Boyden Gray & Associates partner Andrew Varcoe has been selected to speak at a panel on environmental law and food law at the 25th Anniversary Fall Conference of the American Bar Association’s (ABA’s) Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources (SEER), to be held October 18-21, 2017, in Baltimore, MD.
Mr. Varcoe will be speaking on the first full day of the ABA conference, on October 19. The title of the panel is Food Law: What Environmental Lawyers Need to Know about One of the Fastest Growing Areas of Environmental Law. As the ABA notes, the panel will “explore the future of the environmental/food law nexus, discussing the changing role of modern food policy and federal and state regulation (and deregulation) and the resulting impacts on food production and consumption.”
“I’m honored by this opportunity to speak with star colleagues – nationally known experts on U.S. food law and policy – at what is truly a premier forum for lawyers who want to learn and engage in dialogue about current and emerging environmental, energy, and natural resource questions,” Mr. Varcoe said. “It’s my view that legal and policy issues relating to food and agriculture will continue to be a focus of ferment and debate, and legal risk as well, as businesses and other stakeholders adjust to new facts and trends – including the recent changes in Washington that have accompanied the arrival of the new Administration.”
The other panelists are Professor Emily M. Broad Leib, who directs the Food Law and Policy Clinic and serves as deputy director of the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, MA, and Michael T. Roberts, who serves as executive director of the Resnick Program for Food Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law in Los Angeles, CA. The moderator for the panel is Jason J. Czarnezki, the Gilbert and Sarah Kerlin Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law and the Associate Dean and Executive Director of Environmental Law Programs at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University in White Plains, NY.
Until earlier this year, Mr. Varcoe served as Deputy General Counsel for Agriculture and Environment at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), the trade association for the biotechnology industry, where he focused on legal, regulatory, and policy issues relevant to technological innovation in agriculture, natural resources, and the environment. Previously Mr. Varcoe was an appellate lawyer in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), where he worked on a wide range of administrative law, environmental and natural resources law, and agricultural law matters. His current practice focuses on administrative law and litigation; environmental, energy, and natural resources law; and related policy and strategy matters.
For more information about the ABA SEER Fall Conference, please see here.