Choosing Your Ground on the Endangered Species Act: How Do the Ninth, Tenth, and District of Columbia Circuit Courts of Appeal Evaluate Water Management Decisions Made by Federal Water Agencies?

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, federal agencies are responsible for the development and implementation of ESA documents, and knowing what a court will look for and at when that document is challenged can help the agencies to develop a document that can better survive court review. Second, a plaintiff who challenges such a document can benefit from that same knowledge, by knowing which elements of the document to best challenge. The intent of this article is to provide practitioners, both agency and non-, with an introduction to that knowledge, to identify some of those difficulties, dangers, and distances, with the ultimate goal of adding clarity to an often confusing battlefield. This article first provides, in Part II, an overview of how the ESA applies to federal actions, and then discusses in Part III how the Ninth, Tenth, and District of Columbia Circuit Courts of Appeal analyze, under the ESA, the decisions made by the federal agencies. The discussion includes specific analytic tests the courts have developed. Finally, in Part IV, the article describes a hypothetical decision on a large river system with multiple dams operated by Reclamation and the Army Corps as a hypothetical case study to illustrate the Courts’ tests. Different federal circuits utilize different tests to determine whether or not the decisions made under the ESA satisfy the statute and court precedent. The intent of this article is to illustrate the particular criteria some of the courts use in those tests, and thus to provide information for federal agencies and litigants to use in crafting their documents and, if necessary, their arguments

ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY: NEW OPPORTUNITIES AND NEW DEMANDS FOR RETAIL FOOD STORES

Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

CHANGING FOOD MARKETS: IMPACT ON AGRICULTURE

Marketing,

WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE: THE U.S. EXPERIENCE

Labor and Human Capital,

DISCRETE DEPENDENT VARIABLES: A GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE ESTIMATING TECHNIQUES WITH AN ANNOTATIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF LOGIT ANALYSIS

Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

SUPERMARKET TRENDS AND CHANGES IN RETAIL FOOD DELIVERY

Marketing, Agribusiness,

TRANSITION IN FOOD AND AGRICULTURAL POLICY: KEY STAKEHOLDER - DOMESTIC CONSUMERS

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Food Safety in Three Dimensions: Safety, Diet Quality, and Bio-Security

Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

CONCENTRATION OF OWNERSHIP IN FOOD RETAILING: A REVIEW OF THE EVIDENCE ABOUT CONSUMER IMPACT

Increased concentration in ownership of retail and wholesale food companies in the United States naturally leads to the question "How does concentration of ownership affect consumers?" Does it lead to higher or lower food prices, better or worse service, more or less choice between stores and among products, and more or less employment and earning opportunities in the food sector? Since the early 1980's the percent of total sales captured by the top four supermarket chains have gone from 18 to 22 percent; food prices decreased, food expenditures relative to income and employment and earnings have all fallen modestly. Choice and service are harder to measure. Competition at the local level appears to be alive and well since numerous types of food retailers offer attractive substitutes for food purchased in a grocery store. The relationship between concentration, prices and profits has been studied and examined for several decades using various economic and business theories and several sources of data. These studies speak to the overall behavior and performance of the industry and provide a perspective on the consolidation and shifts in power that appear to be taking place. The results of many of these studies are summarized in this paper. Findings focus on two major questions: 1) Does the concentration of retail food firms in local markets increase food prices and firms' profits? 2) Has the retail sector become relatively more profitable and, thus, more powerful than the manufacturing sector? The results are mixed, especially with regard to price. Concentration tends to be associated with both increased and decreased prices. Recent work indicates prices tend to increase in dry grocery items, but not in fresh and chilled foods. And, concentration at the wholesale level may lower food prices. Profits of the parent company generally rise with concentration, but the reason is unclear. Most studies conclude it is due to lower costs made possible by economies of scale in procurement or vertical coordination with suppliers and better use of information technology. There was no evidence that retailers' profits are increasing faster than food manufacturers' profits.Agribusiness, Consumer/Household Economics, Industrial Organization, Marketing,