by Farris Gillman, Lucas Narducci, and Patrick Paul Opportunity for business in Arizona is booming. In a May 2019 ranking in Chief Executive Magazine, Arizona jumped to seventh best state to do business. Arizona is well known for its mineral deposits, but timber was once one of the state’s leading industries. Northern Arizona has millions […]
By Patrick Paul On October 1, 2019, UPS and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that a UPS subsidiary, UPS Flight Forward Inc., received FAA approval under 14 CFR Part 135 to operate a drone airline. This approval will allow UPS Flight Forward to operate multiple revenue-generating package delivery drones under a single FAA […]
By Patrick Paul On October 16, 2019 Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah introduced the Drone Integration and Zoning Act, a bill designed to establish a regulatory framework for drones based on the principles of local governance and cooperative federalism. Under this bill, drone operations over private property at altitudes below 200 feet above ground […]
by Fred Breedlove Most businesses that work in a natural resource industry in Arizona are familiar with the requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (“NHPA”), and Arizona’s State Historic Preservation Act (“SHPA”). There are two reasons for that. First, the responsibility of landowners to protect cultural or archaeological resources applies on both […]
by Mitchell J. Klein Reported to be at the direction of the Department of Justice, the EPA is now requiring that anyone willing to enter into an Administrative Order of Consent must first agree to surrender all claims against the United States and any Federal Agency for the work to be performed. While it has […]
by Patrick J. Paul The costs of Flagstaff’s July 2019 Museum Fire, fully contained as of August 15th and for which no cause has yet been determined, are now anticipated to exceed $13,000,000. To date, the Coconino National Forest Service has spent almost $10 million in dedicated fire suppression efforts. Meanwhile, Coconino County itself estimates […]
by Amanda A. Reeve Consuming the forest in a red blaze just about a mile north of downtown Flagstaff, the Museum Fire Wildfire had many Arizonans on edge, especially fire management officials. Flagstaff is a popular destination year-round, and especially so in late July for Arizonans looking for respite from the warmer temperatures of the […]
by Patrick J. Paul The U.S. Forest Service deployed a drone for its maiden mission to manage a forest fire in Flagstaff, Arizona earlier this week. The lightning-caused Maroon Fire has been burning for several weeks in the Coconino National Forest in an area used for bomb and ordnance testing during World War II. Forest […]
By Christopher P. Colyer On Tuesday, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published an internal memo outlining new agency efforts to improve the consistency and transparency of cost-benefit analyses performed in conjunction with agency rulemakings. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s memo directs the agency’s offices of Air and Radiation, Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, Land […]
by Denise A. Dragoo On April 10, 2019, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order seeking to address permitting and policy obstacles preventing the export of coal and other energy resources through West Coast ports. New port facilities and improvements have been halted or delayed by state, local and tribal governments in California, Washington and […]
