Environmental Law Commons^™

Going Hemp Wild: Understanding The Challenges And Opportunities For Fda Regulation Of Cbd In Food Products, Hannah Catt

Journal of Food Law & Policy

After the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, champions of hemp began to tout opportunities for farmers and businesses involved with the crop. The industry has rallied around one of hemp’s major byproducts, cannabidiol, or CBD. However, the demand for CBD has left the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) playing catch-up. This article explains what CBD is, how it is derived, current FDA-approved uses, and a current path forward for the FDA in creating guidance for industry and consumers.

Agricultural Exceptionalism And Industrial Animal Food Production: Exploring The Human Rights Nexus, Charlotte E. Blattner, Odile Ammann

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The host of negative effects of animal agriculture on the immediate environment, workers, and local communities are well-documented, yet little is known about the global repercussions of animal agriculture, especially on human rights guarantees. This contribution attempts to begin filling this soaring gap. It examines the nexus between industrial animal agriculture (with a focus on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)) on the one hand, and specific international human rights violations on the other hand. Our emphasis is on the role of government in producing these violations, rather than on the agribusiness itself. Laws originally designed to govern small family farms—so-called …

Wildearth Guardians V. Zinke, Emily M. Mcculloch

Public Land & Resources Law Review

WildEarth Guardians v. Zinke marks an important decision prompting the Bureau of Land Management to seriously consider greenhouse gas emissions when performing environmental assessments for oil and gas leasing. WildEarth Guardians and Physicians for Social Responsibility, two non-profit organizations, asserted BLM improperly failed to recognize greenhouse gas emissions and their impacts on climate change when issuing oil and gas leases in three western states. The United States District Court for the District of Columbia agreed, finding that by failing to take a hard look at environmental impacts from its leasing decisions, BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act’s requirements.

Preview—Murray V. Bej Minerals, Llc: Finding A Home For Fossils, Layne L. Ryerson

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The Montana Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in this matter on Thursday, November 7, 2019 at 9:30 AM in the courtroom of the Montana Supreme Court, Joseph P. Mazurek Building, Helena, Montana. The Honorable Olivia Rieger will hear the case in place of Justice Jim Rice, who recused himself. Eric B. Wolff is expected to argue for the Appellants. Harlan B. Krogh is expected to argue for the Appellees.

Legal Frameworks & Foreign Investment: A Primer On Governments’ Obligations, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Lise Johnson, Sam Szoke-Burke, Rumbidzaii Mawen

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Legal frameworks, and how they interact, are often invisible in the day to day. Yet they are powerful forces that influence government actions and that help to shape who benefits and who loses from foreign investment. Understanding these legal frameworks, and how they interact, is critical for anyone concerned with how foreign investment can be better harnessed to support, rather than weaken, sustainable development and human rights.

This primer provides a brief overview of host government obligations under international investment law, international human rights law, domestic law, and relevant investor-state contracts. It also highlights some of the ways in which …

Outcome Report On The Climate Crisis, Global Land Use And Human Rights Conference, Mateusz Kasprowicz, Sam Szoke-Burke, Kaitlin Y. Cordes

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

On September 27^th, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Landesa, the New York City Bar Association International Environmental Law Committee, and Wake Forest Law School hosted a day-long conference on the intersection between land use, the climate crisis and clean energy transition, and human rights.

Held at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice, the conference brought together individuals from civil society organizations, governments, and academia, as well as lawyers, climate scientists, land-rights experts, indigenous representatives and other stakeholder groups. The panelists analyzed the critical role that land plays in …

Knick V. Township Of Scott, Alizabeth A. Bronsdon

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The Supreme Court overruled a 34-year-old precedent and sparked a sharp dissent by holding that a landowner impacted by a local ordinance requiring public access to an unofficial cemetery on her property could bring a takings claim directly in federal court. The decision eliminated a Catch-22 state-litigation requirement that effectively barred local takings plaintiffs from federal court, but raised concerns about government land use and regulation, judicial federalism, and the role of stare decisis.

Ensuring Economic Viability And Sustainability Of Coffee Production, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, James Rising, Perrine Toledano, Nicolas Maennling

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Coffee, the world’s favorite beverage, provides livelihoods for at least 60 million people across dozens of countries. Yet this beloved drink is experiencing a sustainability crisis. A sustained decline in world coffee prices has squeezed coffee producers, and thrown a tremendous number of producers below the global extreme poverty line. This report presents our research into sustainability within the coffee sector, including the results of our analytical and empirical modeling, and provides several recommendations.

Linkages To The Mining Sector In Colombia, Nicolas Maennling, Perrine Toledano

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

At the request of the Colombian Government and with the support of GIZ, CCSI prepared a policy brief focused on linkages from the mining sector in Colombia. The brief gives an overview of existing regulatory requirements, government policies and company programs to foster economic and infrastructure linkages. Based on the findings, the brief provides suggestions for next steps if the government is to develop a more comprehensive linkage creation program.

Distressed Watershed: A Designation To Ease The Algae Crisis In Lake Erie And Beyond, Kenneth K. Kilbert

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Algae pose a severe problem in many waterbodies nationwide, but the algae crisis is perhaps most acute in Lake Erie. Harmful algal blooms choke the lake every year, causing economic and ecologic damage and threatening public health. Solving the algae crisis in Lake Erie depends on reducing the amount of nutrients entering the lake, especially from agricultural stormwater runoff. Ohio’s recent designation of Lake Erie as “impaired” under the Federal Clean Water Act is a positive step, and the resulting Total Maximum Daily Load (“TMDL”) should be a useful planning tool in the fight against algae. But because the Clean …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fixing The Business Of Food: The Food Industry And The Sdg Challenge, Barilla Center For Food And Nutrition, Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment, Sanda Chiara Lab

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In collaboration with the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the Santa Chiara Lab of the University of Siena, CCSI presented its first report on Fixing the Business of Food.

The document, part of a two-year effort, highlights the sustainable development challenge faced by the food industry. By proposing a Four Dimension framework, the report asks four overarching questions for companies in the food sector to address alignment with the SDGs:

1. Does the company contribute to healthy and sustainable dietary patterns through its products and strategy?
2. Are the company’s production processes economically, socially, …

Earth Democracy: Sustainability, Justice And Peace, Vandana Shiva

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The New Food Safety, Margot J. Pollans, Emily M. Broad Leib

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

A safe food supply is essential for a healthy society. Our food system is replete with different types of risk, yet food safety is often narrowly understood as encompassing only foodborne illness and other risks related directly to food ingestion. This Article argues for a more comprehensive definition of food safety, one that includes not just acute, ingestion-related risks, but also whole-diet cumulative ingestion risks, and cradle-to-grave risks of food production and disposal. This broader definition, which we call “Food System Safety,” draws under the header of food safety a variety of historically siloed, and under-regulated, food system issues including …

Book Review Of "River Of Lost Souls", Clifford J. Villa

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Briefing For Civil Society Organizations – Understanding Commercial Eucalyptus Plantations: How Do They Work And What Are Their Environmental Impacts?, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

If a company wants to use a community’s land for eucalyptus plantations, the community should think carefully about whether this is a good idea. Civil society organizations that support communities can use this briefing to help communities understand the potential environmental impacts the community should be aware of. The briefing explains plantation forestry and the life-cycle of eucalyptus tree plantations. It also notes the different possible negative environmental impacts of eucalyptus plantations before exploring how this information can be factored into community decision-making about a proposed eucalyptus plantation. While the briefing focuses on eucalyptus plantations, a lot of it will …

Defining Fishing, The Slippery Seaweed Slope, Ross V. Acadian Seaplants Ltd., Rebecca P. Totten

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

In Maine, the intertidal zone has seen many disputes over its use, access, and property rights. Recently, in Ross v. Acadian Seaplants, Ltd., the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held that rockweed seaweed in the intertidal zone is owned by the upland landowner and is not part of a public easement under the public trust doctrine. The Court held harvesting rockweed is not fishing. This case will impact private and public rights and also the balance between the State's environmental and economic interests. This Comment addresses the following points: first, the characteristics of rockweed and the …

Juliana V. United States, Daniel Brister

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In 2015, a group of adolescents between the ages of eight and nineteen filed a lawsuit against the federal government for infringing upon their civil rights to a healthy, habitable future living environment. Those Plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States alleged that the industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels was causing catastrophic and destabilizing impacts to the global climate, threatening the survival and welfare of present and future generations. Seeking to reduce the United States’ contributions to atmospheric carbon dioxide, Plaintiffs demanded injunctive and declaratory relief to halt the federal government’s policies of promoting and subsidizing fossil fuels, due to the …

To Bee Or Not To Bee, Michael Davids

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

Honey bees are the oil that keeps our agriculture system functioning and productive, yet beekeepers are one of the honey bee’s largest stressors. Bees are hived in uninsulated boxes, shipped thousands of miles to pollinate monoculture crops that affect their diet, and bred to produce less propolis—a valuable substance bees make to protect themselves, but neither federal nor state addresses these issues. This article proposes that the USDA and APHIS, as well as state agriculture agencies regulate hive design to mimic bees’ natural hives, regulate the design of truck trailers to trick bees into believing they are stationary, and change …

Consumer Power To Change The Food System? A Critical Reading Of Food Labels As Governance Spaces: The Case Of Acai Berry Superfoods, Christine Parker, Hope Johnson, Janine Curll

Journal of Food Law & Policy

This article argues that the marketing claims on food labels are a governance space worthy of critical examination. We use a case study of superfood açaí berry products to illustrate how marketing claims on food labels encapsulate dominant neoliberal constructions of global food systems. These marketing claims implicitly promise that by making careful choices consumers can resist and redress the ravages of unbridled global capitalism. Food labels suggest that consumers can use market signals to simultaneously govern our own selves and the market to ensure sustainable, fair, and healthy consumption. In response, this article develops, justifies and applies a socio-legal …

The Clash Of Agricultural Exceptionalism And The First Amendment: A Discussion Of Kansas' Ag-Gag Law, Meredith Kaufman

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Since the Nation’s founding, agricultural production has been treated differently than other industries. This concept, known as “agricultural exceptionalism,” has manifested in many different ways throughout U.S. history. Since the 1990s, one manifestation of agricultural exceptionalism has been the enactment of “Ag-gag laws,” state laws that limit information gathering activities at animal production facilities. Ag-gag laws are frequently criticized by animal welfare advocates and legal scholars for seeking to shield animal production facilities from public scrutiny, a state-sanctioned protection not afforded to other industries.

Blockchain Meets Genomics: Governance Considerations For Promoting Food Safety And Public Health, Walter G. Johnson

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Foodborne illness remains an ongoing public health challenge in both the developing and industrialized worlds. In the United States, almost 50 million reported cases of infectious disease occur every year from a food product, resulting in substantial morbidity and mortality with economic burdens to health care and productivity. Despite recognition as a leader in food safety, the U.S. experiences longstanding and novel issues in food safety. Advances in whole genome sequencing (WGS) promise to bolster food safety regulators’ capabilities to identify pathogens and determine their source. However, inefficiencies in tracing food products through the supply chain remain.

Federal Regulation Of Pesticide Residues: A Brief History And Analysis, Kate Z. Graham

Journal of Food Law & Policy

In the United States today, there are over 900 pesticides in use1 and over 400 are approved for use in food production, whether used as part of the growing process or in post-harvest handling. Although the history of pesticide use in food crops goes back centuries, the post-war period has seen an enormous growth in the varieties and amounts of pesticides used in our food system. As our reliance on pesticides has grown, pesticides have become a divisive issue. Pesticide advocates view them as essential to a secure and reliable food supply needed to feed a growing world population. Detractors, …

Animal Agriculture Liability For Climatic Nuisance: A Path Forward For Climate Change Litigation?, Daniel E. Walters

Faculty Scholarship

Despite possessing statutory authority to regulate at least some contributing causes of climate change, environmental regulators in the United States have recently found themselves tied up in political gridlock. In response, advocates are turning from the regulatory track to a common law liability track, bringing public nuisance suits against fossil fuel producers and electric utilities. However, most of these public nuisance suits have met a common fate: they have been held to be displaced by the comprehensive regulatory framework for controlling greenhouse gas emissions contained in the Clean Air Act. As long as there is even the possibility of regulatory …

Legislative And Executive Branch Developments Affecting The United States Department Of Agriculture Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Sheila Fleischhacker, Alyssa Moran, Sara N. Bleich

Journal of Food Law & Policy

For more than forty years, the United States Department of Agriculture Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP; formerly Food Stamps) has offered nutrition assistance to nearly forty million eligible individuals and families each month. This article first provides a brief overview of the evolution of the United States’ largest domestic food security and nutrition safety net program. Then, the article reviews Congressional actions taken regarding SNAP during the 2018 Farm Bill deliberations, appropriations for fiscal years 2017 through 2020, and oversight (in)activities. The article focuses on Congressional activities regarding block grants; participant eligibility; benefit adequacy, issuance, and redemption; and strengthening SNAP’s …

Indigenous Environmental Network V. United States Department Of State, Seth Sivinski

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Pipelines are an extremely efficient way to move large amounts of oil and gas across long distances. However, pipelines have become a lightning rod for environmentalists opposing the lines’ construction and the energy sector which considers the lines a must to achieve energy independence and security. Pipelines are massive projects often crossing interstate and international boundaries. As a result, they are subject to an extensive amount of government regulation with an accompanying assortment of legal challenges. Indigenous Environmental Network v. United States Department of State is the latest case in the Keystone XL pipeline saga, wherein the United States District …

Murray V. Bej Minerals, Llc, Brett Berntsen

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Part of a dispute some 66 million years in the making, Murray v. BEJ Minerals, LLC considered for the first time whether dinosaur fossils—specifically a one-of-a-kind specimen containing entombed “dueling dinosaurs”—qualified as “minerals” for the purposes of a property transaction under Montana law. Finding no consistent statutory or dictionary definition for “mineral,” the Ninth Circuit relied on a test previously utilized by the Montana Supreme Court to hold that the dinosaur fossils constituted minerals due to their rare and exceptional qualities and were therefore part of the property’s mineral estate. The decision was promptly nullified, however, as the Ninth Circuit …

Hoopa Valley Tribe V. Ferc, Fredrick Aaron Rains

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In Hoopa Valley Tribe v. FERC, the Hoopa Valley Tribe challenged the intentional and continual delay of state water quality certification review of water discharged from a series of dams on the Klamath River in California and Oregon. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the states of Oregon and California, and PacifiCorp, a hydroelectric operator, were implementing an administrative scheme designed to circumvent a one-year temporal requirement for review imposed on states by the Clean Water Act. This scheme allowed PacifiCorp to operate the series of dams for over a decade without proper state water quality certification. The United States …

Save Our Sound Obx, Inc. V. North Carolina Department Of Transportation, Mitch L. Werbell V

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of several governmental agencies seeking to construct a new bridge in the Pamlico Sound adjacent to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. For years, state and federal agencies have put forth a massive coordinated effort to address the constant weather damage and erosion which occurs to a section of North Carolina Highway 12. The court found the agencies properly cleared NEPA’s environmental review requirements for the bridge’s construction. Additionally, the opponent-litigants’ efforts to add claims challenging the project, based on new information about a shipwreck in the bridge’s path, were futile.

Corn, Cows, And Climate Change: How Federal Agricultural Subsidies Enable Factory Farming And Exacerbate U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Trevor J. Smith

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

As people around the globe grapple with the realities of an ever-warming planet, Americans, too, are coping with some of the attendant consequences of climate change: severe droughts, storms, and wildfires to name just a few. In response, Americans are evaluating their personal and collective contributions to the climate crisis. Notwithstanding President Trump’s unilateral move in June 2017 to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the international community is pressing forward with comprehensive strategies to mitigate anthropogenic sources of atmospheric carbon. Despite their best efforts, however, most of these actions focus on the energy and transportation sectors while …