Environmental and Land Use Law.

• Author: Bass, David J.
• Position: Annual Reports of Sections and Divisions of the Florida Bar: 2018-2019

The Environmental and Land Use Law Section (ELULS) has hosted a veritable cornucopia of CLE programs this year that included many "back to basics" webinars as well as more in-depth current topics of interest to the section. As land use and environmental issues continue to be at the forefront of the political landscape of Florida and the nation, our section informs and educates our members on these important topics.

The section's CLE Committee, co-chaired by Robert Volpe and Josh Coldiron, developed the slate of one-hour webinar programs, including Environmental Litigation Update (Fred Aschauer); State Assumption of the Federal Dredge and Fill Permitting Program (Adam Blalock and Jason Totoiu); Environmental Law for Young Lawyers (Michelle Diffenderfer, Chelsea Anderson, and Jessica Icerman); The Essentials of Pollution and Contamination Law (Josh Coldiron, George Gramling, and Todd Kafka); Florida Legislative Forecast (Janet Bowman and David Childs); Public Records Law in the Age of Social Media (Patricia Gleason); and Essentials of Environmental Permitting (James Maher and Susan Martin). There will also be an upcoming webinar CLE on permit challenges, and our annual live CLE event at The Florida Bar convention in June will include a legislative and administrative law update, as well as the General Counsel's Roundtable.

We continued our strong relationship with all Florida law schools by providing block grant and special grant funding for environmental and land use programs of their own. ELULS Law School Liaison activities, under the direction of Joan Matthews, have continued this year with 100 percent participation of law schools in ELULS block-grant requests and the award of six special grants. An important goal of ELULS for the year has been to increase outreach efforts to law students and to encourage students to join the section. To this end, events which were co-sponsored by ELULS special grants included:

* Stetson University's Law School's Annual Wetlands Workshop (November 2018).

* University of Florida's 25th Annual Public Interest Environmental Conference (February). The theme for this two-day conference was: "Our Future: Embracing the Anthropocene."

* Florida State University Law has sponsored an Environmental Forum throughout the year, featuring at least five speakers, which are also open to the FSU legal and consulting communities. FSU has provided webcasts for its forum speakers as well as hosting ELULS CLEs.

* University of...