Abstract
Perhaps surprisingly, for the world’s largest economy, US federal law gives relatively little attention to the integration of food–energy–water nexus issues. How can this be so? Part of the answer lies in the design of the US federal system, which gives broad leeway to individual states to formulate and enforce their own laws, as long as they are not in conflict with the US Constitution. Thus, while federal laws such as the National Environmental Protection Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Air do touch on some nexus concerns, for the most part, there is no comprehensive treatment of the food–energy–water nexus at the federal level. This chapter surveys US laws and policies at the federal, state, and local level with an eye to better-integrating nexus concerns.
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Notes
- 1.
It is common to speak of Congress “ratifying” a treaty, but it is the president who ratifies the treaty only after two-thirds of the Senate has provided “advice and consent.”
- 2.
Critics named the loophole after a Wellfield Services company that benefited from it. Richard (Dick) Cheney, US vice-president at the time of the 2005 Act, had previously served as CEO of Halliburton.
- 3.
See USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), 2012 United States Census of Agriculture, AC 12-A-51, Washington, DC, May 2014, http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Full_Report/Volume_1,_Chapter_1_US/usv1.pdf.otal.
- 4.
See USDA, NASS, Quick Stats, http://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/.
- 5.
An exception to the three focal areas noted above is the Atlantic Salmon Compact of 1983 (Public Law 98-138) which focuses on restoration of the Atlantic salmon fishery in the Connecticut River Basin.
- 6.
See USDA, Prices Received for Corn by Month at https://www.nass.usda.gov/Charts_and_Maps/graphics/data/pricecn.txt 11/29/2018.
- 7.
See USDA, World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, WASDE 584 (2018) p 12, U.S. corn and grain supply and use, https://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/latest.pdf.
- 8.
See “Food Recovery: A Legal Guide” at http://law.uark.edu/documents/2013/06/Legal-Guide-To-Food-Recovery.pdf.
- 9.
See Government Accountability Office (2016)
- 10.
See Buzby and Wells (2007)
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Further Reading
Ackerman, F., & Fisher, J. (2013). Is there a water-energy nexus in electricity generation? Long-term scenarios for the western USA. Energy Policy, 59, 235–241. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2013.03.027.
Berkman, M. (2015). The electricity-water nexus: Is a crisis imminent? Water Policy, 17(6), 1163–1175. https://doi.org/10.2166/wp.2015.060.
Beyranevand, L. J., & Leib, E. M. B. (2017). Making the case for a national food strategy in the USA. Food and Drug Law Journal, 72, 225–261.
Government Accountability Office Energy–Water Nexus. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/energy_water_nexus/issue_summary#t=1
Peer, R. A. M., & Sanders, K. T. (2018). The water consequences of a transitioning U.S. power sector. Applied Energy, 210, 613–622. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.08.021.
U.S. Geological Survey. (n.d.). How much water do we use? https://owi.usgs.gov/vizlab/water-use/.
Wise, T. A., & Cole, E. (2015). Mandating food insecurity: The global impacts of rising biofuel mandates and targets. Working paper no. 15-01. Global Development and Environment Institute.
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Kinne, B., Magee, D. (2020). US Governance. In: Saundry, P., Ruddell, B. (eds) The Food-Energy-Water Nexus. AESS Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies and Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29914-9_8
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