 |
|
|||
|
Find an Agriculture Law Lawyer Continued…
The USDA encourages voluntary efforts to protect soil, water, and wildlife on 70 percent of America's privately owned land. It brings housing, modern telecommunications and safe drinking water to rural areas and is responsible for guaranteeing the safety of meat, poultry, and egg products for consumers. It also leads research in everything from human nutrition to new crop technologies that allow us to grow more food and fiber using less water and pesticides.
The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) was drafted in 1933 by Henry Wallace, Franklin D. Roosevelt's Secretary of Agriculture. The AAA paid farmers not to grow crops and not to produce dairy produce such as milk and butter or to raise pigs and lambs. The money to pay the farmers for cutting back production was raised by taxing companies that bought the farm products and processed them into food and clothing. The Supreme Court declared the AAA unconstitutional in 1936, with the majority of judges (6-3) ruling it illegal to levy a tax on one group (the processors) in order to pay it to another (the farmers). In 1938, another AAA was passed without the processing tax. It was financed out of general taxation, making it acceptable according to the Supreme Court. The 1996 Federal Agricultural Improvement Reform Act (FAIRA) This law calls for tightened restrictions on water pollution generated by farms, promotes cost sharing with farmers who practice conservation and endorses new programs to protect the environment. The Water Pollution Control Act (CWA) The CWA was enacted to control water pollution by establishing a basic structure for discharging pollutants into bodies of water in the United States and made it unlawful for any person to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters, unless a permit was obtained under its provisions. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) This act established a Council on Environmental Quality because nearly all federal activities affect the environment in some way. It mandated that before federal agencies make decisions, they must consider the effects of their actions on the quality of the human environment. Endangered Species Act (ESA) Destroying an endangered species habitat by cultivating formerly unplanted acreage is a violation of ESA and has severe penalties. States are encouraged to enforce their own environmental acts, which must be at least as stringent as the federal laws.
|