FQPA IMPLEMENTATION TO REDUCE PESTICIDE RESIDUE RISKS: PART I: AGRICULTURAL PRODUCER CONCERNS

The Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 (FQPA) transforms the regulation of pesticide residues on food in the United States. Three changes are prominent. First, under the FQPA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is authorized to develop uniform pesticide residue tolerances for both fresh and processed foods. These tolerances must be based on a conservative standard appropriate for infants and children, rather than the adult-based tolerances that prevailed previously for fresh-market produce. Second, under the FQPA, pesticide registration will be based upon aggregate risk to the most susceptible consumers from all pesticides sharing a common biochemical mode of action in humans. Third, the FQPA expands the scope of health effects included in risk assessment decisions to include potential endocrine and reproductive effects of pesticidal chemicals. As the EPA has moved to develop implementation guidelines for the FQPA, agricultural producers and input suppliers have become concerned about its impact on them. Even if the FQPA's implementation results only in a restriction of the pesticides used on some crops, producers still have four major concerns: (1) the potential loss of farm profitability, especially for farms specializing in fruit and vegetable production; (2) unfair competition if foreign competitors can use pesticides forbidden to domestic producers; (3) the impact of the FQPA on consumer purchases, (i.e., if reduced pesticide use results in more blemishes or lower quality product, will consumers refuse to purchase the product?); and (4) excessive reliance on a few remaining pest control weapons, possibly resulting in accelerated pest resistance. Because these uncertainties potentially impact producers' livelihoods, many argue for a go-slow, long transition for any major changes in the way they farm or the pest control products they use. Competing with these agricultural concerns, however, are a parallel set of concerns, expressed by consumer and environmental groups, that the FQPA's promise to protect infants and children from pesticide risks will be sabotaged by lax or ineffective implementation. There are many uncertainties with respect to the impacts related to alternative FQPA implementation strategies. Research to resolve these concerns is fragmentary and frequently inconclusive. The common element that emerges from this review of producer concerns is: Impacts on producers will depend on how the FQPA is implemented.Crop Production/Industries, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

A CONTINUATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION POLICY: THE CONSERVATION RESERVE PROGRAM

Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,

FQPA IMPLEMENTATION TO REDUCE PESTICIDE RESIDUE RISKS: PART II: IMPLEMENTATION ALTERNATIVES AND STRATEGIES

Implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) is fraught with difficulty due to the divergent perspectives and demands of stakeholders in the process. In "Part I: Agricultural Producer Concerns," the authors reviewed the concerns of food producers about potential FQPA threats to farm profitability, international competitiveness, consumer perceptions, and the development of pest resistance to remaining pesticides. Fortunately, lessons from past environmental policy and economic theory offer useful principles for how to implement the FQPA. This paper, "Part II: Implementation Alternatives and Strategies" addresses ways to accommodate producer concerns while meeting the policy mandate of reducing risk from pesticide exposure, especially for infants and children. In so doing, the authors are neither advocating nor criticizing this FQPA policy mandate; rather, they are providing policy analysis of alternative implementation strategies.Crop Production/Industries, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

THE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY INCENTIVES PROGRAM: LOCALLY MANAGING NATURAL RESOURCES

Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Never Fully Free: The Scale and Impact of Permanent Punishments on People with Criminal Records in Illinois

This first-of-its-kind study confirms that more than 3.3 million people in Illinois could be impacted by permanent punishments as a result of prior "criminal justice system" involvement, which is more accurately referred to as the "criminal legal system" given the well-documented inequities that bring into question whether the system actually brings justice to people who come into contact with it."Never Fully Free: The Scale and Impact of Permanent Punishments on People with Criminal Records in Illinois," lifts up that permanent punishments are the numerous laws and barriers aimed at people with records that limit their human rights and restrict access to the crucial resources needed to re-build their lives, such as employment, housing, and education. The report recommends a broad dismantling of permanent punishments, so that those who have been involved with the criminal legal system have the opportunity to fully participate in society.The data illustrates the dramatic number of people who may be living with the stigma and limitations of a criminal record in Illinois. Since the advent of mass incarceration in 1979, there are an estimated 3.3 million adults who have been arrested or convicted of a crime in Illinois. Under current laws, these individuals have limited rights even after their criminal legal system involvement has ended. In fact, the report uncovered a vast web of 1,189 laws in Illinois that punish people with criminal records, often indefinitely

The Nature of the Ny-Ålesund Wind Field Analysed by High-Resolution Windlidar Data

In this work we present windlidar data for the research village Ny-Ålesund located on Svalbard in the European Arctic (78.923°N, 11.928°E) from 2013 to 2021. The data have a resolution of 50 m and 10 min with an overlapping height of about 150 m. The maximum range depends on the meteorologic situation. Up to 1000 m altitude the data availability is better than 71%. We found that the highest wind speeds occur in November and December, the lowest ones in June and July, up to 500 m altitude the wind is channelled strongly in ESE to NW direction parallel to the fjord axis and the synoptic conditions above 1000 m altitude already dominate. While the fraction of windy days (v>10m/s) varies significantly from month to month, there is no overall trend of the wind visible in our data set. We define gusts and jets by the requirement of wind maxima v>2m/s above and below a wind maximum. In total, more than 24,000 of these events were identified (corresponding to 6% of the time), of which 223 lasted for at least 100 min (“Long Jets”). All of these events are fairly equally distributed over the months relatively to the available data. Further, gusts and jets follow different distributions (in terms of altitude or depths) and occur more frequently for synoptic flow from roughly a southerly direction. Jets do not show a clear correlation between occurrence and synoptic flow. Gusts and jets are not related to cloud cover. We conclude that the atmosphere from 400 m to 1000 m above Ny-Ålesund is dominated by a turbulent wind shear zone, which connects the micrometeorology in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) with the synoptic flow

Tortious Interference: The Limits of Common Law Liability for Newsgathering

Media lawyers have recently been confronted with a relatively new source of litigation: the tort of intentional interference with contractual relations, which arises out of confidentiality agreements. In this Article, the authors identify the elements of tortious interference with contracts and examine the key issues presented when this tort is applied to newsgathering. The authors then consider a potential defense based on the First Amendment. In light of the public and constitutional interests at stake, the authors conclude that the breach of a confidentiality agreement should not sustain a tortious interference claim when the press is involved in newsgathering activity

Film und Fernsehen als Medien der gesellschaftlichen Vergegenwärtigung des Holocaust: die deutsche Erstausstrahlung der US-amerikanischen Fernsehserie 'Holocaust' im Jahre 1979

'Der Begriff der Erinnerungskultur bezeichnet einen Prozess der bewussten Vergegenwärtigung der Vergangenheit, in dem historische Ereignisse gemäß zeitspezifischer Bedürfnisse und Bedeutungsrahmen der jeweiligen Gegenwart (re-)konstruiert werden. In dieser Fallstudie zur bundesdeutschen Erstausstrahlung der US-amerikanischen Fernsehserie Holocaust im Jahr 1979 wird diese als ein soziales Ereignis verstanden und es werden die Motive und Intentionen der beteiligten Akteure, der Wahrnehmungskontext, der Kontext der Ausstrahlung sowie die Rezeption von Holocaust untersucht. Im Fokus stehen die Intentionen und Motive der verantwortlichen Akteure des Westdeutschen Rundfunks (WDR) und der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, die die Serie den nationalen bundesdeutschen Bedeutungsrahmen anpassten und sie als Chance sahen, der jüdischen Opferperspektive auf den Holocaust in der Erinnerungskultur der Bundesrepublik Gewicht zu verleihen. Mit der Veränderung der US-amerikanischen Originalversion von Holocaust durch den WDR und das pädagogische Begleitprogramm sowie den pädagogischen Blickwinkel, der sich in der Presseberichterstattung herauskristallisiert, wird die Erstausstrahlung von Holocaust von den Akteuren erinnerungskulturell funktionalisiert.' (Autorenreferat)'The term memory culture (Erinnerungskultur) denotes a process in which the past is consciously envisioned in order to (re-)construct historical occurrences according to current requirements and semantic frames of reference. This case study seeks to interpret the first broadcasting of the US American TV series Holocaust in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1979 as a social event. The study focuses on the motives and intentions of persons involved in adapting the series to the national semantic frame. Working at the West German broadcasting corporation (WDR) and the federal center for political education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung), they regarded the broadcasting of the series as an opportunity for adding weight to the perspective of Jewish Holocaust victims in West German memory culture. This paper seeks to show how the first broadcasting of Holocaust was functionalised according to memory culture by analysing the WDR's adaptation and supporting didactic program as well as the didactic perspective which emerges in press coverage.' (author's abstract

Bound Governance - Theorie der zivilen Moderne

Gleich und frei nach gemeinsam anerkannten Regeln (Bound Governance) So koordiniert sich die zivile Moderne - ein Muster, das bis in die Antike zurückreicht und Wurzeln in allen Kulturen hat. Dazu tragen transparente faire Verfahren nicht nur in Recht und Politik, sondern in allen Bereichen der Gesellschaft bis hin zu Spiel und Sport bei. Dem stehen Macht- und einseitige Interessenlogik entgegen, vor allem aber Freund/Feind-Denken - ein grundlegender Konflikt der Menschheit gerade in unserer Zeit. Das Buch liefert Ideen zu einer Theorie der Zivilität, zum Staat in der zivilen Moderne, zu zivil-modernen Handlungskalkülen und einen Diskurs über Gleichstellung und Freiheit. Schließlich wird dokumentiert, wie sich die Bound-Governance-Theorie entwickelt hat.Geänderte Auflage, Dezember 201

Identifizierung und funktionelle Charakterisierung von hBD3, einem neuen antimikrobiellen Peptid aus der Gruppe der humanen [beta]-Defensine

[no abstract