JOHN RUPLE portrait
  • Research Professor & Stegner Center Law and Policy Program Director, College Of Law
  • Research Professor, College Of Law - Dean

Education

  • J.D. , Law, University of Utah
  • M.S., Resource Development, Michigan State University. Project: Treaty Implied Rights to Habitat Protection: Impacts on the Elwha River Controversy (Thesis)
  • B.A., Demography / Sociology , Western Washington University

Biography

John Ruple is a Research Professor of Law and Director of the Law and Policy Program at the Wallace Stegner Center for Land Resources and the Environment. Professor Ruple's scholarship focuses on public lands and water resource management. John’s current research focuses on improving National Environmental Policy Act efficacy, national monument designation and management, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas development. 

John is on leave from the University and serving as Senior Counsel in the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Prior to joining the Stegner Center, John was a Fellow with the University’s Institute for Clean and Secure Energy where he researched land and water issues involving energy development in Utah’s Uinta Basin. Before joining the University of Utah in 2008, John worked as policy analyst in Governor Jon Huntsman’s Public Lands Office, as an environmental attorney in private practice, and as a NEPA contractor specializing in permitting for projects on National Forest System lands. His work has published widely, including in nine book chapters, and articles in the Harvard Environmental Law Review, the Columbia Environmental Law Journal, the Georgetown Environmental Law Review, and Environmental Law. He is lead or contributing author on eleven government reports and fifteen environmental impact statements and environmental assessments.