Research Professor John Ruple, who also serves as director of the Wallace Stegner Center’s Law and Policy (LPP) program, recently returned from a two-year appointment as senior counsel in the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). He will discuss his time on the CEQ at a Stegner Center Green Bag on Thursday, Oct. 3, from 12:15-1:30 p.m.
“I believe that public service is incredibly important, and I am deeply honored to have had an opportunity to help develop and implement policies that will benefit all Americans for many years to come,” Ruple says of the appointment. “The ability to contribute to positive and lasting change is incredibly gratifying.”
The Law and Policy program team’s support of informed environmental and land-use decisions that reasonably balance myriad competing interests resonated with the Biden-Harris administration, Ruple explains, and led to his CEQ appointment.
“They were looking for people who shared a general policy orientation and who wanted to solve problems. I think they wanted institutionalists who would strive to develop thoughtful and enduring policies that create stability for government, regulated entities, and the public alike. And in the end, I think they looked at our work and saw a team that could help advance the ball,” he says. “I was just fortunate to be the one who received the call.”
Working to meet U.S. environmental goals and protect sensitive lands
The CEQ has a broad mandate to develop and recommend national policies to “foster and promote improvement of environmental quality to meet the conservation, social, economic, health, and other requirements and goals of the nation,” which made Ruple’s work at the CEQ both challenging and rewarding.
“CEQ also administers the National Environmental Policy Act, which creates the decision-making framework to meet our nation’s substantive environmental goals. Those are heavy lifts that require coordination across government, industry, and numerous stakeholders. The easy answers were checked off the list a long time ago, and what remains involves difficult tradeoffs,” Ruple says. “That’s part of what makes governing so difficult. It’s also what makes legal training so valuable. The weight of the challenge makes the work all the more gratifying.”
While Ruple is proud of many things he and the CEQ team accomplished during his time there, he says most of them aren’t showy but, like fixing a leaky roof or replacing a broken water heater, needed to be done and will pay dividends for years to come.
“The Risk Management and Financial Assurance for [the Outer Continental Shelf] Lease and Grant Obligations rule reduced the financial risk to taxpayers by $6.9 billion. The administration’s investments in plugging over 8,200 abandoned oil and gas wells, with more to come, is good for our climate, for the health of our communities, and for American workers,” Ruple explains. “That investment created over 7,200 good-paying jobs while preventing waste of an economically valuable resource that belong to all Americans.”
He notes that the CEQ, Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, and others are also working to make the environmental review and permitting processes more efficient, and the Interagency Working Group on Mining Laws, Regulations, and Permitting is improving mining on public lands.
“It’s not prime-time drama, but it’s the kind of work that’s needed to build infrastructure and to ensure that we do not sacrifice the quality of the air we breathe, water we drink, or fundamental principles of justice along the way,” he says. “Similarly, the mining work is desperately needed if we are going to forge the just and sustainable critical mineral supply chain our nation needs for the green energy transition.”
The U.S. and Canada’s Proposal to [the International Joint Commission] to Address Transboundary Water Pollution in the Elk Kootenai/y Watershed, negotiated in conjunction with the Ktunaxa Nation, was also a breakthrough in a decades-long dispute.
“It’s not just a document, it’s a roadmap to addressing more than a century of water pollution. Hopefully it will serve as a template for addressing similar threats to downstream communities in Alaska, Washington, Idaho, and Montana,” he says.
Ruple also keeps a physical memento of a presidential monument designation that occurred during his time on the CEQ.
“I have a framed copy of the presidential proclamation designating the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument (which honors tribal efforts to preserve land sacred to the Yuman-speaking tribes) in my office. It’s a constant reminder of what we should aspire to, and how we can serve both lands and the people who call them home,” he explains. “Protecting sensitive public lands is close to my heart, but working to establish the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument and the Springfield Race Riot National Monument will always stand out as special. We cannot undo the wrongs of the past, but we can learn from the lessons of the past and, in doing so, create a more just and equitable world.”
Pursuing a career in private, public, and academic work
The CEQ position is just a small piece of Ruple’s varied career. After working with the U.S. Forest Service and as a ski instructor, he earned a master’s degree in resource development—and that degree led to a job with an environmental consulting firm.
“I was fortunate to work with several very talented lawyers and to see how they approached complex issues involving wetlands, endangered species, and federal land management. That work inspired me to go to law school,” Ruple recalls.
He earned his JD at Utah Law and spent a couple years doing environmental litigation, then worked for Utah Gov. Huntsman on public land issues before taking a job at the University of Utah to focus on energy and water policy. That job, Ruple explains, evolved into a professorship and the formation of the Law and Policy program.
“It’s been quite a journey, and the mix of private, public, and academic work has been incredibly valuable in appreciating the diverse perspectives that are often in tension when managing public lands and natural resources,” Ruple says.
Returning to Utah Law
Now that his CEQ appointment has ended, Ruple says he returned to Utah Law at a very exciting time for the Stegner Center.
“Professor Bob Keiter built an incredible center, and Professor Lincoln Davies and Professor Brigham Daniels are poised to take the center to new heights. I can hardly wait to reconnect with all of the great people at the Stegner Center and in the Law and Policy program,” he says. “I’m also looking forward to working with a new cohort of talented students. Amazing things are on the horizon!”
Ruple says he is constantly amazed by our “brilliant and engaging students” and is also fortunate to have tremendous colleagues throughout the College of Law.
“Aside from the people, maybe the best part of being an academic is being able to dig into thorny questions underpinning environmental law and policy. Associate Research Professor Jamie Pleune, Professor Erik Heiny, and I looked at over 41,000 environmental analyses completed by the U.S. Forest Service, identifying where things worked well and where decisions bogged down. That kind of data-driven analysis is essential to developing effective regulatory reforms,” he says.
His work with the Law and Policy program is also impactful.
“I think everyone on the Law and Policy program team would say that we are fortunate to engage meaningfully on profoundly consequential issues like climate change, energy development, and management of our nation’s roughly 700 million acres of public lands. We’re also remarkably fortunate to have the support to dig into issues without regard to where the question may take us,” Ruple says.
He notes that the Law and Policy program doesn’t advocate to “keep it in the ground” or “drill, baby, drill” because team members want the lights to work and toilets to flush.
“We recognize that choices are complex and involve tradeoffs—and that decisions will have tangible consequences on the lives of real people,” Ruple says. “But we have less to say about specific decisions as long as decisions are within the sideboards prescribed by applicable laws and regulations and are grounded in fact. How policymakers strike that balance is up to them.”
A few years ago, Ruple recalls, the LPP team looked at whether environmental impact statements resulted in better environmental outcomes, and if so, whether those outcomes came at the expense of economic growth.
“We also investigated whether environmental analyses delay federal decisions (spoiler alert: they didn’t) and the burden posed by environmental litigation. Those are incredibly important questions for developing policy, and they are the kinds of questions the Law and Policy program is uniquely able to answer because we don’t have a stake in the outcome,” he says. “Seeing our work reflected in policies and regulations is deeply gratifying. It’s a constant reminder that what we do matters, and I couldn’t be more proud of what our team has accomplished.”
Learn more about the Law and Policy program.