Greetings Everyone and Welcome Aboard:

I am excited and look forward to working with you as members of the Public Service Task Force. Our goal is to share our knowledge, resources, and to steal a line from a movie, "Pay It Forward".

Historically, the Section focused its public service efforts in eight project areas: 1) educational instruction in schools, 2) development of model regulations, 3) public education pamphlets, 4) pro bono services to conservation and environmental groups, 5) promotion of recycling and reuse, 6) electric industry restructuring impacts on low-income consumers, 7) assistance to law school clinical programs, and 8) Earth Day/Law Day projects. We are open to any new ideas or directions and especially love creative ideas. As chairperson, I am offering a prize for the most creative new idea or new implementation of an old idea.

The Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources ("Section") is deeply committed to having its members actively reach out in the communities where they live to share their environmental, energy, and resources legal knowledge and experiences. To that end, the Section created the Public Service Task Force ("Task Force") during the 1995-1996 Bar year to determine the Section's public service goals and assist its members in meeting those goals.

Please see the Section's current public service areas of focus in the right navigation.

The American Bar Association Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources is pleased to announce another Earth Force project available for public service volunteers from our section. As one of the first four Earth Force sites established; Pine Jog Environmental Education Center, which is a unit of Florida Atlantic University's College of Education, has been delivering Earth Force programs in South East Florida since 1997.

Pine Jog is currently seeking ABA members to mentor college and high students taking part in the Pine Jog Fellowship: Cultivating Community Involvement and Environmental Leadership for the 2006-2007 academic year. The Pine Jog Fellowship is a powerful three semester experiential program concentrating on environmental issues in South Florida.

During the first semester (29 July - 4 August 2006), through an intensive week of field trips students learn about current environmental issues impacting Palm Beach County. The second (Fall 2006) semester, Fellows work in pairs to design and implement an environmental service project of their choice. For the third (Spring 2007) semester, participants work with youth in an after-school setting to help the children investigate and carry out an environmental service-learning project.

Volunteer opportunities for interested ABA members vary in scope, depth, and time of year. Examples include giving an hour or two to consult a Fellow on their project, joining Fellows on a day long excursion into the field, or acting as a guest speaker, etc. For additional information, please contact Carrie Mohanna cmohanna@fau.edu or 561-685-1040 or go to http://www.pinejog.org/WebPages/PineJogFellowship.htm.

The following committees are involved in public service projects:

• Forest Resource Education Kit
• Air Quality Committee
• Special Committee on Smart Growth and Urban Policy
• Innovation, Management Systems and Trading
• International Environmental Law
• Science and Technology Committee
• Renewable Energy Resources Committee

Other Projects of Interest:

• Paul Bunyan Mock Trial
• Public Interest Environmental Law Conference