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The Food and Drug Administration or FDA regulates roughly 78% of the US food supply. This includes packaged products, food additives, infant formula, ultra-processed foods, and lots more. However, an analysis by the Environmental Working Group found that 99% of new food ingredients enter our food supply through a legal loophole that skirts FDA oversight and seems, to me at least, to be incredibly risky. Today we're speaking with two authors of a recent legal and policy analysis published in the Journal Health Affairs. They explain what this loophole is and its risks and suggest a new user fee program to both strengthen the FDA's ability to regulate food ingredients and address growing concerns about food safety. Our guests are Jennifer Pomeranz Associate Professor of Public Health Policy and Management at New York University School of Global Public Health and Emily Broad, director of Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation. Interview Summary So Jennifer, let's start with you, help our listeners understand the current situation with food ingredient oversight. And what is this legal loophole that allows food companies to add new ingredients without safety reviews. Sure. So, Congress passed the Food Additives Amendment in 1958, and the idea was to divide food additives and generally recognized as safe ingredients into two different categories. That's where the GRAS term comes from generally recognized as safe? ‘Generally Recognized As Safe' is GRAS. But it circularly defines food additives as something that's not GRAS. So, there's not actually a definition of these two different types of substances. But the idea was that the food industry would be required to submit a pre-market, that means before it puts the ingredient into the marketplace, a pre-market petition to the FDA to review the safety. And then the FDA promulgates a regulation for safe use of a food additive. GRAS ingredients on the other hand, initially thought of as salt, pepper, vinegar, are things like that would just be allowed to enter the food supply without that pre-market petition. The problem is the food industry is the entity that decides which category to place each ingredient. There's no FDA guidance on which category they're supposed to ascribe to these ingredients. What has happened is that the food industry has now entered into the food supply an enormous amount of ingredients under what we call the GRAS loophole, which is allowing it to just bring it to the market without any FDA oversight or even knowledge of the ingredient. So, in essence, what we're having now is that the food industry polices itself on whether to submit this pre-market petition for a food additive or just include it in its products without any FDA knowledge. When you said ‘enormous number of such things,' are we talking dozens, hundreds, thousands? Nobody knows, but the environmental working group did find that 99% of new ingredients are added through this loophole. And that's the concerning part. Well, you can look at some ultra-processed foods and they can have 30 or 40 ingredients on them. That's just one food. You can imagine that at across the food supply, how many things there are. And there are these chemicals that nobody can pronounce. You don't know what's going on, what they are, what they're all about. So, what you're saying is that the food industry decides to put these things in foods. There's some processing reason for putting them in. It's important that the public be protected against harmful ingredients. But the food industry decides what's okay to put in and what's not. Are they required to do any testing? Are there criteria for that kind of testing? Is there any sense that letting the industry police itself amounts to anything that protects the public good? Well, the criteria are supposed to be the same for GRAS or food additives. They're supposed to be meeting certain scientific criteria. But the problem with this is that for GRAS ingredients, they don't have to use published data and they can hold that scientific data to themselves. And you mentioned food labels, the ingredient list, right? That doesn't necessarily capture these ingredients. They use generic terms, corn oil, color additive, food additive whatever. And so, the actual ingredient itself is not necessarily listed on the ingredient list. There is no way to identify them and it's unknown whether they're actually doing the studies. They can engage in these, what are called GRAS panels, which are supposed to be experts that evaluate the science. But the problem is other studies have found that 100% of the people on these GRAS panels have financial conflicts of interest. Okay, so let me see if I have this right. I'm a food company. I develop a new additive to provide color or flavor or fragrance, or it's an emulsifier or something like that. I develop a chemical concoction that hasn't really been tested for human safety. I declare it safe. And the criteria I use for declaring it set safe is putting together a panel of people that I pay, who then in a hundred percent of cases say things are. That's how it works? I can't say that in a hundred percent of cases they say it's safe, but a hundred percent of the people have financial conflicts of interest. That's one of the major concerns there. Well, one can't imagine they would continue to be paid... Exactly. This sounds like a pretty shaky system to be sure. Emily: I wanted to add a couple other really quick things on the last discussion. You were saying, Kelly, like they're using a panel of experts, which indeed are paid by them. That would be best case in some cases. They're just having their own staff say, we think this is generally recognized as safe. And I think there's some examples we can give where there isn't even evidence that they went to even any outside people, even within industry. I think that the takeaway from all of that is that there's really the ability for companies to call all the shots. Make all the rules. Not tell FDA what they're doing. And then as we talked about, not even have anything on the label because it's not a required ingredient if it's, used as part of a processing agent that's not a substance on there. So I was feeling pretty bad when Jennifer is talking about these panels and the heavy conflict... Even worse. Of interest, now I feel worse because that's the best case. Totally. And one other thing too is just you kind of warmed this up by talking about this loophole. When we put an earlier article out that we wrote that was about just this generally recognized as safe, the feedback we got from FDA was this isn't a loophole. Why are you calling this a loophole? And it's pretty clear that it's a loophole, you know? It's big enough to drive thousands of ingredients through. Yes, totally. Emily, you've written about things like partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, trans fats, and red dye number three in particular. Both of which FDA has now prohibited in food. Can you walk us through those cases? You asked about partially hydrogenated oils or trans-fat, and then red dye three, which are two examples that we talk about a little bit in our piece. Actually, one of those, the partially hydrogenated oils was allowed in food through the generally recognized as safe definition. And the other was not. But they are both really good examples of another real issue that FDA has, which is that not only are they not doing a good job of policing substances going into food on the front end, but they do an even worse job of getting things out of food on the backend, post-market once they know that those substances are really raising red flags. And you raised two of the prime examples we've been talking about. With partially hydrogenated oils these are now banned in foods, but it took an extremely long time. Like the first evidence of harm was in the mid-nineties. By 2005, the Institute of Medicine, which is now the National Academies, said that intake of trans fat, of partially hydrogenated oils, should be as low as possible. And there was data from right around that time that found that 72,000 to 228,000 heart attacks in the US each year were caused by these partially hydrogenated oils. And on FDA's end, they started in early 2000s to require labeling. But it wasn't until 2015 that they passed a final rule saying that these substances were not generally recognized as safe. And then they kept delaying implementation until 2023. It was basically more than 20 years from when there was really clear evidence of harm including from respected national agencies to when FDA actually fully removed them from food. And red dye number three is another good example where there were studies from the 1980s that raised concerns about this red dye. And it was banned from cosmetics in 1990. But they still allowed it to be added to food. And didn't ban it from food until early this year. So early 2025. In large part because one of the other things happening is states are now taking action on some of these substances where they feel like we really need to protect consumers in our states. And FDA has been doing a really poor job. California banned red dye about 18 months before that and really spurred FDA to action. So that 20-year delay with between 72,000 and 228,000 heart attack deaths attributable to the trans fats is the cost of delay and inaction and I don't know, conflicts of interest, and all kinds of other stuff that happened in FDA. So we're not talking about something trivial by any means. These are life and death things are occurring. Yes. Give us another example, if you would, about something that entered the food supply and caused harm but made it through that GRAS loophole. The example that I've talked about both in some of the work we've done together and also in a perspective piece in the New England Journal of Medicine that really focused on why this is an issue. There was this substance added to food called tara flour. It came on the scene in 2022. It was in food prepared by Daily Harvest as like a protein alternative. And they were using it from a manufacturer in South America who said we have deemed this generally recognized as safe. Everything about that is completely legal. They deemed it generally recognized as safe. A company put it into food, and they sold that. Up until that point, that's all legal. What happened was very quickly people started getting really sick from this. And so there were, I think, about 400 people across 39 states got sick. Nearly 200 people ended up in the hospital, some of them with liver failure because of this toxicity of tara flour. And so FDA followed the thread they did help work with the company to do a voluntary recall, but it then took them two years, until May, 2024, to declare tara flour not generally recognized as safe. So I think, in some ways, this is a great example because it shows how it's so immediate, the impact of this substance that, again, was legally added to food with no oversight. In some ways it's a misleading example because I think so many of the substances in food, it's not going to be so clear and so immediate. It's going to be year over year, decade over decade as part of a full diet that these are causing cardiovascular risk, thyroid disease, cancer risk, those kinds of things. I'd love to hear from either of you about this. Why is FDA falling down on the job so badly? Is it that they don't have the money to do the necessary testing? Do they not have the authority? Is there not the political will to do this? Is there complete caving into the food industry? Just let them do what they want and we're going let it go? Jennifer: All of the above? Everything you just said? It's all of the above. Emily: Jen, do you wanna talk about the money side? Because that sort of gets to the genesis of the article we worked on, which was like maybe there's a creative solution to that piece. Yes, I'd love to hear about that because I thought that was a very creative thing that you guys wrote about in your paper. That there would be an industry user fee to help produce this oversight. Tell us what you had in mind with that. And then then convince me that FDA would appropriately use this oversight and do its job. So, the idea in the paper was proposing a comprehensive user fee program for the food branch of the FDA. The FDA currently collects user fees for all of human drugs, animal drugs, medical devices, etc. With Tobacco, it's a hundred percent funded by user fees. But food, it only gets 1% of its funding through user fees. And it's important to note user fees fund processes. They don't fund outcomes. It's not like a bribe. And the idea behind user fees and why industry sometimes supports them is actually to bring predictability to the regulatory state. It brings efficiency to reviews. And then this all allows the industry to anticipate timelines so they can bring products to market and know when they're going be able to do it. In the food context, for example, the FDA is required to respond to those food additives petitions that we talked about within 180 days. But they can't respond in time. And they have a lot of timelines that are required of them in the food context that they can't meet. They can't meet their timelines because they're so underfunded. So, we proposed a comprehensive user fee. But one of the main reasons that we think a user fee is important is to address the pre-market issues that I talked about and the post-market issues that Emily talked about. In order to close that GRAS loophole, first of all, FDA needs to either reevaluate its authorities or Congress needs to change its authorities. But it would need resources to be able to do something pre-market. Some of the ideas we had was that the user fee would fund some type of either pre-market review, pre-market notification, or even just a pre-market system where the FDA determines whether a proposed ingredient should go through the GRAS avenue, or through food additive petition. So at least that there will be some type of pre-market oversight over all the ingredients in the food supply. And then also the FDA is so severely lacking in any type of comprehensive post-market into play, they would have the resources to engage in a more comprehensive post-market review for all the ingredients. Could you see a time, and I bring this up because of lawsuits against the food industry for some of these additives that are going on now. The state attorney's generals are starting to get involved, and as you said, Emily, the some states are taking legislative action to ban certain things in the food supply. Do you think there could come a time when the industry will come to government pleading to have a user fee like this? To provide some standardization across jurisdictions, let's say? So, there's two things. The first is Congress has to pass the user fee, and historically, actually, industry has done exactly what you said. They have gone to Congress and said, you know what? We want user fees because we want a streamlined system, and we want to be able to know when we're bringing products to market. The problem in the context of food for the issues we're talking about is that right now they can use the GRAS loophole. So, they have very little incentive to ask for user fees if they can bring all their ingredients into the market through the GRAS loophole. There are other areas where a user fee is very relevant, such as the infant formula 90 day pre-market notification, or for different claims like health claims. They might want user fees to speed those things up, but in terms of the ingredients, unless we close the GRAS loophole, they'd have little incentive to actually come to the table. But wouldn't legal liability change that? Let's say that some of these lawsuits are successful and they start having to pay large settlements or have the State Attorneys General, for example, come down on them for these kinds of things. If they're legally liable for harm, they're causing, they need cover. And wouldn't this be worth the user fee to provide them cover for what they put in the food supply? Yes, it's great to have the flexibility to have all these things get through the loophole, but it'd be great as well to have some cover so you wouldn't have so much legal exposure. But you guys are the lawyers, so I'm not sure it makes sense. I think you're right that there are forces combining out in the world that are pushing for change here. And I think it's hard to disentangle how much is it that industry's pushing for user fees versus right now I think more willing to consider federal regulatory changes by either FDA or by Congress. At the state level this is huge. There's now becoming a patchwork across states, and I think that is really difficult for industry. We were tracking this year 93 bills in 35 states that either banned an additive in the general public, banned it in schools. Banned ultra-processed foods, which most of the states, interestingly, have all defined differently. But where they have had a definition, it's been tied to various different combinations of additives. So that's going on. And then I think you're right, that the legal cases moving along will push industry to really want clear and better standards. I think there's a good question right now around like how successful will some of these efforts be? But  what we are seeing is real movement, both in FDA and in Congress, in taking action on this. So interestingly, the Health Affairs piece that we worked on was out this spring. But we had this other piece that came out last fall and felt like we were screaming into the void about this is a problem generally recognized as safe as a really big issue. And suddenly that has really changed. And so, you know, in March FDA said they were directed by RFK (Robert F. Kennedy), by HHS (Health and Human Services) to really look into changing their rule on generally recognized as safe. So, I know that's underway. And then in Congress, multiple bills have been introduced. And I know there are several in the works that would address additives and specifically, generally recognized as safe. There's this one piece going on, which is there's forces coalescing around some better method of regulation. I think the question's really going to also be like, will Congress give adequate resources? Because there is also another scenario that I'm worried about that even if FDA said we're going now require at least notification for every substance that's generally recognized as safe. It's a flood of substances. And they just, without more resources, without more staff devoted to this, there's no way that they're going to be able to wade through that. So, I think that either the resources need to come from user fees, or at least partially from user fees, from more appropriations and I think, In my opinion, they are able to do that on their own. Even given where current administrative law stands. Because I think it's very clear that the gist of the statute is that FDA should be overseeing additives. And I think a court would say this is allowing everything to instead go through this alternative pathway. But I really think FDA's going to need resources to manage this. And perhaps more of a push from Congress to make sure that they really do it to the best of their ability. I was going to say there's also an alternative world where we don't end up spending any of these resources, and they require the industry just to disclose all the ingredients they've added to food and put it on a database. This is like low hanging fruit, not very expensive, doesn't require funding. And then the NGOs, I hope, would go to work and say, look at this. There is no safety data for these ingredients. You know, because right now we just can't rely on FDA to do anything unless they get more funding to do something. So, if FDA doesn't get funding, then maybe this database where houses every ingredient that's in the food supply as a requirement could be a low resource solution. Jennifer, I'll come back to you in a minute because I'd like to ask how worried should we be about all this stuff that's going into food. But Emily, let me ask you first, does FDA have the authority to do what it needs to do? Let's say all of a sudden that your wish was granted and there were user fees would it then be able to do what needs to be done? I think certainly to be able to charge these user fees in almost all areas, it right now doesn't have that authority, and Congress would need to act. There's one small area which is within the Food Safety Modernization Act for certain types of like repeat inspections or recalls or there's a couple other. FDA isn't charging fees right now because they haven't taken this one step that they need to take. But they do have the authority if they just take those steps. But for everything else, Congress has to act. I think the real question to me is because we now know so many of these substances are going through this GRAS pathway, the question is really can they do everything they need to do on their own to close that loophole? And again, my opinion is Congress could make it clear and if Congress were to act, it would be better. Like they could redefine it in a way that was much more clear that we are drawing a real line. And most things actually should be on the additive side of the line rather than the generally recognized as safe side of the line. But even with their current authority, with the current definition, I think FDA could at least require notification because they're still drawing a line between what's required for additives, which is a very lengthy pre-market process with, you know, a notice and comment procedure and all of these things. My take is FDA do what you can do now. Let's get the show on the road. Let's take steps here to close up the loophole. And then Congress takes time. But they definitely can even strengthen this and give a little more, I think, directives to FDA as to how to make sure that this loophole doesn't recur down the line. In talks that I've given recently, I've shown an ingredient list from a food that people will recognize. And I ask people to try to guess what that food is from its ingredient list. This particular food has 35 ingredients. You know, a bunch of them that are very hard to pronounce. Very few people would even have any idea at all what those ingredients do. There's no sense at all about how ingredient number 17 would interact with ingredient 31, etc. And it just seems like it's complete chaos. And I don't want to take you guys outside your comfort zone because your backgrounds are law. But Jennifer, let me ask you this. You have a background in public health as well. There are all kinds of reasons to be worried about this, aren't there? There are the concerns about the safety of these things, but then there's a concern about what these ultra-processed ingredients do to your metabolism, your ability to control your weight, to regulate your hunger and things like that. It sounds this is a really important thing. And it's affecting almost everybody in the country. The percentage of calories that are now coming from ultra-processed foods is over 50% in both children and adults. So it sounds like there's really reason to worry. Would you agree? Yes. And also, the FDA is supposed to be overseeing the cumulative effects of the ingredients and it doesn't actually enforce that regulation. Its own regulation that it's supposed to evaluate the cumulative effects. It doesn't actually enforce this. So by cumulative effects do you mean the chronic effects of long term use? And, having these ingredients across multiple products within one person's consumption. Also, the FDA doesn't look at things like the effect on the gut microbiome, neurotoxicity, even cancer risk, even though they're supposed to, they say that if something is GRAS, they don't need to look at it because cancer risk is relegated only to food additives. So here we're at a real issue, right? Because if everything's entering through the GRAS loophole, then they're not looking at carcinogen effects. So, I think there is a big risk and as Emily had said earlier, that these are sometimes long-term risks versus that acute example of tara flour that we don't know. And we do know from the science, both older and emerging science, that ultra-processed food has definite impact on not only consumption, increased consumption, but also on diet related diseases and other health effects. And by definition what we're talking about here are ultra-processed foods. These ingredients are only found in ultra-processed foods. So, we do know that there is cause for concern. It's interesting that you mentioned the microbiome because we've recorded a cluster of podcasts on the microbiome and another cluster of podcasts on artificial sweeteners. Those two universes overlap a good bit because the impact of the artificial sweeteners on some of them, at least on the microbiome, is really pretty negative. And that's just one thing that goes into these foods. It really is pretty important. By the way, that food with 35 ingredients that I mentioned is a strawberry poptart. Jennifer: I know that answer! Emily: How do you know that? Jennifer: Because I've seen Kelly give a million talks. Yes, she has. Emily: I was wondering, I was like, are we never going to find out? So the suspense is lifted. Let me end with this. This has been highly instructive, and I really appreciate you both weighing in on this. So let me ask each of you, is there reason to be optimistic that things could improve. Emily, I'll start with you. So, I've been giving this talk the past few months that's called basically like Chronic Disease, Food Additives and MAHA, like What Could Go Right and What Could Go Wrong. And so, I'm going give you a very lawyerly answer, which is, I feel optimistic because there's attention on the issue. I think states are taking action and there's more attention to this across the political spectrum, which both means things are happening and means that the narrative changing, like people are getting more aware and calling for change in a way that we weren't seeing. On the flip side, I think there's a lot that could go wrong. You know, I think some of the state bills are great and some of them are maybe not so great. And then I think this administration, you have an HHS and FDA saying, they're going to take action on this in the midst of an administration that's otherwise very deregulatory. In particular, they're not supposed to put out new regulations if they can get rid of 10 existing ones. There are some things you can do through guidance and signaling, but I don't think you can really fix these issues without like real durable legislative change. So, I'm sorry to be one of the lawyers here. I think the signals are going in the right direction, but jury is out a little bit on how well we'll actually do. And I hope we can do well given the momentum. What do you think, Jennifer? I agree that the national attention is very promising to these issues. The states are passing laws that are shocking to me. That Texas passing a warning label law, I would never have thought in the history of the world, that Texas would be the one to pass a warning label law. They're doing great things and I actually have hope that something can come of this. But I am concerned at the federal level of the focus on deregulation may make it impossible. User fees is an example of where they won't have to regulate, but they could provide funding to the FDA to actually act in areas that it has the authority to act. That is one solution that could actually work under this administration if they were amenable to it. But I also think in some ways the states could save us. I worry, you know, Emily brought up the patchwork, which is the key term the industry uses to try to get preemption. I do worry about federal preemption of state actions. But the states right now are the ones saving us. California is the first to save the whole nation. The food industry isn't going to create new food supply for California and then the rest of the country. And then it's the same with other states. So, the states might be the ones that actually can make some real meaningful changes and get some of the most unsafe ingredients out of the food supply, which some of the states have now successfully done. Bios Emily Broad Leib is a Clinical Professor of Law, Director of Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, and Founding Director of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, the nation's first law school clinic devoted to providing legal and policy solutions to the health, economic, and environmental challenges facing our food system. Working directly with clients and communities, Broad Leib champions community-led food system change, reduction in food waste, food access and food is medicine interventions, and equity and sustainability in food production. Her scholarly work has been published in the California Law Review, Wisconsin Law Review, Harvard Law & Policy Review, Food & Drug Law Journal, and Journal of Food Law & Policy, among others. Professor Jennifer Pomeranz is a public health lawyer who researches policy and legal options to address the food environment, obesity, products that cause public harm, and social injustice that lead to health disparities. Prior to joining the NYU faculty, Professor Pomeranz was an Assistant Professor at the School of Public Health at Temple University and in the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple. She was previously the Director of Legal Initiatives at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. She has also authored numerous peer-reviewed and law review journal articles and a book, Food Law for Public Health, published by Oxford University Press in 2016. Professor Pomeranz leads the Public Health Policy Research Lab and regularly teaches Public Health Law and Food Policy for Public Health.

Elizabeth MeLampy is an author and a Harvard-educated lawyer, with experience in animal law and environmental law. While in law school, she worked on issues related to farmedanimals, wild animals, and captive animals with Harvard's Animal Law & Policy Clinic. She was also in the inaugural cohort of Emerging Scholar Fellows with the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, where she worked onanimal law scholarship. After two clerkships—with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Federal District Court in Arizona—Elizabeth litigated with one of the top environmental nonprofits in the country. Her firstbook, Forget The Camel: The Madcap World of Animal Festivals and What They Say About Being Human, was published in 2025.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what's real?”, “who matters?” and "how can we make a better world?"Sentientism answers those questions with "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.00:00 Clips01:15 Welcome- Mark Bekoff episode https://youtu.be/-pwfNH-KgWI- Kim Stallwood episode https://youtu.be/5-8vYRhJvaU03:25 Elizabeth''s Intro- "Sentient creatures matter"- Forget the Camel "Animal festivals... I study them as microcosms of our relationships to non-human animals"- "Try to make sense of how we treat so many animals differently"- The Rattlesnake Roundup "They beheaded and killed rattlesnakes in public... then made bloody handprints"- A Jumping Frog contest- The real Groundhog day- "There's a lot more that ties those events togetherthan separates them even though you're killing animals in one context and not in another"- "The overarching paradigm of human superiority applies to them all"06:10 What's Real?- "I have both backgrounds very strongly... the religious spiritual side and the more scientific, naturalistic side"- Grandfather and mum church ministers, grandmother aveterinarian and an anthropologist, father a software engineer-  "Core pillars of my upbringing... Thinking about the world really critically, really analytically... on one side... on the other side... a Protestant Christian upbringing in the Church"- "Core values, more than religious dogmatism, ofcompassion, of kindness, of generosity, of sacrifice... key Christian values... open hearted, open minded, compassionate lens"- "I was really lucky to be raised in a version of the Christian church that prioritises those things"- "The two sides [religion and science] work so closely together... it's not 'you believe in god or you believe in science'"- "The mysteries of the world... things you could explore with a variety of disciplines... read the Bible... do a science experiment... all sorts of ways to figure out what is going on"- Grandparents lived on an animal farmAnd more... full show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join our⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠"I'm a Sentientist" wall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ via⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ this simple form⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠groups⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. The biggest so far is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on FaceBook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Come join us there!

EELP attorney Hannah Perls speaks with Professor Andrew Mergen, faculty director of Harvard's Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, about the latest updates to the National Environmental Policy Act, including new agency implementing procedures, the Supreme Court's recent opinion in Eagle County, and amendments included in the One Big Beautiful Bill recently passed by Congress. They talk about what these changes mean in practice for project developers, impacted communities, and the environment. Transcript: https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/CleanLaw_EP104-Transcript.pdf Links: NEPA overview https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/nepa-overview/ NEPA Regulatory Tracker page https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/tracker/nepa-environmental-review-requirements/ NEPA after Eagle County decision https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/the-future-of-nepa-and-federal-permitting-after-eagle-county/ CEQ's template and agencies' procedures https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/decoding-agencies-new-nepa-procedures/ "Energy emergency" declaration https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/the-trump-administrations-aggressive-anti-regulatory-pro-fossil-fuel-directives/

Humanity is capable of great dualities. Elizabeth MeLampy explores that in the way we both venerate animals, even while we exploit them. MeLampy is an attorney with experience in animal law and environmental law. She worked on issues related to farmed animals, wild animals, and captive animals with Harvard’s Animal Law & Policy Clinic while she was in law school. She served in the inaugural cohort of Emerging Scholar Fellows with the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, where I worked on animal law scholarship. After two clerkships with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Federal District Court in Arizona, MeLampy litigated with one of the top environmental nonprofits in the country. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this thought-provoking episode of Keep it Humane: The Podcast, Daniel Ettinger and Ashley Bishop sit down with Harvard-educated attorney and author Elizabeth MeLampy for a deep dive into the world of animal law, environmental justice, and the quirky cultural traditions that shape our relationships with animals. Elizabeth shares her journey from clerking for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to litigating high-impact environmental cases, and how her academic work with Harvard's Animal Law & Policy Clinic and the Brooks Institute helped shape her interdisciplinary perspective.We also explore her debut book, FORGET THE CAMEL: The Madcap World of Animal Festivals and What They Say About Being Human—a captivating blend of legal insight, cultural anthropology, and personal narrative that examines how animal-related celebrations reflect our human values, contradictions, and capacity for empathy. Tune in for an engaging conversation that challenges assumptions, celebrates curiosity, and redefines what it means to advocate for animals.

From the running of the bulls in Spain to groundhog weather predictions in Pennsylvania, festivals featuring animals exist all over the world. Some are celebrated as cultural treasures, while others are seen as outdated, even cruel. These events often raise difficult questions: Are they harmless fun, or do they exploit animals for human entertainment? Do traditions justify practices that might otherwise be considered inhumane? And perhaps most importantly—can we honor our cultural heritage without harming the very creatures we claim to celebrate?  Our guest has explored these questions firsthand. Elizabeth MeLampy is the author of “Forget the Camel: The Madcap World of Animal Festivals and What They Say About Being Human,” a book that takes readers on a journey across the United States to witness these festivals up close. She traces their histories, examines the ethical dilemmas they present, and asks what they reveal about our relationship with animals—and ourselves.  So today, we're asking the big questions: What does our use of animals in festivals say about us as a species? Where do we draw the line between tradition and exploitation? And is there a way to celebrate animals without causing them harm?  While in law school, Elizabeth worked on issues related to farmed animals, wild animals, and captive animals with Harvard's Animal Law & Policy Clinic. She also was in the inaugural cohort of Emerging Scholar Fellows with the Brooks Institute for Animal Rights Law and Policy, where she worked on animal law scholarship. Elizabeth has traveled the country attending these festivals, meeting the people who run them, and grappling with the contradictions they present. We're excited to hear her insights and discuss what needs to change—and what doesn't—when it comes to animals in entertainment. Learn more about Elizabeth MeLampy here, and you can order her book here.   The Animal Wellness podcast is produced by Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy. It focuses on improving the lives of animals in the United States and abroad through legislation and by influencing businesses to create a more humane economy. The show is hosted by veteran journalist and animal-advocate Joseph Grove.    www.animalwellnessaction.org www.centerforahumaneeconomy.org   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnimalWellnessAction Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/centerforahumaneeconomy/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/AWAction_News Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheHumaneCenter   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/animalwellnessaction/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/centerforahumaneeconomy/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/animal-wellness-action/  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI_6FxM4hD6oS5VSUwsCnNQ    PRO: BMI Composer: Jonathan Shapiro (IP# 00240288778) Publisher: Kulanu Music (IP# 00240190310)

EELP founding director and Harvard Law Professor Jody Freeman speaks with Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus, Andy Mergen, director of the Harvard Law Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, and Carrie Jenks, executive director of the Environmental and Energy Law Program. They discuss the Trump administration's actions to date on climate, energy, environment, and natural resources and break down which actions have an immediate effect, what will take time, and what they will be watching for, including actions affecting the federal workforce. They also discuss why the practice and study of law matter now more than ever. Transcript at https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CleanLaw_EP100-Transcript.pdf Our analysis of the Trump administration's initial executive orders https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/trumps-environmental-and-energy-executive-orders-initial-insights-and-what-were-watching/ Our rollback resources https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/topic/rollback-resources/ Our Regulatory Tracker https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/tracker-type/regulatory-tracker/ Our Federal Environmental Justice Tracker https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/tracker-type/environmental-justice-tracker/

Tracy talks with Emily Broad-Lieb, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, diving into the game-changing Food Donation Improvement Act (FDIA).  Many of us as planners hear “we can't donate the food” or “we'll be sued” from venues, but this new legislation signed into law in January 2023 breaks down those barriers by providing crucial protections, empowering event planners, hotels, and venues to safely reduce food waste. Emily will share insights on navigating food donations, understanding liability protections, and implementing sustainable practices in events. From real-life examples of successful donation programs to her expertise on food waste policy, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to make their events more responsible and inclusive.

Carmel Shachar is an assistant clinical professor of law and faculty director of the Health Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School. Stephen Morrissey, the interviewer, is the Executive Managing Editor of the Journal. T. Ramesh, C. Shachar, and H. Yu. Striking a Balance — Advancing Physician Collective-Bargaining Rights and Patient Protections. N Engl J Med 2025;392:209-211.

EELP senior staff attorney Sara Dewey speaks with Andy Mergen, Faculty Director of the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School and former chief of the Appellate Section of the Environment & Natural Resources Division at the Department of Justice. Andy and Sara discuss the origin and evolution of presidential authority to designate national monuments under the Antiquities Act, how Congress and the courts have responded to these designations over the act's 118-year history, present day legal challenges to the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, and what could be ahead for monuments in the Supreme Court. Transcript here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/CleanLaw_EP97-final.pdf

In this episode, EELP Founding Director and Harvard Law Professor Jody Freeman, speaks with Andy Mergen, Faculty Director of the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School and former chief of the Appellate Section of the Environment & Natural Resources Division at the Department of Justice. Jody and Andy break down what they call the “Quagmire Quartet” of recent Supreme Court decisions that overturn the Chevron doctrine and undermine administrative agencies. They discuss the new challenges that federal agencies will face as they work to protect the public, the ways in which the Supreme Court has centralized power in the judiciary, how courts can continue to uphold important federal rules, and why they have hope. Transcript available at http://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/CleanLaw_EP96-transcript.pdf

In late April, the Biden administration issued new rules designed to keep prosecutors from obtaining medical records of patients who seek legal abortions. The expansion of HIPAA prohibits the disclosure of health information to state officials as part of a criminal investigation. Carmel Shachar, head of the Health Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard University, joins John Yang to discuss. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

In late April, the Biden administration issued new rules designed to keep prosecutors from obtaining medical records of patients who seek legal abortions. The expansion of HIPAA prohibits the disclosure of health information to state officials as part of a criminal investigation. Carmel Shachar, head of the Health Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard University, joins John Yang to discuss. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

What is an emerging adult? In our season premiere of Youth Justice Transformation in Action, our Executive Director, John Tuell, speaks with Lisa Jacobs, Associate Director of Legislation and Policy Clinic at Loyola University Chicago, School of Law about the critical distinctions between adolescence, emerging adulthood, and full adulthood, and why legal and youth-serving systems must adapt to support emerging adults effectively. Don't miss out as we discuss ways to support young people navigate this pivotal stage of life!To learn more about the RFK National Resource Center and how we may be able to serve your community, please visit our website, contact our team, or follow us on social media: Website: www.rfknrcjj.org Contact Us: www.rfknrcjj.org/contact-us Social Media: Twitter/X - @RFKYouthJustice | LinkedIn

If people knew how much food they threw away each week, would they change their food-wasting ways? That's a question scientists explore in the 2023 State of Food Waste in America report. The research goal was to understand why and how households waste food, and what would motivate them to prevent food waste. In today's podcast, we'll talk with MITRE scientists Laura Leets and Grace Mika, members of a team who developed and launched the MITRE Food Waste Tracker app. This is a first of its kind app for households to log information about discarded food and learn ways to save money by reducing food waste. The Food Waste in America study team includes the Gallup Survey Company, researchers from the Ohio State University, the Harvard Law and Policy Clinic, ReFED, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the World Wildlife Fund. Interview Summary   Laura, let's begin with you. Can you give us a quick overview of why MITRE focused on measuring food waste at the household level and the behaviors? Laura - In a general sense, Norbert, we know the United States waste 30 to 40% of our food, yet we do not know how much is wasted at the household level. We know that waste occurs along the entire farm to table supply chain, like approximately 15% with farms, 15% at manufacturing, about 20% at stores and restaurants and about 50% in the household. So, given that half the waste happens at the household level, it's important to measure it. If you can measure it, you can do something about it. Up to this point, people have not had an easy way to estimate their amount of food waste. So, to address this gap, not only did we develop a new way to measure household food waste and Grace will share more about that, but we also provided a baseline measurement of American household food waste. I would like to really dig in a little bit more. How much food do American households waste, and do you have a sense of what kinds of foods people are wasting? Laura - Let me start with the amount first. We found that the average American household wastes somewhere from 3 to 4.5 pounds per week. And there's two ways to measure household food waste. The first is you can focus on the edible or uneaten food. And with this measure, American households waste about on average three pounds per week. Second, you can add inedible food. So, that's your food scraps, your eggshells. And if you take edible plus inedible food together, then the American households wastes on average about 4.5 pounds per week. Let me give your listeners a couple analogies to understand that impact of that 3 to 4.5 pounds of household food waste. So, let's say we combine our own household food waste with everyone else's. The crop waste is large enough to cover the states of California and New York. From a personal perspective, imagine before every meal you scrape off 40% of the food on your plate. If you imagine that in each meal, you're going to start to understand that the current food waste is massive, and we're all contributing to it. So that's the measurement piece. I'm going to pass it over to Grace to discuss the types of food we're wasting. Grace - Americans are wasting a wide variety of foods in their homes, but the number one wasted food type is your fresh produce. So, that would be your fruits and your vegetables. I think this is really important to keep in mind, not only because, of course, fruits and vegetables are perishable, but when we think about healthy diets, many people in the nutrition space are encouraging fresh fruits and vegetables or fruits and vegetables in general. Ao this is a really important finding, and I'm excited to know this. But it's also important for our listeners to think a little bit more about this. Grace, I would like to learn a little bit more from you. Can you tell us more about the MITRE Food Waste Tracker, the app itself? Grace - I would be happy to. The MITRE Food Waste Tracker app is meant to be a tool for households who want to understand exactly what's going uneaten in their home. If you had asked me what exactly I ate yesterday and how much of that went into my trash can, I would have a really difficult time remembering an answer to that question. And that's for just yesterday, let alone multiple days or weeks ago. Not knowing what exactly goes uneaten would make it really challenging for me to cut back on that waste. So, to solve that problem, our team designed an app which allows for food waste to be logged in real-time. So, right as you're doing your meal prep or you're clearing off the dinner dishes or emptying your leftovers out from the fridge. And the app tracks details both about the food itself, like where you got that from and the food group that it belongs to, as well as where, why, and how the food was thrown away.   And you can also track how much waste was produced, and we encourage you to use your hand as a guide to estimate the volume of that waste. So, your closed fist is about the size of a cup of food and your thumb about the size of a tablespoon. The more that you use the app to track, the more you will reveal patterns in the way that you waste. Maybe you find out that you're optimistically shopping for vegetables that your toddlers at home are just not interested in eating. Or maybe you're serving up heaping platefuls at dinner time, but then find that you're not hungry to finish that meal. So learning this will empower you to make small changes in the way that you shop for, prepare and store food to make sure that as little as possible is going to waste.   And if you're money-minded like many Americans are, you might be especially interested in an app feature which estimates the cost savings that you would experience if you cut back on your waste. So less food in the trash means more money in your wallet and the savings really add up. The average American family spends over $1,500 on wasted food each year. And tracking with the app is fast and simple. For each food that you dispose, you would simply click on the icons that best describe your waste. It would be really easy to get the whole family, even your your kids involved in tracking and thinking about the food that's going into the bin. You've already touched on a few of these key findings about sort of the top foods that we end up wasting. Are there other findings that you would like to share with us? Grace - So there are two behaviors that really stood out when it came to producing food waste. The first is simply being willing to eat your leftovers. Personally, I get really excited about leftover nights. It means I get a good home cooked meal with almost no prep work that evening. A lot of us are already doing this. About a third of Americans incorporate leftovers into new dishes and about half of us frequently eat leftovers just as a meal by themselves. Those leftovers add up. We found that households who consistently throw their leftovers away are wasting nearly four times as much as households that eat those up. We also found that households' understanding of and behavior around date labels plays a significant role in their levels of waste. A lot of us don't really understand how little date labels actually mean, and how little they're standardized. Not too long ago I was cooking with a friend, and we were making dinner together and he smelled a bag of shredded cheese and he said, "Oh, this smells kind of funky, but it's not past his date." And he added it into the dish. You should actually be doing the exact opposite of that. You should trust your senses over the date label when it seems that something is spoiling. There are some dates that are meant to be safety indications, but the majority are just a manufacturer's best guess of when food will pass its peak quality. And frequently, thrown away past date food that has no signs of spoilage so this leads to wasting over twice as much food. It can be easy to feel helpless when it comes to wasting food, but it's surprisingly simple to take control over your waste As we mentioned before, if you're curious about what sorts of behaviors are leading to waste in your own home, we have an app for that. So, our latest version of the app has new features to help you understand your waste and even get a sense of how much money you could be saving if you cut back on your waste in your home. I highly encourage you to check that out. I've got to say I have done some work on date labels and have found this is an important area of consideration. But also, one where the modification of those date labels may actually help reduce food waste. I'm so happy to hear you talk about the sort of broader set of things that consumers can do to actually mitigate food waste in the household. You got into some of my own personal family issues around what do we do about leftovers, and I will not report this conversation to my family. So, thank you for that, Grace. Laura, I want to go back to you and ask about a big picture question. Why should our listeners reduce their household food waste? Laura - Norbert, I believe I can make a compelling case for that. This is a rare opportunity when making a small change can have a large positive impact. Let me explain the amazing cascading ripple effect that happens when we reduce our household food waste. We had Grace reminding us with the app, and the first benefit is financial. An average American household can save at least $1,500 a year or $125 a month by reducing food waste. So just focus on that personal financial benefit, and then understand the resulting ripple effects. That first ripple effect is going to impact the ecology. Most of us don't realize significant resources go into producing food. The USDA reminds us that 50% of our land in America is used for food production and 80% of our water is used to produce that food. When we reduce our food waste, we're recognizing food as this precious resource, and we are supporting our food production industry. This is really important because America is one of the top food producers in the world.   The next ripple effect impacts food security. Food security is part of national security. When you reduce your household food waste, you are also supporting national security. Next is a societal impact. Reducing food waste allows us to optimize our food and feed more people. And, finally, there is a significant environmental benefit. The number one substance going into our landfills is food waste. As it decomposes, it emits greenhouse gases that cause this pollution blanket to surround the planet. That pollution blanket traps heat and warms the planet. So, when we reduce our food waste, it's one of the top three activities we can do to reduce warming temperatures and extreme weather events. We all have the ability to combat climate change through our household food waste. These small changes in our food waste - they're going to result in positive financial, societal, and environmental benefits. It's such a powerful, impactful decision to reassess your food waste and think about ways you can reduce it.   Bios Dr. Laura Leets is an accomplished researcher, teacher, and mentor. She brings 30 years of experience from academic and industry environments.  She currently serves as an innovation lead and senior principal scientist at MITRE. In this leadership capacity, she works with researchers to identify, shape and conduct important, transformative, and impactful projects for government sponsors and the nation. She also serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Communication, Culture, and Technology Program and previously spent a decade as a Professor of Communication at Stanford University.  She has been recognized with several top paper and teaching awards throughout her academic career.    Grace Mika, B.S., is a data scientist in MITRE's Modeling & Analysis Innovation Center, where she has worked on projects for the Center of Disease Control, Internal Revenue Service, Veterans Benefits Association, and the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense, Acquisitions & Sustainment. She is passionate about visualizing data in a clear, accurate, and accessible way. Grace was instrumental in the design of a first-of-its-kind Food Waste Tracker App, which allows users to track waste as it occurs within their homes. Grace holds a B.S. in Applied Math and Psychology from the College of William & Mary and is currently working towards her Masters of Analytics at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Melodi Dincer (moderator), Technology Law and Policy ClinicKiana Boroumand, Technology Law and Policy ClinicBatya Kemper, Technology Law and Policy ClinicTalya Nevins, Technology Law and Policy ClinicTalya Whyte, Technology Law and Policy Clinic

The Endangered Species Act, which turned 50 years old on December 28, 2023, has been described as one of the most potent environmental law statutes ever enacted. Harvard Law Professor Richard Lazarus and Andy Mergen, director of the Harvard Law Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, discuss the initial bipartisan support for the act, the Supreme Court cases that shaped its implementation, and the success of the law in protecting numerous species. They also talk about how the Endangered Species Act could be improved and the risks that it may face in the future. Quotes “… I spent 33 years litigating the Endangered Species Act. As my colleagues who are still at the Department of Justice can attest, litigation in this space is often very frustrating. There are bad cases, there are bad outcomes, but I think by any measure, we ought to understand we should step back at this 50th anniversary and say congrats to that Congress, congrats to President Nixon. This is really a powerful statute.” —Andrew Mergen [39:19] “That's the fabulous thing about this law. It's not an anthropocentric law. It's a biocentric law. It's a law which recognizes the responsibility that humankind has to all species on our planet. So it's not a law which is saying, ‘This is really important for the economy.' No, it's a law that's saying, ‘This is important for our spirit, this is important for who we are.'” —Richard Lazarus [30:12] “So you need to have ways to actually have the statute provide incentives for private landowners to actually maintain the habitat, not view the statute as a threat to economic viability.” —Richard Lazarus [43:07] “When the wolves were put back onto the landscape in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, the Nez Perce tribe played an important role in that. We now see with the California condor the Northern California tribes playing an important part in the re-establishment of those populations, and that is a plus and a really important part of the future of the act.” —Andrew Mergen [45:45] Transcript (PDF): http://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/CleanLaw-EP92.pdf

Harvard Law Professor and EELP's founding director Jody Freeman, speaks with Andy Mergen, director of Harvard Law's Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, about a case the US Supreme Court will hear this fall, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, in which petitioners have asked the Court to overrule the Chevron doctrine — a legal doctrine that governs when a court should defer to an agency's interpretation of a law. The case arises under the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which authorizes requiring commercial fishing vessels to carry onboard observers, but the statute doesn't specify that the fishermen should pay for those observers. Jody and Andy talk about how the Supreme Court might cabin or overrule the Chevron doctrine, and what the case might mean for other environmental regulations and federal regulation more broadly. Transcript: http://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/CleanLaw-88-transcript-8-23-2023.pdf Quotes: "The Chevron case involved a reading by the Environmental Protection Agency in the Reagan administration that was actually helpful to business, and allowed them some flexibility in updating facilities without having to get new permits under the Clean Air Act. Those were the facts of Chevron. It was viewed as a flexibility-enhancing interpretation, a deregulatory, business-friendly interpretation." –Jody Freeman [6:00] "I think that the folks who are advancing an anti-administrative state agenda are just worried that Congress has created a pretty robust environmental statutory regime, a pretty robust human health and safety regime, and the agencies are proceeding in good faith to implement Congress's goals there. I think that at this point in the game, folks who are anti-regulatory would rather detooth the professional staff in those agencies rather than abide by what really does appear to be a neutral doctrine on its face." –Andy Mergen [29:20] "This is a profoundly important tool for the lower courts, to get their handle on issues that they're confronting every day from agencies. It's a really, really important framework for promoting stability and rule of law values. I think we would lose a lot if we were overturning Chevron."  –Andy Mergen [48:10] "Even if you overturn Chevron, you can't avoid the fundamental problem, which is that Congress is giving agencies a job to do, and they need to have some flexibility interpreting their mandates" –Jody Freeman [53:55]

Neti Pots for Sinus Infections: Do They Help?Ear Candling: Should You Try It?Betteridge's law of headlines - WikipediaHurricanes: Preparedness and Recovery | NC State ExtensionAn Asbestos Natural Disaster Guide | Wildfires & MoreFood, Inc. - YouTubeIts official, the trailer for Poisoned is out | Food Safety NewsMilltown 4th of Julystreet food - Google ScholarTips And Tricks For Eating Street Food Without Getting SickCDC Current Outbreak List | CDCOutbreak of Salmonella enteritidis food poisoning. Potential protective effect of alcoholic beverages. - Abstract - Europe PMC108. Parking Lot Tamales — Risky or Not?Sugar Museum | HawaiiOttawa may soon be investigating the elimination of ‘best-before' dates on groceries | The StarTreat hintBen Chapman on Twitter: “

On this episode of the podcast, I will be talking, once again, with Katherine Meyer, who is the Director of Harvard Law School's Animal Law and Policy Clinic, about a recent decision in a case handled by the clinic entitled New England Anti Vivisection Society (now known as Rise for Animals v  Elizabeth Goldentyre). This case involves the provision of the…

Emily Broad Leib is the Founding Director at the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic where she and her students are working to simplify and sometimes modify legislation to help changemakers combat food waste. She and her team developed the Global Food Donation Policy Atlas, a tool with country-specific findings and recommendations that can help accelerate progress to overcome legal barriers to food donation and recovery. More recently, the team has been involved in developing a federal food waste policy in the U.S. On this episode of “Food Lab Talk,” Michiel speaks with Emily about how her work is enabling many of the changemakers we've heard from this season; staying motivated when the pace of change can feel slow; and what you can learn from lawyers about moving around roadblocks and accelerating progress in your work.  Emily Broad Leib: “I recognize lawyers have a really specific skillset, but I'm constantly conscious of the fact that our skillset only is a useful tool in combination with some of these other skillsets. So whether it's, working with people in the sciences or in public health that are collecting data on what solutions work and then we're unlocking the ability for those to go forward. Or whether it's working with the entrepreneurs who have the really good idea and we're putting the wind in their sails to say, if you change what you're doing slightly, you can comply with the laws. I think law is very much a tool that pairs really well in combination with others.”  01:03 Intro on Emily 04:11 The intersection of law and food waste reduction 05:44 An “illegal” grocery store sparks policy changes 07:02 “To a hammer, everything looks like a nail” – how to use other tools 08:40 The skills lawyers employee to move around roadblocks 10:54 Staying motivated with a long time horizon  14:09 How a lack of clarity can block change 14:35 How a lack of incentives can block change 15:00 Global areas of opportunity for changes in policy 17:15 The Global Food Donation Policy Atlas 18:50 Global system commonalities and collaborative wins 20:15 The actions moving the system to better support technical solutions 23:05 Scaling known solutions versus exploring the unknowns 25:38 Navigating partnerships to support progress in the broader ecosystem 29:00 How to demonstrate progress when the pace of change is slow  31:35 Emily's theory of change  Links Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic The Global Food Donation Policy Atlas Federal Food Waste Policy The Zero Food Waste Coalition Food Law Leaders Call for Systems Change through 2023 Farm Bill  Subscribe, rate, review the show at foodlabtalk.com  *The views expressed by the guests in this podcast don't necessarily represent the host's views, nor those of his employer.  

Emily Broad Leib is a Clinical Professor of Law and Founding Director of the Harvard Law School's Food Law and Policy Clinic, the nation's first law school clinic devoted to providing legal and policy solutions to the challenges facing our food system. When I first met Emily, she was just out of law school and just back from a stint working as a legal aid lawyer in the Mississippi Delta. As a young instructor at Harvard Law School, she was essentially being a friendly sort of mentor to small group of Harvard law school students who thought, huh, there's nothing happening with food law, and thought that should be rectified. Now she is one of the leading voices in the country – and even beyond – about all the ways food intersects with the law. But I'll stop and let Emily tell the story instead of me. It's a great one.Photo Courtesy of  Emily Broad Leib and Harvard Law School.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Let's Talk About Food by becoming a member!Let's Talk About Food is Powered by Simplecast.

Every year, even as millions struggle with food insecurity, about a third of all the food produced for humans in the world is thrown away, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. That not only means wasting water and energy resources. The food, rotting in landfills, also emits methane gas linked to climate change. Attorney Emily Broad Leib, the director and founder of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, has dedicated her career to researching ways to end food waste. In this episode, she explains why food waste is such an issue around the world, how laws and regulations inadvertently lead to more food being wasted, and the simple changes to food labeling she says will make for a less wasteful future. Further Reading:  The Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic  Recent WSJ Food Coverage:  Sustainable Chocolate Made Without Cacao | Mary Holland  How to Read a Food Label: A Healthy Skeptic's Guide to the Buzzwords | Elizabeth G. Dunn  Emily Broad Leib's recommended reading:  Waste Free Kitchen Handbook: A Guide to Eating Well and Saving Money By Wasting Less Food | Dana Gunders  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Emily Broad Leib of the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic argues that narrowly focused food safety regulations in the US are failing to address the most important factors in our food system.

Emily Broad Leib of the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic argues that narrowly focused food safety regulations in the US are failing to address the most important factors in our food system.

Emily Broad Leib, Faculty Director of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, offers policy solutions to managing food waste on consumer and corporate platforms.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a member!What Doesn't Kill You is Powered by Simplecast.

Emily Broad Leib, Faculty Director of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, offers policy solutions to managing food waste on consumer and corporate platforms.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support What Doesn't Kill You by becoming a member!What Doesn't Kill You is Powered by Simplecast.

Every year, $408 billion is spent processing, transporting, storing, and disposing of food that never gets eaten. That's millions of pounds of fresh food—24% of all food in the U.S.—going to waste, instead of nourishing the 42 million Americans expected to experience food insecurity in 2021. Join WW International – who is leading cross-sector efforts related to food and nutrition access – and Food Tank, in a special virtual panel to discuss the new bipartisan legislation, introduced by US Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Pat Toomey (R-PA), designed to strengthen the 1996 Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act—and help fight senseless food waste and food insecurity. Featuring: Danielle Nierenberg, President, Food Tank Mindy Grossman, CEO, WW International Tim Carman, Food Journalist, The Washington Post U.S. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree U.S. Congressman Jim McGovern Emily Broad Leib, Director, Food Law and Policy Clinic, Harvard Law School Jenny Murphy​, Director of Operations & Supply Chain Management, City Harvest Steven Jennings, Brand Lead, Health & Sustainability, Ahold Delhaize USA While you're listening, subscribe, rate, and review the show; it would mean the world to us to have your feedback. You can listen to “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” wherever you consume your podcasts.

Emily Broad Leib, founder and director of Harvard's Food Law and Policy Clinic, discusses how to reduce food waste in the United States and abroad. Topics include the confusion caused by misleading date labels, the impact of COVID-19 on food waste, and the FLPC's collaborations with governments and non-profit organizations to enact better food laws.For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.For a transcript of this episode, go to https://harvardmagazine.com/2021/emily-broad-leibAsk a Harvard Professor is hosted by Lydialyle Gibson, Jonathan Shaw, Jacob Sweet, and Nancy Walecki, and produced by Jacob Sweet and Niko Yaitanes. Our theme music was composed by Louis Weeks.

--On the Show: --Emily Broad Leib, Clinical Professor of Law and Faculty Direction for Harvard Law School's Food Law and Policy Clinic, joins David to discuss the confusing and contradictory world of food labeling, expiration dates, and much more --After months of declines, COVID cases are again climbing in the United States, now up almost 10%, while cases globally are up 17% --Judge Bruce Schroeder, the judge in the Kyle Rittenhouse case, flips out on the prosecutor, as the defense asks for a mistrial --Notable discussions from the David Pakman show subreddit, including about vaccination, Aaron Rodgers, Colin Kaepernick, Joe Rogan, and much more --A recent Fox News graphic about the labor force under Donald Trump compared to Joe Biden may be one of Fox's most misleading graphics yet --A preview of an upcoming Donald Trump interview with MyPillow founder Mike Lindell is previewed, and it seems it will be outrageous --Donald Trump publishes a bizarre Veterans Day video in which he indirectly attacks Joe Biden, and recorded with such terrible audio that Trump is barely audible --Voicemail caller asks whether David believes in birds --On the Bonus Show: Inflation surges to highest since 1990, Portugal law bans texting employees after work, longest sentence yet in Trump riot cases, much more...

Professor Janel George, Director of the Racial Equity in Education Law and Policy Clinic at Georgetown University speaks on the history of Critical Race Theory. In this episode we delve into the recent political outrage over Critical Race Theory in Education and ask the question: If you teach the history of racial inequality are you teaching Critical Race Theory? In the same vein, would Critical Race Theory by any other name be just as offensive? You can follow Janel George on Twitter @JG4Justice and check out some of her writing on CRT here. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/LearningMachine)

Emily Broad Leib of the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic argues that narrowly focused food safety regulations in the US are failing to address the most important aspects of our food system.

Emily Broad Leib of the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic argues that narrowly focused food safety regulations in the US are failing to address the most important aspects of our food system.

Kim Charlson, Immediate Past President, ACB, Watertown, MA (Moderator); Blake Reid, Director of the Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic, Boulder, CO; Carl Richardson, co-Chair, Audio Description Project, Brighton, MA; & Karen Peltz Strauss, National Disability Advocate, Washington, DC Find out more at https://acb-events.pinecast.co Check out our podcast host, Pinecast. Start your own podcast for free with no credit card required. If you decide to upgrade, use coupon code r-af0929 for 40% off for 4 months, and support ACB Events.

This podcast focuses on the need for a national food strategy and why now is the right time to fix the US food system. I'm talking today with two food policy experts who have collaborated on an effort with an ambitious title of Blueprint for a National Food Strategy. They argue it's time to coordinate policymaking that identifies national food systems priorities, and develop a process that gives the public an opportunity to weigh in on the trade offs inherent in food policymaking. Emily Broad Lieb is the Faculty Director of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic. And Laurie Beyranevand is the Director of the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law school.   Interview Summary   So let me ask you both, can you help our listeners understand what you mean by the term National Food strategy? Emily, let's begin with you. Our food system - it's incredibly fragmented in the way that it's regulated because there's so many different agencies that are regulating different aspects of food safety, and production and workers. So what we define as a national food strategy would be a set of food system goals and a coordinated approach that would foster consideration of these goals in law and policymaking that affects the food system. We call it a strategy because it would be setting a roadmap for the long-term goals in terms of health and food safety, food justice, environmental sustainability. Others have written saying, "We need a national food strategy or national food policy, and here's what it should do." The aim of our project has been very much process-based. And we need to set out a process to bring together these different agencies and coordinate them. And especially to make an opportunity for voices from outside government, those of key stakeholders and also of the general public, to participate in that process in saying what the goals should be, so that then government and the agencies regulating the food system can be responsive to that. Laurie, I'd appreciate your input on that same question, and it's interesting that there's not a national food strategy. And I'm wondering if you're getting traction for the basic concept of having such a strategy? Yeah, that's a great question. Emily laid out really well why we focused on a national food strategy and our emphasis on process. It's probably easier for people to connect around the notion of process rather than substance. A lot of the calls on a national food policy were so heavily focused on substance, it allowed people to think about where there were conflicting interests and not get behind it - because it didn't represent everyone's interests. Our focus on process is really to think about how do you have all these various stakeholders come together so that they can develop a National Food Policy, if that's what we want to call it, or a written document that reflects all of these varied interests? And in getting behind the process, it's a matter of saying, "We're committed to figuring out how do we coordinate all of these various law and policy instruments across the food system, in a way that's going to achieve better food system outcome?" So Laurie, let's follow up on this a little bit. So in 2017, you Emily and others created a blueprint for a National US Food Policy, and you've chosen to update it now, in a document that you just released. Back in 2017, you said that the American food system, and I'm quoting here, "Is a poorly coordinated patchwork of federal, state, tribal and local laws, administered by agencies with overlapping duties that results in inefficiencies and unintended consequences." What's happened in the interim that made you want to update it now, and is COVID a player in this? COVID is definitely a player in this. Not a lot has happened in terms of improving this situation, which was why we renewed our call for a national food strategy. A lot of how COVID demonstrated these inconsistencies, the lack of coordination and the really poor food system outcomes that we saw as a result of COVID. But in part it was also due to the upcoming election and an opportunity to get this in front of whichever administration was going to be in office, as a way to start thinking about how to coordinate food law and policy. What's interesting about this as a concept is that it's not unique to the food system. The food system is certainly where we focus but it's not that that's a unique situation in the United States. I mean, we often think of laws as having a discrete focus and then we have agencies that are also similarly discretely focused on the subject matter areas. Where they regulate, we don't have a lot of mechanisms in the US to think about how to account for the possibility that those things might not only be uncoordinated, but they also might be in conflict with each other. Emily, what are some examples of how a national food strategy could work and provide benefits to the food system? I'm glad you asked that, because I think a lot of the work that we've done has been really trying to paint a picture for readers about how it would be unique to have a national food strategy in the US. But national food strategies themselves are not unique, lots of other countries have these, and that was a big piece of our research. But then we also looked at in the US, we've created national strategies on countless different things, and so we examine eight different ones in the US that include everything from the National Strategy for HIV and AIDS, with the National Strategy on Antibiotic Resistance, the 9/11 Commission, which was congressionally created strategy after 911, really to say, what were the lack of coordination or other weaknesses that allowed 9/11 to happen, and then how do we plan going forward? There are lots of examples of other issues in the US where we've said, "This is a complicated topic with real impact on society, and we need to have a mechanism for coordinating amongst agencies to facilitate the best outcomes possible." And I'll just say a little bit about some of the findings, and really what we recommend. Since 2017, there have been a lot of cross agency strategies announced that impacts small specific areas of the food system. So there's been more coordination, in particular memorandums of understanding between USDA and FDA, for example, as the two agencies really share oversight over food safety. And then there's been, for example, a multi-agency initiative on reducing food waste, which was those two same agencies and also the EPA. Leadership & Coordination: Our recommendations from 2017, which were really derived from six different national food strategies in other countries, and eight different national strategies on other topics in the US. And I think that the main recommendations that stand first is around coordination. So, addressing one issue might also have equity problems, or lead to more food and security issues or things like that. And I think we really need to kind of have these regulations that impact the food system being dialogue. So coordination, really having an inter-agency working group. One thing we added on to that recommendation, this time around was leadership. Knowing that there's not really an office or agency out there now that could manage this holistically, and leadership and having an office either within the White House or somehow within the executive, that is managing the process of getting input, putting together a written plan, and then following through on it is crucial. I mean, this really wouldn't be successful without that. Participation: every single strategy that we found that was successful, it was because they did a really great job of realizing that voices from outside government were needed. And again, as we know in the food system, it's so complex, so many different stakeholders are implicated, and having producers, environmental advocates, affected communities that are really struggling with food access and food insecurity, and giving all that input and then seeing where we wind up with goals. Transparency, accountability & enforceability: The last two are one is transparency and accountability. And that is putting something in writing, saying these are our goals, and then following up with regular reporting from agencies to say how they're moving towards those goals. And we added on this time around, this real concept of enforceability as well, giving some authority to the office that's managing the strategy and making sure that they can follow through. Durability: And then lastly, durability. And there's lots of ways to do this, but really thinking about ways to make it flexible and update. And as an example of that the National HIV/AIDS strategy was so successful. After it was released in 2010, then an updated strategy was released in 2015, that really brought in a lot of new goals and built on the foundation of the first strategy. And I think something like that could be really beneficial here as well. Thanks, Emily. So Laurie, are there countries that you think have done especially well at this and what have they done to make their work impressive? One of the countries that we focused on in the original blueprint was the UK. At the time when we were doing our research, they had a really interesting Cabinet Office that was called the Strategy Unit. And the whole purpose of it was to achieve joined up policymaking in the UK, it was doing exactly what we're suggesting would be really useful is looking across all these different agencies, looking across all the decision-making that they're doing and then thinking, "How do we join up their efforts? How do we get them to work together in policymaking so that we're not creating these conflicts and we're avoiding redundancies. And at the time, the UK was in the process of developing what was called Food 2030. And that was their original food strategy paper. They initially intended to have that released over the summer, but because of COVID, they essentially broke that process into two parts, and they created part one of their strategy. And released that this summer when direct response both to COVID and also to Brexit. Their intention is to then release part two of their strategy, which is the big picture National Food strategy in the UK within the next year. So that'll be a really interesting process to follow. Sadly, the strategy unit in the UK fell apart, but a lot of it had to do with agencies not being used to coordinating with each other, and then facing some difficulties really getting past those obstacles and differences in agency culture and agency budgets and getting them to start thinking about coordination as something that they would do regularly. The other country that we focused on, Canada announced their national food policy, after many, many years of grassroots efforts to push the government to create a National Food Policy. Emily just mentioned a few minutes ago that one of our recommendations was around participation. And I think Canada provides a really great example. A bunch of different types of participatory processes were fully designed to elicit comments from a broad range of stakeholders. There was a convening of different types of stakeholder groups. So it included industry, food security, advocacy organizations, and a bunch of different stakeholders that you might not normally see at the table together. And as a result of that came out with a shared set of interests, which I think is so important. In the US, we similarly have a wide variety of stakeholders in the food system, and trying to get them to come together on a set of goals and priorities could be really difficult. And having a process that helps to facilitate those conversations, helps to get people on the same page about what the major goals and priorities are, would be so beneficial. And we have some really good models of that. Well, now that we're thinking about some of the obstacles, you mentioned that there are lots of stakeholders with different interests. And earlier, you both discuss the issue of the responsibility within government falling across lots of different agencies. So are there other obstacles that exists for thinking about a national strategy in the US? Agencies have different mandates, different cultures, different budgets, getting over that hurdle, and trying to get agencies both to appreciate the value of coordination, but also just embracing that as something that's valuable, that's going to require a big shift in the way that agencies think about their jobs. I see that as an obstacle that's certainly not insurmountable, but that would require some work. How to get stakeholders engaged in a way that's really meaningful, that's an obstacle that we need to be really thoughtful about. And how to make sure that we're enabling people that often lack of voice in law and policymaking. And then figuring out how to get them to identify common ground to come together around a shared set of goals and priorities. And then lack of political will. And also there are certain people that benefit from the lack of coordination in the food system. Trying to get to a place where they've perceived benefits in a process like this, that that's going to take some work. And allowing them to see the benefit in airing the trade offs that are inherent in food system on policymaking and allowing for greater public input, that all of that can produce outcomes that are beneficial for everyone. You were talking about issues of territoriality in a way that parts of different agencies are handling things and they have different budgets. And so in some ways, one of the obstacles I'm imagining is that people are people, and people don't want to give up territorial power or authority or whatever you want to call it. So that's one issue. And I'm wondering, does a new structure needed? Should there be some new agency where this work is better consolidated or takes all the work on a specific issue like food safety and parks it in a particular agency rather than divides it? So is there some structural change that you think might be helpful? There's a way to do this that doesn't require agencies to give up authority, but it's more in alignment and some long-term decision making. And I think actually, for some agencies, it might be somewhat relieving to say, "Okay, we know that right now we can't adequately handle certain concerns because they're not really within our mandate, but we feel uncomfortable with the fact that when we're regulating for food safety, that food security isn't really part of that." And then I would say on this question of institutional design and agency building, my take on it would be, there's been a lot of proposals to put all of food safety into one food safety agency. This definitely gets that some of the lack of coordination, particularly across the Food Safety and Inspection Service within USDA, which is in charge of safety for meat, poultry, and some eggs. And then the FDA, which is in charge of food safety for the rest of the food supply. So there's been proposals in the last two administrations, both Trump and Obama, there's been introduced in Congress on this, if the whole endeavor is just to create one agency to just handle food safety, it would be a lot of energy, maybe not worth the cost. That said, I think you kind of hinted at this, Kelly too. But just if the endeavor is to say, "We need an agency that looks at food safety, but also is equipped to balance, food safety and regulations with some of these other issues, like broader food safety, safety on farms, and in food production and food security and food assistance programs, I mean, if that's the endeavor then, I would wholeheartedly support it, because right now, the lack of coordination on these things means that we aren't really able to plan for the long-term. Two other quick things, this point of political will, and circling back to an early question you asked, about the way that COVID has shown and exacerbated these challenges in the food system, I think also makes this a moment where perhaps there is political will. So many people that weren't thinking every day about where their food was coming from, are thinking about it more now. As heartbreaking as it's been, it also gives us a moment, hopefully, we can generate some political will around figuring out how to get out of this crisis, but also plan a little bit for the long-term. So Laurie, what are your feelings about whether structural changes might be necessary to help address these issues? One thing that we suggested is having a lead office or agency that would be in charge of the coordination efforts. But where would the best place be for an office or agency like that? Certainly, there would be some jockeying for position, I would assume between USDA and FDA over something like this. And I don't know that there's a clear or natural leader among either of those. And so maybe it is that there's a different office that gets created that would be responsible for this that could be thinking about all these different agencies that would be involved here. And also would come from a perspective that would be somewhat less entrenched in the agency positions that they already have. But I would agree with Emily, I don't know that you necessarily need an entirely new agency to do something like this. One of the other suggestions that we had, was to think about something like a law similar to the National Environmental Policy Act that requires agencies to be thinking about the environmental impacts of their actions, to have something like the National Food Policy Act that requires agencies to be thinking about the food system impacts of their decision making. And to have an agency that would be responsible for implementing that as a law. So that's certainly another tool that we've thought about as a way to carry forward a strategy like this. Bios Emily M. Broad Leib is a Clinical Professor of Law, Faculty Director of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, and Deputy Director of the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation. As founder of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, Emily launched the first law school clinic in the nation devoted to providing clients with legal and policy solutions to address the health, economic, and environmental challenges facing our food system. Emily focuses her scholarship, teaching, and practice on finding solutions to today's biggest food system issues. She has published scholarly articles in the Wisconsin Law Review, the Harvard Law & Policy Review, the Food & Drug Law Journal, and the Journal of Food Law & Policy, among others. She was named to 2016's list of Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink. The list, released by Fortune and Food & Wine, highlights women who had the most transformative impact in the last year on what the public eats and drinks. Her groundbreaking work on food waste has been covered in such media outlets as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, The Guardian, TIME, Politico, and the Washington Post. Emily has appeared on CBS This Morning, CNN, The Today Show, and MSNBC to discuss the clinic's efforts to reduce food waste.   Laurie J. Beyranevand is the Director of the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems and a Professor of Law at Vermont Law School. The Center for Agriculture and Food Systems trains law and policy students to develop real-world solutions for a more sustainable and just food system. Beyranevand received a BA from Rutgers College in 1999 and a JD from Vermont Law School in 2003. She clerked in the Environmental Division of the Vermont Attorney General's Office and also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Marie E. Lihotz in New Jersey. Prior to joining the faculty at Vermont Law School, Professor Beyranevand was a Staff Attorney at Vermont Legal Aid where she represented adults and children in individual cases and class action litigation advocating for access to health care, education equality, and civil rights. In that capacity, she appeared in state and federal court, as well as before administrative adjudicative bodies, and served as an appointed member of the Human Rights Committee. She is an appointed member of the Food and Drug Law Institute and Georgetown Law School's Food and Drug Law Journal Editorial Advisory Board, a founding member of the Academy of Food Law and Policy, and the Chair Elect of the Agriculture and Food Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools. She is admitted to the New York and Vermont State Bars, as well as the U.S. District Court, District of Vermont. As a first generation American with Iranian and Appalachian roots, diverse food and culture have always been prominent in Professor Beyranevand's life symbolizing the power of food in bringing people together.  

The North American food system has succeeded in producing an abundance of commodities at relatively low cost, but it is failing in other ways that matter. Showing how law and policy should make needed changes is the purpose of "the Blueprint for a National Food Strategy".  This work in progress is a collaborative project between the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law School and Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic.  Some of the project's recommendations have already been accepted in Canada and  will be considered in the next US Farm Bill.  Harvard Law Professor Emily M. Broad Lieb, Director of the Food Law and Policy Clinic, focuses her scholarship, teaching, and practice on finding solutions to some of today’s biggest food law issues, aiming to increase access to healthy foods, eliminate food waste, and support sustainable food production and local and regional food systems.Professor Broad Lieb shares her journey from Harvard Law to rural Mississippi and back as food system success, shortcomings and solutions are addressed. www.foodstrategyblueprint.org

In this episode Caitlin McCoy talks with Aladdine Joroff, clinical instructor and staff attorney at our Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, about the recent decision by the Massachusetts Attorney General disapproving Brookline, MA’s law seeking to limit the use of natural gas in buildings, and comments the Clinic submitted on behalf of Mothers Out Front Massachusetts, arguing that Brookline’s law is a traditional exercise of municipal authority and could co-exist with state law. See here for a transcript of this episode http://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/CleanLaw-48-Caitlin-Aladdine-Brookline-Gas-AD-Decision.pdf You can find the links to the AG's decision and the Clinics comments, as well as a link to Caitlin’s recent white paper, The Legal Dynamics of Local Limits on Natural Gas Use in Buildings, here https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/2020/09/cleanlaw-caitlin-mccoy-and-aladdine-joroff-on-recent-mass-ag-decision-on-local-natural-gas-usage-laws/

Listen to Emily Broad Leib, Clinical Professor & Director, Food Law & Policy Clinic, Harvard Law School, share her keen insights on COVID’s impact on the food chain, hunger, waste, food banks and more. #NothingWastedPodcast

Today on “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg,” Dani is joined by Emily Broad Leib, the director of the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, and Doug O’Brien, the vice president for network programs at the Global FoodBanking Network. Together, they talk about the new Global Food Donation Policy Atlas, an interactive guide that maps food donation laws and recommends ways to further reduce food waste. Data for five countries—Argentina, Canada, India, Mexico, and the United States—was released this month, and the atlas will eventually cover 15 nations. Then, chef Pierre Thiam talks with Dani about the potential for the ancient African grain fonio to impact the lives of farmers in West Africa. He is the co-founder of Yolélé Foods, a company that imports fonio to the U.S. from countries like Thiam’s native Senegal, and helps support the smallholder farmers who grow it. Thiam says fonio can help address malnutrition, food and economic insecurity, and even climate change. While you’re listening, subscribe, rate, and review the show; it would mean the world to us to have your feedback. You can listen to “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” wherever you consume your podcasts.

Hear from Dana Gunders, Executive Director at ReFED, Emily Broad Lieb, Clinical Professor of Law, Director, Food Law and Policy Clinic and Deputy Director at Harvard Law School, and Justin Block, Managing Director for Feeding America, discuss the short-term and potential long-term impacts that the food supply will have during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I speak with Katherine Meyer, Director of the Animal Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard as well as a visiting assistant clinical professor of law at the university. She also brings along two students of hers, Brett Richey and Boanne Wassink, and the three of them speak to me about the very first case filed by the Animal Law and Policy Clinic. The case involves a petition for rulemaking filed with the USDA by their clients trying to get the agency to write rules interpreting the requirements in the Animal Welfare Act requiring psychological enrichment for primates. They also talk about the work that the Animal Law and Policy Clinic is doing and what she hopes to accomplish including the clinic's work to improve the Animal Welfare Act.

John Macfarlane, Utah Valley University, on ISIS. Eric Goldman, Santa Clara University, on emoji law. Bill Bernstein from the American Society for Yad Vashem on Antisemitism. Skye Augustine, Parks Canada, on clam gardens. Emily M. Broad Leib from the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic on food labels. Cara Santa Maria, Quizmaster for National Geographic’s Almanac 2020, on National Geographic trivia.

In this episode, Blake E. Reid, Associate Clinical Professor and Director of the Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic at the University of Colorado Law School, discusses his article "Internet Accessibility." Reid begins by describing the Americans with Disabilities Act, how it promotes accessibility, and how it has been applied to the Internet. In particular, he discusses the role of the "place" metaphor in structuring the application of the ADA to websites. He explains why considering both internal and external perspectives on the Internet may help implement accessibility reforms more effectively. And he discusses recent developments in accessibility policy at the FCC. Reid is on Twitter at @blakereid. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode, Amanda Levendowski, a Clinical Teaching Fellow with the Technology Law & Policy Clinic at NYU Law, discusses her article "How Copyright Law Can Fix Artificial Intelligence's Implicit Bias Problem," which was published in the Washington Law Review. Levendowski explains that "artificial intelligence" algorithms use "machine learning" to create heuristics for solving problems, but need large data sets in order to work. Unfortunately, many widely available and heavily used datasets have pernicious biases built into them. Copyright can discourage companies from using alternative data sets that would reduce those biases. But Levendowski argues that some copyright doctrine, especially fair use, might reduce the "friction" created by copyright and help companies create better AI. You can read more about Levendowski's work in these articles. Levendowski is on Twitter at @levendowski. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The United States spends 218 billion dollars each year on food that is never eaten while one in seven Americans faces food insecurity. This is part of a new report on food waste from the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic. To help us understand how we can improve our food system in the US is Christina Rice, one of the authors of the report. Plastic bags are being used every year by the trillions. There have been lots of efforts made to reduce the amount of plastic we produce, but what about all of it that’s already there?  Paolo Bombelli with the University of Cambridge is co-author of a new paper about how a certain insect larvae could be part of the answer.

If you found some mould on a slice of bread - would you eat it, cut it off, or throw the loaf away? What exactly is that green fur anyway? In this episode we’re asking whether we’ve become overly cautious about rot, and finding out how our attitudes to decaying food have changed. The BBC's Emily Thomas talks to Chris Wells from Leatherhead Food Research to find out when old food really becomes bad for you. Food historian Helen Zeit from Michigan State University explains how we may have become less tolerant of older food, and Christina Rice of Harvard law and Policy Clinic explains why the consumer is so confused over when to throw food away. Of course many of us are prepared to put our reservations about old food on hold when something’s presented as a delicacy. We’ll meet people who take pride in eating the oldest food they can – from a Sardinian cheese full of jumping maggots to a man who lived off fermented food alone for a year. Finally we’ll get up close to some creatures which you could call the true masters of the decomposing meal. (Photo: Mouldy bread. Credit: Getty Images).

Sam Morril and Sean Donnelly are prominent standup comedians based in New York City. They can regularly be seen performing at the Comedy Cellar. Lee Rowland is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. She also serves as an adjunct clinical professor for NYU Law's Technology Law and Policy Clinic, and is a member of the New York Bar Association's Communications and Media Law Committee

Sam Morril and Sean Donnelly are prominent standup comedians based in New York City. They can regularly be seen performing at the Comedy Cellar. Lee Rowland is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. She also serves as an adjunct clinical professor for NYU Law's Technology Law and Policy Clinic, and is a member of the New York Bar Association's Communications and Media Law Committee

This week Eating Matters is talking food waste with Dana Gunders and Emily Broad Leib. Dana Gunders is an NRDC Staff Scientist focused on Food and Agriculture. She works on market and policy oriented initiatives to promote sustainability throughout food systems and supply chains. She leads NRDC’s work on reducing food waste and is the author of a widely distributed report “Wasted: How America is Losing Up to 40% of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill”. She also recently co-authored a report called The Dating Game, revealing how confusing food dates lead to food waste in America. Emily Broad Leib is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, as well as Deputy Director of the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation. She co-founded and directs the Center’s Food Law and Policy Clinic, the first law school clinic in the nation devoted to providing legal and policy solutions to nonprofit and government clients in order to address the health, economic, and environmental challenges facing our food system. Broad Leib is recognized as a national leader in Food Law and Policy. Emily’s project, “Reducing Food Waste as a Key to Addressing Climate Change,” was one of seven chosen from around the university to confront the challenge of climate change by leveraging the clinic’s food law and policy expertise to identify systemic solutions that can reduce food waste, which is a major driver of climate change. Tune in for this informative show!

Professor at Brooklyn Law School and founder of the Brooklyn Law Incubator and Policy Clinic, Jonathan has a lot on his plate. He still found time to talk to me on the I AM THE LAW Podcast about the role of legal technology in educating law students and helping them find jobs where they can, you know, actually use the skills they learned. He's one of the most optimistic people I've ever spoken to, and his take on the future of technology and the law is worth of a listen.

On the coattails of presidential support and possible regulations from the Federal Communications Commission, Net Neutrality makes its way back into public debate. Proponents claim it will keep the internet a level playing field while opponents believe the opposite. One side worries about oppressive corporations while the other is concerned about oppressive government. Not surprisingly, opinions for or against tend to follow political party lines. On this episode of Lawyer 2 Lawyer, host J. Craig Williams interviews Chris Fedeli from Judicial Watch and Professor Jonathan Askin from Brooklyn Law School. Together they discuss the meaning of net neutrality, the pros and cons of regulating, and what it takes to keep the internet innovative. Tune in to hear about free market principles, consumer protection, and data packet discrimination. Chris Fedeli is a senior attorney with Judicial Watch where he has litigated multiple cases in state and federal courts concerning election integrity, ballot initiatives and referendums, and government transparency. Prior to joining Judicial Watch, Fedeli was a senior associate at Davis Wright Tremaine in Washington D.C., where he represented clients in communications law litigation and regulatory proceedings. In 2009, the ABA's Communications Lawyer published Fedeli's article criticizing the FCC for its net neutrality regulations, which have since been overturned twice by the DC Circuit. Professor Jonathan Askin is a professor at Brooklyn Law School where he teaches technology, telecommunications, and entrepreneurial law and policy. He is also the Founder of the Brooklyn Law Incubator and Policy Clinic, which represents internet, new media, communications and other tech entrepreneurs on business development, policy advocacy, and law reform. During the 2008 Presidential Election, Askin chaired the Internet Governance Working Group for the 2008 Obama Presidential Campaign. Special thanks to our sponsor, Clio.

This week on What Doesn’t Kill You, Katy Keiffer is talking expiration date labeling with Dana Gunders of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Recently, the NRDC and The Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic just released a report on food waste in the US called “The Dating Game: How Confusing Food Date Labels Lead to Food Waste in America”, and Dana is on the program to review the report and dispel concerns regarding food labeling and food safety. Find out what organizations are in charge of determining “use by” and “sell by” dates, and how governmental regulation could potentially lead to better consistency. Learn how these dates mislead consumers and often lead to unnecessary food waste. How is date labeling also tied up in the controversies surrounding GMO labeling? How should labeling differ between fresh and processed foods? How do food labels affect grocers’ bottom line? Find out all of this and more on this week’s edition of What Doesn’t Kill You! Thanks to our sponsor, Underground Meats. Music provided by Dead Stars. “The FDA has the authority under current law to provide standardization for food labeling if they wanted to.” [8:15] “Food-borne illness is a result of contamination, not its age.” [11:00] — Dana Gunders on What Doesn’t Kill You

This week on What Doesn’t Kill You, Katy Keiffer is talking expiration date labeling with Dana Gunders of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Recently, the NRDC and The Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic just released a report on food waste in the US called “The Dating Game: How Confusing Food Date Labels Lead to Food Waste in America”, and Dana is on the program to review the report and dispel concerns regarding food labeling and food safety. Find out what organizations are in charge of determining “use by” and “sell by” dates, and how governmental regulation could potentially lead to better consistency. Learn how these dates mislead consumers and often lead to unnecessary food waste. How is date labeling also tied up in the controversies surrounding GMO labeling? How should labeling differ between fresh and processed foods? How do food labels affect grocers’ bottom line? Find out all of this and more on this week’s edition of What Doesn’t Kill You! Thanks to our sponsor, Underground Meats. Music provided by Dead Stars. “The FDA has the authority under current law to provide standardization for food labeling if they wanted to.” [8:15] “Food-borne illness is a result of contamination, not its age.” [11:00] — Dana Gunders on What Doesn’t Kill You