Agricultural Management
The Agricultural Management Committee addresses legal and policy challenges worldwide, balancing food production needs with the environmental concerns of various stakeholders. The Committee educates Section members, international associates, laymen, scientists, and others to promote a helpful dialogue on the most pressing problems facing agriculture in the new millennium.

Air Quality
The Air Quality Committee provides a valuable forum and practical resources for lawyers interested in air-related issues to: 1) keep up to date on new developments, through extensive communications such as newsletters, satellite conferences and seminars; 2) exchange ideas and Best Practices with other practitioners around the country; and 3) stay involved with the environmental lawyer community by contributing to various Section publications and participating in Section events.

Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Ecosystems
The unique scope of the Climate Change, Sustainable Development, and Ecosystems Committee focuses on three interrelated topics of increasing importance at the international and domestic level. The Committee is long-established as the leading forum for those engaged in the regulatory and legal aspects of climate change. Following the ABA's participation in the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the Committee is leading the Section-wide effort to raise awareness of sustainability concepts and to integrate sustainability thinking across all environmental practice areas. The newest component of the Committee's membership seeks to explore ecosystem-based approaches to environmental protection and regulation.

Endangered Species
The Endangered Species Committee focuses on the legal and policy developments related to endangered species and their critical habitat. The Committee monitors legislative, regulatory, and judicial developments and identifies those that may be of particular interest to members. Appropriate approaches for relaying and explaining those developments are then identified, prioritized, and implemented.

Environmental Disclosure
The Environmental Disclosure Committee provides a forum for the discussion of corporate environmental disclosure in light of the requirements recently imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley and the increasing number of environmental "transparency" initiatives. The Committee focuses on legally mandated SEC and financial statement disclosure of environmental matters and the relationship between such disclosures and voluntary corporate sustainability and social responsibility disclosures of environmental matters to stakeholders. It also treats issues arising from product-related environmental disclosures in the commercial marketplace.

Environmental Enforcement and Crimes
The Environmental Enforcement and Crimes Committee will monitor and communicate new developments relevant to the practice of its members, focusing on the practical issues arising in environmental criminal and civil enforcement cases. Some of the specific issues include developing issues in sentencing in environmental criminal cases and the assessment of penalties in civil enforcement cases.

Environmental Justice, Special Committee on
The Special Committee on Environmental Justice works to achieve the goal of environmental justice through advocacy and education, and by linking resources to needs. The Committee is also committed to achieving greater diversity within the practice of environmental law and the Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources.

Environmental Litigation and Toxic Torts
The Environmental Litigation and Toxic Torts Committee covers one of the fastest growing areas of legal practice, with particular focus on litigation issues arising in environmental and toxic tort matters. The Committee's goal is to track trends and developing substantive and procedural law in environmental and toxic tort causes of action through programs, newsletters and quick teleconferences.

Environmental Transactions and Brownfields
The mandate of the Environmental Transactions and Brownfields Committee relates to transactions, audits and the redevelopment of brownfields, including voluntary clean-up laws, prospective purchaser agreements, insurance, institutional controls, environmental justice, parent/successor liability, underground storage tanks and audit privilege.

International Environmental Law
The International Environmental Law Committee brings together attorneys from across the United States and around the world to better understand the unique and dynamic field of international environmental law. Our members include lawyers in solo practice, small and large private law firms, corporations, government, and non-governmental organizations, as well as faculty from schools of law on several continents. The two primary objectives of the Committee are to provide members with the tools and resources to enhance their practice or research and to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences relevant to the practice and study of international environmental law.

Pesticides, Chemical Regulation, and Right-to-Know
The Committee on Pesticides, Chemical Regulation, and Right-To-Know addresses a diversity of federal, state, and international regulatory matters with a distinct product focus. Products of interest include chemical and biological pesticides, industrial and consumer chemicals, and plant and microbial products of biotechnology.

Site Remediation
The Site Remediation Committee will monitor and communicate to its members legal and technical developments in site remediation, including: administrative orders, technical impracticability waivers, remediation funding guarantee mechanisms, new remediation technologies, and several other related topics.

Smart Growth and Urban Policy
The Smart Growth and Urban Policy Committee ("SGUP") addresses those aspects of environmental regulation that affect where activity does and does not occur. It specifically focuses on the interaction between environmental regulatory policy and urban policy.

State and Regional Environmental Cooperation
The State and Regional Environmental Cooperation Committee is a forum for the exchange of ideas, rather than focusing on a substantive area of environmental law. This gives the committee a unique advantage in being able to communicate across the spectrum of the Section's constituencies not only about a variety of substantive issues but also how to manage the solution of conflicts. Through Regional Councils the Committee helps to coordinate activities of the ABA with that of EPA regions and State and Local Bar Associations.

Superfund and Natural Resource Damages Litigation
The Superfund and Natural Resource Damages Litigation Committee focuses on developments in federal and state laws, cases and policy related to hazardous waste remediation and natural resource damages, including enforcement activities under CERCLA and state equivalents, assessments under DOI, NOAA and state programs, as well as staying abreast of developments in ancillary related areas such as environmental insurance for CERCLA sites and legal aspects of new treatment technologies, assessment methods and valuation methodologies. The Committee will also offer information and updates on litigation techniques and evidence issues of particular interest to environmental practitioners.

Waste Management
The Waste Management Committee consists of environmental practitioners who are interested in solid and hazardous waste management issues, particularly from a regulatory and compliance perspective. Those who advise clients on matters arising under Subtitle C or Subtitle D of RCRA, or similar state programs, will find the work of the Committee informative as we consider emerging issues, regulatory and statutory changes, and litigation that affects waste generators, transporters, and treatment, storage and disposal facilities.

Water Quality and Wetlands
The Water Quality and Wetlands Committee's goal is to keep water quality and wetlands issues in focus for our members as they move into the next century. This will be accomplished by identifying emerging issues such as recent cases on federal jurisdiction, Water Quality and TMDL Regulations and Citizen Suit litigation among others.

Energy and Environmental Finance, Special Committee on
The Special Committee on Energy and Environmental Finance focuses on emerging techniques for the finance, development and risk management of energy, environment and resource projects and companies. In particular, it focuses on public and private development programs and initiatives to accelerate the interplay of technology and finance with environmental and energy regulatory law to support national security and sustainability.

Energy and Natural Resources Litigation
The Energy and Natural Resources Litigation Committee delivers practitioners with up-to-date information on areas such as electricity litigation with an emphasis on energy law of electric and natural gas conveyance, natural resource litigation with a focus on emerging natural resources damage issues, oil and natural gas litigation and overarching litigation issues.

Energy Facilities and Siting
The primary goal is to foster development of practical resources relating to the challenges of balancing competing interests in the siting process. The issues include: providing adequate, affordable and reliable supplies of energy; protecting environmental quality; ensuring meaningful public participation; addressing environmental justice concerns, Native American cultural and economic issues; energy conservation, efficiency and renewable energy sources; national security, resolution of differences among national, regional, state, and local energy policies and planning; deregulation, streamlining the siting process through consolidation of licensing and improving agency coordination; and incorporating comprehensive approaches to analyzing cumulative impacts and land-use planning. The governance and agenda of this new Committee is under development and new members will be positioned to promote activities that are most complementary to their practices and interests.

Forest Resources
The Forest Resources committee addresses virtually every issue that touches both private and public forest lands. We focus on all legal, policy and practical issues of interest to managers, users and others who are interested in forest lands. Through various programs, we provide information to our committee members that is not available from any other organization.

Gas and Electricity Marketing
The purpose of the Gas and Electricity Marketing Committee is to advance the understanding of contractual and regulatory legal issues related to the purchase and sale of electricity and natural gas, the transportation of natural gas, the transmission of electricity, and electricity and natural gas arbitrage transactions.

Global Oil and Gas Exploration and Production
The Global Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Committee provides a venue for energy law practitioners who wish to monitor, discuss and explore legal trends and developments that impact the practice of law within the oil and gas industry. This Committee focuses upon many topics of interest to energy law practitioners including, among others: (1) legal issues pertinent to the business of exploring for and producing oil and natural gas, (2) new trends and developments in the oil and gas industry that have an impact on the rendition of legal services within that industry, (3) regulatory, statutory and case law developments pertinent to the exploration and production business, and (4) the future of the domestic oil and gas exploration and production industry.

Hydro Power
Hydroelectric projects use the flow of water, a renewable resource, to provide an important source of electric power in the United States. They also serve multiple additional purposes, including flood control, navigation, storage of water for irrigation and municipal and industrial purposes, fish and wildlife, and recreation. These projects also have effects the environment, including fish and wildlife, habitat, and water quality. Through participation at conferences and written and electronic publications, the Hydro Power Committee intends to keep its members apprised of developments and issues relevant to hydroelectric projects.

International Energy and Resources Transactions
The International Energy & Resources Transaction Committee provides energy and natural resources practitioners with a unique opportunity to establish a strong global network of lawyers and legal associations worldwide to promote professional development in energy and resources transactional areas through exchange of ideas, experiences, and access to the latest best practices. The Committee is transaction based and will focus on global trends and risks affecting energy and resource project developments that are most complementary to members' practices and interests.

Marine Resources
The Marine Resources Committee deals with issues associated with the largest ecosystem on Earth. These issues are as diverse as the ocean ecosystem itself. These issues include marine transportation, from cruise ships to lightering vessels, exploration and production of marine natural resources, weather and climate change, fish and aquaculture and legal issues resulting from the use of coastal and ocean areas.

Mining
The Mining Committee is devoted to study and discussion of the entire range of environmental, energy and resource issues attendant to the hardrock and coal mining industries, including regulatory developments, civil and criminal actions, and other aspects of these industries which involve legal counseling and representation.

Native American Resources
The Native American Resources Committee brings together lawyers representing tribes, individual Indians, businesses, and government to facilitate the study and discussion of laws affecting reservation environments and the development of natural resources on Indian lands.

Petroleum Marketing
Our goal is to provide attorneys whose practice includes petroleum marketing matters with an opportunity to exchange ideas, obtain timely information concerning cases, statutes and regulations in the industry, address issues that affect their current and future practices and to provide opportunities to develop interpersonal relationships.

Public Land and Resources
The Public Land and Resources Committee focuses on a broad array of federal land issues, as well as private, local, state and international public land and resource issues. In the federal context, the Committee will consider federal land matters pertaining to the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, National Park Service, Wildlife Refuge Management system, military installations and other federal land holdings. The Committee also will focus on land use issues on land use opportunities created by private, local, state and international land holdings. For instance, recreation (developed and underdeveloped), wilderness, wildlife, open space, grazing, species conservation and regulatory takings law will be considered a mission critical issue areas for the Committee. The Committee will consider these issues for both land and water based resources.

Renewable Energy Resources
The Renewable Energy Resources Committee will examine and disseminate information on those legal policy and practical implementation issues which affect expansion of markets for renewable energy resources. The Committee will have five primary areas of focus: (1) innovative approaches to stimulating renewable energy resource development; (2) measures for commoditization and value maximization of fuel, environment and tax-related legal attributes of renewable energy and distributed generation production; (3) constraints on fitting renewable resources and distributed generation (whether or not powered by renewable fuels) into the framework of national and states’ energy policy; (4) relating renewable energy resource and distributed generation development to environmental legal requirements; and (5) issues related to structuring finance for renewable energy and distributed generation.

Restructuring of the Electric Industry
The Restructuring of the Electric Industry Committeestrives to provide its members with timely information concerning federal and state legislation and regulation relating to the structure of the electric industry, development of competitive electricity markets, and the infrastructure necessary to meet the nation's demand for electricity. This bar year, the Committee will sponsor a program at the ABA Annual Meeting, sponsor various programs at the Section Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C., contribute to the Section's Year in Review publication, publish one or more newsletters (as current events warrant), and continue to interact with members through its web page.

Water Resources
The Water Resources Committee focuses primarily on substantive and practice developments that impact water allocation and availability. These fall into a broad spectrum of subject areas, including state water law; federal and tribal water law; issues arising under the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act; interstate allocation of water; the Public Trust Doctrine; reserved water rights; state, local and municipal planning of water supplies; and federal reclamation law.

Alternative Dispute Resolution
The Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee involves itself with all aspects of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as the field affects environmental, energy and resource issues. Our primary goal is the development and dissemination of information on practical applications for ADR techniques in the environmental, energy and resource fields.

Constitutional Law
The Constitutional Law Committee will cover topics such as takings, federalism, separation of powers, and other constitutional issues; U.S. Supreme Court practice.

Environmental Impact Assessment
The broad focus of the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee will be practice under the National Environmental Policy Act and its state analogs. We will delve into such issues as whether NEPA should be "reformed" and if so how; the applicability of the review laws to particular actions; how environmental impact assessments should be prepared; and associated litigation.

Environmental Values and Ethics
The Environmental Values and Ethics Task Force will cover normative ethics, philosophy and religious beliefs, as opposed to professional codes, which are already covered by our Ethics Committee.

Ethics
The Ethics Committee fosters an involvement in the field of professional ethics by all Section members. One focus of the committee is to review and submit comments on proposed changes to the ABA Model Rules. The other primary focus of the committee is to keep section members updated as to relevant and/or timely ethical concerns.

Homeland Security
Th Homeland Security Committee provides a forum for discussion of homeland security measures and addresses national and state developments and evolving policy. The scope of our focus is grouped into four general areas: 1) the emergencies and disasters practice including risk-based emergency management planning and prevention, response and recovery, and assistance efforts; 2) the travel and transportation area focusing on customs inspections, border protection, airport security and dangerous goods; 3) the research and technology practice area addressing procedures for preparing for and responding to the full range of terrorist threats; and 4) the threats and protection practice area including the National Advisory System, protection of public buildings and critical infrastructure, health and safety, and related government enforcement.

In-House Counsel
The In-House Counsel Committee was established to facilitate communication and networking among in-house counsel who practice in the environmental, energy and/or natural resources field in a variety of settings -- corporations, associations, and non-profits. The committee serves as a conduit for the rapid distribution of news and information of particular interest to in-house lawyers. The Committee focuses on emerging trends in the substantive areas of energy, environmental, and resource practice and on the lawyer's role in environmental management and corporate/organizational decision making.

Innovation, Management Systems and Trading
As its name suggests, the Committee on Innovation, Management Systems and Trading focuses on three main topics: (1) innovation programs, which provide greater flexibility while requiring better environmental performance and stakeholder involvement; (2) policies that encourage businesses to shift from a reactive, compliance-oriented approach to a more active "environmental management" approach to environmental performance; and (3) programs that use market-based, trading arrangements to achieve better environmental results. All three of these approaches depart from traditional regulatory methods. The Committee examines the implications of these regulatory alternatives for law, policy and environmental law practice.

Science and Technology
The Science and Technology Committee evaluates scientific and technological issues and trends in litigation, federal and state regulatory regimes and legislative developments in practice areas across the spectrum of environmental, energy and resources law.