About the event:

12:15-1:30 p.m., Moot Courtroom
S.J. Quinney College of Law

1 hour CLE. Lunch Provided.
Free and open to the public.

The Wallace Stegner Center is a co-sponsor of this event.

Former Assistant Interior Secretary Rebecca Watson will take a look back at President Obama’s first term energy policies at Interior – the focus, accomplishments and missteps—and make a forecast of what’s ahead in the second term. From “the new Sheriff,” Ken Salazar, closing the oil and gas “candy store,” to public land utility solar, coal leasing and the BP Gulf explosion the first four years were action-packed.  What will be the focus of a new Secretary of Interior and an emboldened White House for federal energy development in the second term? Will a BLM fracing rule slow down the “shale gale,” will exports of federal minerals be stalled and will climate change be a policy driver for renewables?

 

Rebecca Watson is a shareholder with the law firm of Welborn Sullivan Meck and Tooley, P.C. with offices in CO and WY.  Ms. Watson has more than 30 years of legal and policy experience in the fields of conventional and renewable energy, mining, natural resources and federal environmental law.  As Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management of the Interior Department in the George W. Bush administration, she had oversight over 3 bureaus including the Bureau of Land Management and led 12,000 employees and managed a $1 billion budget.  At Interior, she led the efforts that resulted in the passage of the first forest legislation in 25 years and the Energy Policy Act of 2005.  Ms. Watson also served as the Assistant General Counsel for Energy Policy at the U. S. Department of Energy in the George H. W. Bush administration.  Ms. Watson is a graduate of the University of Denver Law School, began her legal career in Wyoming, and practiced law in Washington D.C. and Helena, Montana.  She is the Secretary of Western Energy Alliance, a Trustee of Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation and serves on the boards of the University of Colorado, Center of the American West, Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado and Jefferson County Open Space Commission.  In 2011, she was named the Distinguished Natural Resource Practitioner-in-Residence at the University of Denver Strum College of Law.

 

Limited meter parking available in the College of Law parking lot. Pay parking available at Rice-Eccles Stadium or take TRAX University Line to the "Stadium" stop and walk a half block to the north.