National Environmental Policy Act

STEVEN K. IMIG is an attorney based in Denver, Colorado. He specializes in natural resources, public lands law, litigation, and environmental law, and his practice involves oil and gas and resource development, federal land use planning, ski area development, and litigation over various types of oil and gas agreements. Steve also helps clients navigate federal, state, and local environmental permitting and review processes. Steve formerly was a director with Lewis, Bess, Williams & Weese, P.C., in Denver. Steve has a B.A. in economics, magna cum laude, from Bates College, and a J.D., cum laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center. He has been a guest lecturer in environmental, natural resource, and administrative law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, and frequently speaks and writes on natural resources and environmental issues. Prior to law school, Steve was an economic consultant specializing in energy markets.

HADASSAH (DESSA) M. REIMER is an attorney in the Jackson Hole, Wyoming office of Holland & Hart LLP. Her practice focuses on federal environmental regulation and litigation before the Interior Board of Land Appeals and the federal courts, including environmental impact assessment, endangered species, and public land permitting requirements. Dessa also has an active Indian law practice. Dessa represents a variety of clients including conventional and renewable energy developers, mining companies, and water resource providers, as well as Indian tribes. Dessa has co-authored three papers for past RMMLF Annual Institutes, served as chair of the Public Lands section for the 2013 Annual Institute, and currently serves as a Trustee for the Foundation.

JAMIE AUSLANDER co-chairs Beveridge & Diamond’s Natural Resources and Project Development Practice Group, including its Energy practice. Mr. Auslander focuses his practice on complex legal issues surrounding development of oil and gas, hardrock minerals, renewable energy, and other natural resources on public lands onshore and on the Outer Continental Shelf. He frequently works with the Department of the Interior agencies and litigates appeals before the Interior Board of Land Appeals and federal courts regarding royalty, suspension, decommissioning, regulatory departures, rulemakings, and other issues.  He assists multinational corporations, domestic companies, and leading industry trade associations in protecting valuable lease rights and navigating the ever-changing environmental requirements to develop those leases. Mr. Auslander also devotes a significant part of his practice to counseling and litigation of public and private clients under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Mr. Auslander frequently writes and speaks on environmental issues pertinent to project permitting and development, including royalty. He has served as elected Co-Chair of the Steering Committee of the Environmental, Energy, and Natural Resources Community of the D.C. Bar since 2014.  Mr. Auslander has been selected for inclusion in Super Lawyers Editions 2014-2018 as a “Rising Star” in Environmental, Energy & Natural Resources, and Administrative Law.

DEANA M. BENNETT is a Shareholder with the law firm of Modrall Sperling, in Albuquerque. Deana's practice focuses on federal environmental law and federal Indian law. Deana's experience includes permitting and environmental compliance under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and other related federal statutes. Her experience also includes working with renewable resource developers with siting issues on public, tribal, state, and local land. It is not surprising that Deana's practice focuses primarily on public lands. Deana calls the West home, from New Mexico to Alaska. Her early childhood was spent travelling in a Volkswagen bus from Yellowstone National Park to Everglades National Park, where her father was a Park Ranger. After leaving the Park Service, her father worked for the Bureau of Land Management until he retired. Deana is a true coal miner's daughter; her mother worked in an underground coal mine in Wyoming for several years, while her father attended the University of Wyoming. Before attending law school, Deana retraced some of her childhood adventures—working in Yellowstone, working at a ski area in Utah, and working on a luxury passenger train in Alaska, where she bought her own 1979 Volkswagen bus. 

STEVE BLOCH is the Legal Director and an attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) and in that capacity oversees all facets of SUWA’s litigation and administrative appeals. He led the conservation community’s successful negotiations in 2010 regarding Bill Barrett Corporation’s West Tavaputs Plateau full field development natural gas project, and in 2011 regarding Anadarko Petroleum’s Greater Natural Buttes infill development project. Both projects were approved by BLM without subsequent litigation. In 2011, Steve was the Utah State Bar Energy, Natural Resources & Environmental Law Section Lawyer of the Year. He is a 1997 graduate of the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law. He lives in Salt Lake City with his wife and three children.

EDWARD (TED) BOLING is the Associate Director for the National Environmental Policy Act at the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), an agency within the Executive Office of the President. Ted returned to CEQ in 2016 from the U.S. Department of the Interior, where he served as Deputy Solicitor for Parks & Wildlife. Ted went from CEQ to the Department in August of 2010, as Counselor to the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management where he focused on land management planning and renewable energy development, and served as Deputy Solicitor for Land Resources from April of 2011 to July of 2013. Before Interior, Ted served ten years at CEQ as Deputy General Counsel beginning in August of 2000, General Counsel beginning in January of 2008, and Senior Counsel from September of 2009. Ted started his Federal career in the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he was a senior trial attorney. Ted joined the Department of Justice in 1990 through the Attorney General’s Honor Program. At the Department of Justice he was a trial attorney in three Sections of the Division: Law and Policy, Wildlife and Marine Resources, and Natural Resources. He also served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the criminal prosecution program of the Eastern District of Virginia. His trial and appellate litigation experience concentrated on cases involving the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and Federal land management statutes. Ted is a member of the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth, Ninth and Tenth Circuits, and the Virginia State Bar. He has served on the Board of the Virginia State Bar Association’s Environmental Law Section, which he chaired in 2000-01. He is also a member of the American Bar Association’s Section on Environment, Energy, and Resources. Ted graduated from Washington University School of Law in 1990, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law (now the Journal of Law & Policy) and represented his law school in national moot court competition.

TIMOTHY R. CANON is an attorney with Ovintiv Services Inc., where he works primarily on midstream and marketing matters. Tim was previously an associate with Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP in Denver, where his practice covered upstream and midstream oil and gas contracts and transactional matters, oil and gas title examinations, and federal lands matters. Tim obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs in 2010 and his J.D. from Boston University School of Law in 2013. He is an active participant in the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation; he has co-authored several papers, has written numerous articles for the Foundation’s Mineral Law Newsletter, and currently serves on the Publications Committee.

BARBARA D. CRAIG is a partner at Stoel Rives LLP in Portland, Oregon. She focuses her practice on federal environmental and natural resources law with an emphasis on endangered species compliance and energy facility permitting and compliance issues. Barbara has extensive experience in issues involving the Endangered Species Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and National Environmental Policy Act. 

NADA WOLFF CULVER is Senior Counsel and Director of the BLM Action Center at The Wilderness Society, providing technical advice and support to citizens and conservation groups working to protect their public lands. The Wilderness Society’s mission is to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places. The BLM Action Center, located in Denver, Colorado, assists and encourages people to participate in land use planning processes and management decisions, including those addressing transmission, renewable energy, fossil fuel development and protection of wilderness. The BLM Action Center also seeks to influence national policy on management of our federal public lands. Before joining The Wilderness Society, she practiced law in the private sector for more than 10 years, working on a variety of environmental issues including energy development and environmental remediation, and was a partner with the law firm of Patton Boggs. She is a graduate of Northwestern University and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law.

MURRAY FELDMAN is a partner with Holland & Hart LLP in Boise.  He represents project developers, state and local governments, landowners, and others in NEPA, Endangered Species Act, public lands, and general environmental litigation and administrative matters.  He also represents parents under the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.  Murray co-edited of the 2016 Idaho Book of the Year, Idaho Wilderness Considered.   He co-authored “NEPA’s Scientific and Information Standards—Taking the Harder Look” in the 2018 RMMLF Journal, and was the Public Lands program chair for the 65th Annual Institute.  Murray received his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, and his M.S. degree from the University of Idaho’s then College of Forestry, Wildlife & Range Sciences (now Natural Resources), and a B.S. from the UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources, where he attended the Forestry Summer Program in Plumas County and worked on a timber cruising crew on the Plumas National Forest.  He’s written and worked on national forest issues for over 30 years, an interest that began in his teens when he first visited the San Gorgonio Wilderness on the San Bernardino National Forest in Southern California with his Scout troop.

ROGER FLYNN is the founding Director and Managing Attorney of the Western Mining Action Project (WMAP). Founded in 1993 and based in Lyons, Colorado, WMAP is the nation’s only non-profit public interest law firm specializing in hardrock mining and related public land and environmental laws. He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Colorado School of Law (since 2002), teaching courses in Natural Resources Law and Mining and Mineral Development Law. He was also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Wyoming College of Law (2004-2010). WMAP represents conservation groups and Native American groups and Tribes before federal and state courts on project-specific mining litigation, administrative permitting disputes, and litigation over state and national mining regulations. From 1993 to 1998, he served as the environmental community’s representative on the Governor’s Summitville Advisory Committee, established to advise the State on cleanup efforts at the Summitville cyanide heap-leach mining site in the San Juan Mountains. His publications include: New Life for Impaired Waters: Realizing the Goal to “Restore” the Nation’s Waters Under the Clean Water Act, WYOMING LAW REVIEW (2010); Daybreak on the Land: The Coming of Age of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, VERMONT LAW JOURNAL (2005); The Right to Say No: Federal Authority Over Hardrock Mining on Public Lands, JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND LITIGATION (2001, with Parsons); and The 1872 Mining Law As An Impediment To Mineral Development On The Public Lands: A 19th Century Law Meets The Realities Of Modern Mining, LAND AND WATER LAW REVIEW (1999). Roger received his J.D. from the University of Colorado School of Law in 1991 and his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University in 1984.

HORST G. GRECZMIEL retired from federal service after serving as the Council on Environmental Quality’s Associate Director for NEPA for 17 years. At CEQ he was responsible for overseeing federal agency implementation of NEPA which included developing NEPA guidance and directives, approving agency NEPA implementing procedures, leading the CEQ NEPA Task Force, reporting to Congress on NEPA’s implementation, and managing the NEPA planning component for several major initiatives. Prior to joining CEQ he served with the U.S. Coast Guard Office of Chief Counsel for 7 years and on active duty with the U.S. Army for over 14 years. At the Coast Guard he had responsibility for compliance and litigation issues related to NEPA and other environmental laws including the Endangered Species Act and National Historic Preservation Act. His service with the US Army included tours with the 101st, US Army Europe & 7th Army, and the US Army headquarters’ Environmental Law Division where he also served in the Office of the Deputy Secretary for Environment. He received his undergraduate degree from Lafayette College, his JD from Rutgers-Camden, and his LLM from George Washington University.

BRAD GRENHAM is an assistant regional solicitor with the Pacific Northwest Region of the Solicitor’s Office, United States Department of the Interior. He supervises regional Bureau of Land Management natural resource matters. Brad works on land use planning, grazing, recreation, mining, energy, wilderness management, National Environmental Policy Act, Wild & Scenic Rivers Act, and natural resource damages. Brad also assists the Bureau of Indian Affairs with asserting tribal reserved water rights in the Northern Idaho Adjudication. In 1995, Brad received his J.D. from Lewis & Clark Law School, where he currently teaches a natural resource seminar. Brad also enjoys coaching high school students in the We the People constitutional law debate competition. Brad received his B.A. from Dartmouth College and grew up in Massachusetts. 

ANA M. GUTIÉRREZ is a Senior Associate at Hogan Lovells US LLP in Denver, Colorado. Ana is a preeminent public lands, environmental, and natural resources lawyer. Ana provides counsel to her clients on local, state, and federal environmental regulatory issues affecting project development and operational compliance, with a focus on matters related to the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, as well as various other federal (and state) environmental statutes. Her background involves a wide variety of natural resource projects, including oil and gas development, mining projects, transmission infrastructure, renewable energy infrastructure development, and ski area development. Ana also provides counsel to companies in the implementation of compliance programs, environmental enforcement matters, litigation, and due diligence in transactional matters. Before attending law school at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, Ana took some time away from academics to play semi-professional soccer.

TOM HALE is a senior project manager with SWCA Environmental Consultants. He has 27 years of experience as both a federal employee and as an environmental consultant. He has directed large, complex interagency research, planning, and NEPA projects including the preparation of environmental assessments (EAs) and environmental impact statements (EISs) for many federal agencies. He has worked on projects involving land exchanges, wilderness management, recreation plans, mine development, transmission and pipeline projects, energy development, community development, and military installations. Many of his projects have required the coordination of significant public involvement and visioning activities, along with comprehensive planning support to accommodate the needs and concerns of involved federal, state, and local agencies; Native American Tribes; elected officials; planning districts; nonprofit organizations; and other stakeholder groups. He has designed and managed the analysis of public comments for two controversial EISs. Mr. Hale is a certified environmental professional in environmental planning, a project management professional, and registered landscape architect. He also teaches courses on environmental impact assessment and wilderness management at the University of Utah. His biggest pet peeve is when people misuse the words “affect” and “effect” in their NEPA documentation. His other pet peeve is when people make lists of their pet peeves.

STEVEN K. IMIG is an attorney based in Denver, Colorado. He specializes in natural resources, public lands law, litigation, and environmental law, and his practice involves oil and gas and resource development, federal land use planning, ski area development, and litigation over various types of oil and gas agreements. Steve also helps clients navigate federal, state, and local environmental permitting and review processes. Steve formerly was a director with Lewis, Bess, Williams & Weese, P.C., in Denver. Steve has a B.A. in economics, magna cum laude, from Bates College, and a J.D., cum laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center. He has been a guest lecturer in environmental, natural resource, and administrative law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, and frequently speaks and writes on natural resources and environmental issues. Prior to law school, Steve was an economic consultant specializing in energy markets.

JULIA A. JONES is in-house senior counsel for Anadarko where she practices environmental and natural resources law. Prior to joining Anadarko, Julia practiced in Washington, D.C. where she worked in both the private sector and the Federal Government. In Washington, D.C., Julia served as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division focusing on the defense of suits brought against the U.S. Government to challenge environmental and conservation issues. She also worked for the U.S. Department of Interior, Office of the Secretary, where she worked on natural resources legal and policy matters. In the private sector, Julia has represented clients, including utilities, coal companies, and oil and gas companies, in environmental regulatory and compliance matters, permitting, natural resources regulation, and litigation. Julia is a proud graduate of Indiana University of Law, Bloomington, with a joint degree in Environmental Sciences from Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

ARTHUR R. KLEVEN is lucky. He began work in the Office of the Solicitor, U.S. Department of the Interior in October 2004, and since September 2005 has worked as an attorney-advisor in the Rocky Mountain Regional Office. He counsels the Bureau of Land Management, Colorado and Wyoming State Offices on a variety of subjects including implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Mineral Leasing Act, and the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. Mr. Kleven also advises the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Western Region on matters involving OSMRE’s Indian Lands Program, NEPA and, of course, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. Mr. Kleven earned a B.S. in Environmental Health Science from the University of Georgia in the last millennium, and a J.D. from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. He is a member of the Colorado bar. When not working he can usually be found chauffeuring his children, riding a bike, or listening to live music. 

SARAH KRAKOFF is the Raphael J. Moses Professor of Law at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, CO. Her areas of expertise include American Indian law, natural resources and public land law, and environmental justice. She is the co-author of American Indian Law: Cases and Commentary (with Bob Anderson and Bethany Berger), and co-editor of Tribes, Land, and Environment (with Ezra Rosser.) Professor Krakoff's articles appear in the Stanford Law Review, the California Law Review, and the Harvard Environmental Law Review, among other journals. She also runs the Law School's Acequia Project, which provides free legal services to low-income farmers in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. Professor Krakoff has authored amicus briefs in the 6th, 7th, 9th, and 10th Circuits, as well as the Supreme Court of the United States. Before joining the Colorado Law tenure-track faculty, Professor Krakoff directed CU's American Indian Law Clinic and secured permanent University funding to ensure the Clinic's future. Professor Krakoff started her legal career at DNA-Peoples Legal Services on the Navajo Nation, where she initiated DNA's Youth Law Project with an Equal Justice Works fellowship. She received her BA from Yale and her JD from U.C. Berkeley, and clerked for Judge Warren J. Ferguson on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

STANLEY W. LAMPORT is a Partner with Cox, Castle & Nicholson LLP, in Los Angeles, CA. Stan is consistently recognized as one of California's leading land use and entitlement lawyers, as well as a leader in the field of lawyer professional responsibility and ethics. Stan has a full service land use and real estate development practice that includes representing clients in connection with project acquisition, entitlement strategy, transactional issues, project processing and advocacy, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) compliance, and litigation. He has represented clients in cities and counties throughout California, and is widely known for his work in the California coastal zone. Stan has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America and as one of the Southern California Super Lawyers in the field of land use and zoning law for many years. He teaches courses on land use law and CEQA to government agency planners, environmental professionals, lawyers, and developers throughout California. He has been qualified as an expert witness in land use law and legal ethics in numerous cases. Stan has been active in the field of legal ethics for 25 years. Since 2001, Stan has served on the State Bar's Commission for the Revision of the California Rules of Professional Conduct, a 13-member body appointed by the State Bar in consultation with the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court to revise and update the California Rules of Professional Conduct. Stan served six years on the California State Bar's Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct during which he served as the committee's chair. He is a former chair of the Los Angeles County Bar Association's Committee on Professional Responsibility and Ethics. He is the co-author and editor of a treatise on lawyer conflicts of interest and is a frequent lecturer, consultant and expert witness on the subject. He received his J.D. from Northwestern University Law School.

GREG LARSON is a Field Manager with the BLM Uncompahgre Field Office, in Montrose, CO. He is responsible for overseeing about one million acres of BLM lands in Montrose, Ouray, Delta, Gunnison, San Miguel and Mesa counties. Greg worked previously in the Colorado River Valley Field Office, as a Field Office Planning and Environmental Coordinator as well as the acting Branch Chief for Planning and Assessment for the BLM Colorado State Office. He obtained a Master’s degree in Watershed Science from Utah State University. Prior to joining the BLM he served as a Senior Project Manager and Operations Lead for Great Basin Natural Resources at a private consulting firm and as the Education and Land Manager for Swaner Nature Preserve in Utah.

DAWN MARTIN is Senior Principal Professional with Kleinfelder in Denver. Dawn has over 20 years of experience in environmental planning and permitting and NEPA project management in the oil and gas industry. Dawn has successfully managed more than 50 EAs and four EISs on BLM, USFS, USACE, NPS, and BIA-administered lands. Her expertise includes project schedule and budget management, facilitating public involvement, alternative development, preparing defensible environmental analyses, agency consultation and coordination, developing implementable mitigation measures and monitoring plans, and responding to public comments. Dawn works closely with NEPA project proponents to develop applicant-committed environmental protection measures designed to reduce the potential for significant impacts to resources, and reduce the risk of appeal or litigation. A skilled facilitator, Dawn has considerable expertise and dexterity in mediating and resolving conflicting needs and competing demands between agencies, project proponents, and interested parties. She serves as Kleinfelder’s primary NEPA Subject Matter Expert, and provides technical guidance and mentoring for NEPA practitioners throughout the firm. Dawn holds an MS degree in Wildlife Biology from Colorado State University and a BS degree in Natural Resources from Cornell University.

ANDREW C. MERGEN is Deputy Section Chief in the Appellate Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division, U.S. Department of Justice, where he supervises a wide variety of litigation. He has presented oral arguments in all 13 federal courts of appeals and several state intermediate and supreme courts.  Mr. Mergen has also taught at several law schools including, most recently, Harvard Law School.  Mr. Mergen has written on, among other things, federal water rights, A Misplaced Sensitivity:  The Draft Opinions in Wyoming v. United States, 68 Colo. L. Rev. 683 (1997) (with Sylvia F. Liu); on energy development on public lands, Surface Tension:  The Problem of Federal Private Split Estates, 33 Land & Water L. Rev. 419 (1998); and more recently on climate change and the Endangered Species Act, The Role of Climate Change in ESA Listing Decisions, 53 Rocky Mt. Min. L. Fdn. 67 (2016) (with Murray Feldman). He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the George Washington University School of Law.

KRISTIN NICHOLS is an associate in the Denver Tech Center, Colorado office of Holland & Hart LLP. She advises clients on a wide variety of natural resource issues, including energy development on federal, state, and tribal lands. Her practice involves litigation before the Interior Board of Land Appeals and other federal administrative boards, as well as federal courts. She has worked on administrative appeals before the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Office of Natural Resources Revenue, and the Office of the Director for the Office of Hearings and Appeals. Kristin also assists clients in working through complex federal and state regulatory processes to permit and develop projects on public lands, including compliance under NEPA. She received her B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her J.D. from the University of Denver.

DALE T. RATLIFF is an Associate at Lewis, Bess, Williams, & Weese in Denver, Colorado. Dale’s practice focuses on environmental and administrative law, with a particular emphasis on natural resource projects on public lands, including oil and gas development, transmission infrastructure, renewable energy infrastructure development, and ski area development. He has experience working under a broad spectrum of environmental and public-lands statutes, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act. Dale is a graduate of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law where he finished first in his class and focused his scholarship on environmental, natural resource, and water issues. Before law school, Dale worked as a fly fishing guide in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley, Chilean Patagonia, and Southwestern Alaska.

HADASSAH (DESSA) M. REIMER is an attorney in the Jackson Hole, Wyoming office of Holland & Hart LLP. Her practice focuses on federal environmental regulation and litigation before the Interior Board of Land Appeals and the federal courts, including environmental impact assessment, endangered species, and public land permitting requirements. Dessa also has an active Indian law practice. Dessa represents a variety of clients including conventional and renewable energy developers, mining companies, and water resource providers, as well as Indian tribes. Dessa has co-authored three papers for past RMMLF Annual Institutes, served as chair of the Public Lands section for the 2013 Annual Institute, and currently serves as a Trustee for the Foundation.

CONNIE ROGERS is the founder and principal of Terra Law Group, LLC, in Golden, Colorado. Connie helps clients navigate complex regulatory regimes and environmental reviews, with an emphasis on compliance with U.S. federal land management statutes, the National Environmental Policy Act, species protection statutes, federal Indian law, cultural resource and religious freedom concerns, and international human rights and indigenous peoples issues. Connie previously served as Deputy Solicitor for Energy and Mineral Resources at the U.S. Department of the Interior, where she was the lead lawyer on issues relating to the development of renewable and conventional energy and mineral resources.  Connie is a former trustee of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation and a frequent speaker at the Annual Institute and Special Institutes. Connie is listed in The Best Lawyers in America© for Native American Law (twice as Lawyer of the Year for Native American Law in Denver), in Who’s Who Legal: Mining, Denver Business Journal’s list of Top Women in Energy, and by Chambers USA for Natural Resources & Environment. Connie graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was an Olin Fellow in Law and Economics and a member of the Order of the Coif.

KATIE SCHRODER is a partner at Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP in Denver, where her practice focuses on all aspects of energy development on federal lands. Ms. Schroder counsels clients on oil and gas leasing and development on federal lands and agency compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. She has extensive experience with the Endangered Species Act and advises on federal royalty issues.  Ms. Schroder regularly represents oil and gas operators in administrative appeals before the Bureau of Land Management, Office of Natural Resources Revenue, and Interior Board of Land Appeals.  She has defended and challenged agency decisions and rulemakings in federal courts across the country. Ms. Schroder is active with the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation and recently chaired its 65th Annual Institute.  Previously, she has served as a trustee to this organization, chaired its Publications Committee, and authored several papers. She sits on the board of directors of Western Energy Alliance and is a former chair of the Public Land and Resources Committee within the ABA’s Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources. Ms. Schroder began her career as an attorney-advisor in the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of the Solicitor as part of the Solicitor’s Honors Program. She then spent 10 years with a boutique law firm in Denver. She holds a B.A. from Rice University and a J.D. from the University of Colorado School of Law. After law school, she clerked for Justice Alex J. Martinez of the Colorado Supreme Court.

WALTER E. STERN, a lawyer with Modrall Sperling in Albuquerque, New Mexico, represents businesses and people engaged in natural resources and energy development on Native American and federal public lands, helping them with their permitting, leasing, project development, transactions, and litigation matters around the west and across the country. Walter has been active in the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, serving as President, as Annual Institute Program Chair, and as Chair and member of several committees. He has been listed in Best Lawyers in America since 1995 in Native American and Natural Resources Law, and in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business since 2004. A native Californian, Walter moved to New Mexico after receiving a B.S. in Forestry (with honors) from the University of California at Berkeley and a J.D. from Boston College Law School (cum laude). In addition to his legal practice, Walter is—among other things—a husband, father, hiker, mountain bike rider, President of Modrall Sperling, a past Chair of the Board of Trustees of Albuquerque Academy (an independent day school in Albuquerque), and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Albuquerque Community Foundation.  

TEMPLE STOELLINGER is an assistant professor at the University of Wyoming Haub School of ENR and College of Law and Co-Director of the Center for Law and Energy Resources in the Rockies. She has a dual appointment with the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources and the College of Law. Professor Stoellinger is the faculty supervisor of the Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Law Clinic and coordinates the Haub School’s JD/MA program in Environment and Natural Resources. She also teaches environmental and natural resources law and policy, wildlife law, and approaches to environmental problem solving. Before joining the University of Wyoming, Professor Stoellinger worked for Shell International B.V. and served as a natural resource advisor to Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal.

BRET SUMNER is a senior partner at the law firm of Beatty & Wozniak, and he is the head of the firm’s federal practice group.  Bret specializes in oil and gas and environmental matters. Bret handles oil and gas litigation and he regularly defends permits and projects from challenges in federal courts, and before administrative adjudicatory entities.  Bret advises companies on compliance with federal statutes, including the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and National Historic Preservation Act.  He regularly advocates on behalf of clients before Executive Branch Departments and federal agencies, including the Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Environmental Protection Agency. 

KYLE TISDEL is a staff attorney and the Climate & Energy Program director at Western Environmental Law Center, working from WELC’s Southwest office in Taos, New Mexico. Kyle represents non-profit organizations, tribal groups, and communities in protecting the West’s land, air, water, climate, and cultural resources, helping to ensure the resilience of our public lands and communities. Kyle frequently engages the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and other federal agencies in administrative decision making regarding the management, leasing, and permitting of fossil fuel resources on our public lands. Public interest clients seek Kyle’s representation in matters under the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, as well as other federal statutes in federal court. Kyle received a B.A. in International relations from Michigan State University and earned his law degree from Vermont Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law. WELC uses the power of the law to defend and protect the American West’s treasured landscapes, iconic wildlife, and rural communities.