Blewett III School of Law.

Bryan’s topic will be, “Learning Both Directions: How Improved Federal – Local Land Use Coordination Can Quiet the Call for Federal Lands Transfers.”

According to Brandeis School of Law Professor Tony Arnold, this topic is timely.

“Everyone’s heard about the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, which has been prominent in national news,” he said. “But behind this incident is a deeper set of issues about how federal agencies and local communities work together or against each other over land use planning and management, especially in the American West.  Professor Bryan’s research offers new ideas to achieve better collaboration and better land use.”

Bryan adds, “Both federal land agencies and local governments are failing to engage in the type of land use planning necessary for strong federal-local collaboration. If meaningful collaboration became the standard practice, some of the underlying furor over federal lands management could subside.”

Bryan teaches in the Natural Resources & Environmental Law Program and is Co-Director of the Land Use & Natural Resources Clinic at the University of Montana. She grew up in farming and ranching communities in the West, was a policy specialist for the Water Resources Center, graduated with high honors from the University of Montana School of Law, and worked in private law practice. Her research focuses on the relationship between land and water use, planning in an age of climate change, the balancing of environmental and land use rights, and the role of public trust in water use.

Bryan has received the Garlington, Lohn & Robinson Faculty Teaching Award and the Margery Hunter Brown Faculty Merit Award, and has served as past president of the Montana Justice Foundation.

Arnold holds the Boehl Chair in Property and Land Use at the Brandeis School of Law and is the organizer of the Boehl Distinguished Lecture Series in Land Use Policy.

The Boehl Distinguished Lecture Series in Land Use Policy is one of several law and policy initiatives in land use and environmental responsibility at the University of Louisville, and is supported by the Herbert Boehl Fund, the Kentucky Research Challenge Trust Fund, and the Center for Land Use & Environmental Responsibility.

The Boehl Distinguished Lecture in Land Use Policy is open to the public.