July 2006

COLUMNS  
     

  University of Florida ELULP Wraps Up an Active Year
  Alyson C. Flournoy

      

The 2005-2006 academic year has been busy and successful for the Environmental and Land Use Law Program at the Levin College of Law. We were pleased to be recognized among the top 5 environmental law programs at public law schools in the nation, and 12th overall in the US News & World Report survey of environmental law faculty. More important, we feel that we continue to offer a program of high quality and to attract exceptional students. Here’s a quick summary of major activities, events, curricular offerings, and accomplishments of the past year. We’ll bring you up to date on faculty work in an update this fall.

Conferences & Lectures

Over a hundred people attended the Richard E. Nelson Symposium on Nov. 17-18 in Gainesville, organized by Michael Allan Wolf, the Richard E. Nelson Chair in Local Government Law and co-sponsored by both the ELUL Section and the City, County and Local Government Law Section of the Florida Bar. The Symposium focused on Kelo v. New London and takings law, and featured law professors James Krier (Michigan), Nicole Garnett (Notre Dame), Douglas Kmiec (Pepperdine), Mark Fenster (UF) and Eduardo Penalver (Fordham).

The 12th Annual PIEC, held on March 9-11 and co-sponsored by the ELULS and the UF Center on Children’s Literature and Culture, focused on “In Fairness to Future Generations” and drew several hundred people to Gainesville. A presentation by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., kicked off the conference, which featured an extensive program of speakers addressing a wide range of topics. You can view the program at www.ufpiec.org and photos under the Events link on the ELULP website www.law.ufl.edu/elulp. Save the date for next year’s PIEC: March 1-3, 2007.

UF’s ELUL Society hosted the annual meeting of the National Association of Environmental Law Societies in conjunction with the PIEC March 1-3. Over fifty students from as far away as Hawaii came to Gainesville and participated in the PIEC and special programs for the NAELS students.

Distinguished environmental law professor Sheila Foster (Fordham) delivered the Spring Lecture for the UF Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations in April 2006. Professor Foster spoke about the intersection of land use law, environmental law and race in a talk titled "The Racial Ecology of a Natural Disaster."

2005-2006 Environmental Speaker Series

Students and faculty hosted a series of distinguished speakers this year and heard about topics ranging from takings and private property, to wilderness and citizen suits. Speakers in this year’s series were John Echeverria, Executive Director, Georgetown Environmental Law & Policy Institute, on Regulating Versus Paying Landowners to Protect the Environment; Chris Bzdok, Olson, Bzdok & Howard, P.C. (Traverse City, Michigan) on Anatomy of a Citizen Suit; Mark Fenster, Associate Professor of Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law, on The State and Local Legislative Response to Nollan and Dolan; Sarah Krakoff, Associate Professor of Law, University of Colorado School of Law, on Consuming Wilderness; and James R. Rasband Professor of Law and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Brigham Young University School of Law, on Buying Back the West. The Speaker Series is made possible through the support of Hopping Green & Sams, P.A.; Lewis Longman & Walker, P.A.; and the Environmental and Land Use Law Section.

Student Accomplishments and Recognition

The UF Environmental Moot Court team of Nicholas Beninate, Valerie Brennan, and Jessica Hovanec, supported by student coach Ryan Baya, reached the semi-finals of the National Environmental Moot Court Competition at Pace Law School in February 2006.

Four students graduated with Certificates in Environmental and Land Use Law during the 2005-2006 academic year, bringing the total number of students who have graduated with ELUL Certificates to 61.

Second year student (and 2006 PIEC co-chair) Heather Halter was selected for a John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship through Sea Grant. She will spend a year in Washington, D.C. in the legislative or executive branch of government beginning in January 2007.

Second year student Latasha Marshall Scott was selected for an ELULS /ABA Minority Fellowship in Environmental Law for the summer. She will be working with the Environmental Protection Commission in Tampa, Florida.

Curriculum

UF continues to offer a comprehensive curriculum in the fields of environmental and land use law. The 2005-2006 curriculum included: Administrative Law, Advanced Takings, Agricultural Law and Policy, Condominium and Community Development, Conservation Clinic, Environmental Dispute Resolution, Environmental Issues in Business Transactions, Environmental Law, Florida Administrative Law, Land Finance, Land Use Planning, Natural Resources Law, Water Law, and Seminars on: Animal Rights and the Law, Environmental Justice, Growth Management, Historic Preservation, Land Use, and Sustainable Development. Tom Ankersen is again directing the Environmental Law Summer Study Abroad Program in Costa Rica, as well. We are grateful to our adjunct faculty (Enola Brown, Jeff Dollinger, Daniel Eisinger, David Hoch, Mike Olexa, Tom Saunders, Cathy Sellers, and Terry Zinn) for enriching our offerings.

Conservation Clinic Success: The Florida legislature passed SB1928/HB1621 providing that owners of real property on the coast must notify subsequent purchasers that the property is subject to coastal hazards and accompanying regulation including environmental regulation due to the presence of marine turtles. In 2003-2004, Clinic students Ryan Osborne and Heather Brown undertook the underlying multi-state research on real property hazard notice and drafted the proposed bill language as their clinic project under the supervision of Richard Hamann and Tom Ankersen, for client Caribbean Conservation Corporation.





 

Copyright 2008, The Environmental and Land Use Law Section of The Florida Bar