Law Commons^™

Maintaining A Healthy Water Supply While Growing A Healthy Food Supply: Legal Tools For Cleaning Up Agricultural Water Pollution, Mary Jane Angelo, Jon Morris

Mary Jane Angelo

This article will explore a number of legal mechanisms that could play a role in ensuring that discharges from agricultural activities do not cause or contribute to violations of water quality standards. Specifically, this article will evaluate the relative effectiveness of: (1) narrative nutrient criteria as compared with numeric nutrient criteria; (2) Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) implementation through regulatory and non-regulatory mechanisms; and (3) the relative efficacy of design-based standards such as Best Management Practices (BMPs) and performance-based standards in reducing water pollution from agriculture. The article will draw on experiences from the State of Florida, including Everglades' restoration …

The Killing Fields: Reducing The Casualties In The Battle Between U.S. Species Protection Law And U.S. Pesticide Law, Mary Jane Angelo

Mary Jane Angelo

For the past 35 years, the conflicting goals, standards, focuses, and methods of United States species protection laws and United States pesticide law have produced a fierce legal battle. The unwitting casualties of this battle are the millions of birds, fish, and other wildlife that have been killed, and the hundreds of protected species put at risk of extinction. This battle has intensified in recent years, as environmental organizations have sued the United States Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") for its continued failure to comply with the Endangered Species Act ("ESA"). In response, EPA has invoked numerous legal and regulatory strategies, …

Modernizing Water Law: The Example Of Florida, Christine A. Klein, Mary Jane Angelo, Richard Hamann

Mary Jane Angelo

This Article takes a national view of the modernization of water law. Using Florida as an example, it identifies some of the most important and controversial challenges faced by states. Part II provides an overview of the process of water law reform. As states attempt to improve water management, they have modified their common law water allocation systems with an overlay of statutory law. Often, the process occurs in a piecemeal fashion, resulting in a patchwork of rules -- common law and statutory, old and new. In rare cases -- including that of Florida -- the process may be more …

Incorporating Emergy Synthesis Into Environmental Law: An Integration Of Ecology, Economics, And Law, Mary Jane Angelo, Mark T. Brown

Mary Jane Angelo

Emergy synthesis, flrst developed by Dr. Howard T. Odum in the 1970s, and further expanded and refined by other scholars over the past thirty years, has the potential to transform environmental decisionmaking by providing a methodology that can integrate ecology, economics, and law. Virtually all areas of environmental law are concerned in some way with both the ecological and the economic impacts of environmental decision making. Unfortunately, existing environmental law statutes tend to incorporate ecological and economic considerations in a simplistic, piecemeal, and awkward fashion. Emergy synthesis incorporates both ecological and economic considerations through a sophisticated scientiic methodology. Emergy synthesis …

Corn, Carbon, And Conservation: Rethinking U.S. Agricultural Policy In A Changing Global Environment, Mary Jane Angelo

Mary Jane Angelo

This Article explores a range of issues related to both the regulatory and incentive-based federal programs that affect the crops we grow, the manner in which they are grown, and the human and environmental impacts of such programs. The Article evaluates the 2008 Farm Bill and describes how the policies contained in it influence virtually every aspect of agriculture, from the decision to grow certain crops, the amount of crops grown, the industrial manner. This Article focuses on one particular commodity, corn, which while ubiquitous and seemingly pedestrian, is perhaps one of the major environmental offenders, and for which the …

Integrating Water Management And Land Use Planning: Uncovering The Missing Link In The Protection Of Florida's Water Resources?, Mary Jane Angelo

Mary Jane Angelo

Except for limited provisions, Florida law does not establish a formal link between land planning and water planning. In light of the importance of water resources for the future development of the State, this is a significant "missing link." Land use planners and water managers live in very different worlds and speak very different languages. Water managers point to poor planning as the cause of environmentally inappropriate development, and planners point to the shortcomings of water management regulatory programs as the cause of environmental woes. So what is the problem?Why are water management and planning not better integrated? Should they …

Corn, Carbon, And Conservation: Rethinking U.S. Agricultural Policy In A Changing Global Environment, Mary Jane Angelo

Mary Jane Angelo

ABSTRACT

CORN, CARBON AND CONSERVATION: RETHINKING U.S. AGRICULTURAL POLICY IN A CHANGING GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT

Mary Jane Angelo

In the past few years, the public has renewed its interest in ensuring that the food it eats is healthy and is grown in ways that are environmentally and economically sustainable. The immense popularity of books such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma, the widespread “locavore” movement, First Lady Michelle Obama’s White House lawn vegetable garden, concerns over genetically modified crops, rising food prices, growing concerns over the government’s misguided policy to promote corn ethanol, and the climate change crisis have refocused the public’s attention …

The Killing Fields: Reducing The Casualties In The Battle Between U.S. Species Protection Law And U.S. Pesticide Law, Mary Jane Angelo

Mary Jane Angelo

ABSTRACT

The Killing Fields:

Reducing the Casualties in the Battle Between

U.S. Species Protection Law and U.S. Pesticide Law

Mary Jane Angelo, University of Florida Levin College of Law

For the past 35 years a battle has raged due to the conflicting goals, standards, focus, and methods among the U.S. species protection laws and U.S. pesticide law. The unwitting casualties of this battle are the literally millions of birds, fish, and other wildlife species that have been killed and the hundreds of legally-protected species that have been put at risk of extinction. In the past several years the battle has …