THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE
Dear friends and colleagues
Re: US regulation of GM crops severely criticized
The US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) has announced that it will produce an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for crops genetically engineered to be resistant to the herbicides 2,4-D or dicamba (Item 1). It is suspected that this is due to overwhelming public pressure and critique over its past poor governance of these crops and herbicides – over 400,000 comments from the public have been submitted on the issue. Dicamba and 2,4-D have been known to travel over long distances, harming other crops, vegetation and beneficial insect habitats. The herbicides have also been linked to cancers in farmers and farm workers who apply them. Herbicide-resistant crops have also resulted in infestations of herbicide-resistant weeds in many states in North America, presenting huge problems and costs for American farmers.
However, critics maintain that even with the EIS, the USDA regulation of GE crops is extremely weak (Item 2). Thus far, the USDA has failed to fully adhere to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to seriously consider more sustainable alternatives to approving the engineered crops without restriction, such as the use of crop rotation or cover crops. In its press release, the USDA has stated that it will be using its regulatory authority under the Plant Protection Act (PPA) only to determine whether 2,4-D- or dicamba-resistant crops are plant pests. The PPA will ultimately determine whether USDA decides that these crops have unacceptable risks. Since plant pests are usually pathogens or parasitic plants, it is unlikely that USDA will find that these herbicide-resistant crops are plant pests, even if they can do considerable harm. In fact, while the USDA also has authority under the PPA to determine whether a GE crop is a noxious weed, it has failed to exercise this although doing so would give it much greater scope for determining risk than under the plant pest provisions.
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Item 1
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW TO DELAY TWO ENGINEERED CROPS
Andrew Pollack, New York Times
10 May 2013
Genetically engineered crops that could sharply increase the use of two powerful herbicides are now unlikely to reach the market until at least 2015 because the Department of Agriculture has decided to subject the crops to more stringent environmental reviews than it had originally intended.
The department said on Friday that it had made the decision after determining that approval of the crops "may significantly affect the quality of the human environment."
The crops in question are Dow Chemical’s corn and soybeans that would be resistant to the herbicide 2,4-D and Monsanto’s dicamba-resistant cotton and soybeans.
Many farmers say they would welcome the new crops because it would give them a way to kill the rapidly growing number of weeds that have become resistant to their main herbicide Roundup, known generically as glyphosate. Most of the corn, soybeans and cotton grown in the United States are genetically engineered to tolerate glyphosate, allowing farmers to spray the chemical to kill weeds without hurting the crops.
But opponents all say that approval of the crops would spur big increases in the use of 2,4-D and dicamba, which they say are more damaging to the environment and possibly human health than glyphosate.
Some fruit and vegetable growers and canners have been concerned that their crops would be damaged by 2,4-D or dicamba drifting over from nearby corn or soybean farms. The Agriculture Department said Friday that both chemicals had "been safely and widely used across the country since the 1960s."
The department had already prepared shorter environmental assessments on two of the Dow crops and put them out for public comment. It did not say how long the more complete environmental impact statements would take, though past experience suggests it could be 15 months to more than two years.
Dow had initially hoped to have its 2,4-D-resistant corn on the market this year, though it then pushed it back to 2014. On Friday, it said approval was now not likely until 2015. It had not expected its soybeans to be ready for market until 2015 anyway.
Monsanto, which called the Agriculture Department decision "unexpected," had been hoping to start selling its soybeans in 2014 and cotton in 2015.
The department was likely to be sued had it not taken the new course.
The federal approvals of genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets were rescinded by a federal judge a few years ago. The judge, in response to lawsuits filed by the Center for Food Safety, said the Agriculture Department had not adequately considered the environmental impacts.
Still, the department said on Friday that, under its regulatory authority, the decision on whether to approve the crops would rest solely on whether they are plant pests. That raised questions about what influence, if any, the environmental impact statements would have.
One environmental group, the Pesticide Action Network, applauded the delay. "Farmers across the country have been voicing their growing worries about these seeds, which have been designed to be used with toxic drift-prone herbicides," Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, a senior scientist, said in a statement.
However, she said the fact that the approval decision would be based solely on the plant pest risk rather than the overall environmental impact "illustrates gaping flaws in our regulatory system."
The Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade group representing biotech crop developers, said the decision set a bad precedent.
These crops "have already been subjected to multiple delays in the approval system," Cathleen Enright, executive vice president for food and agriculture, said in a statement. "No new scientific issues about potential risks have been raised."
Dow and Monsanto said they would cooperate with the Agriculture Department and use the extra time to better prepare for the introduction of the crops.
"Glyphosate-resistant and hard-to-control weeds have spread across our nation’s farmland," Dow said in a statement. "Twenty-five states are now affected and the number of new acres infested in 2012 increased by 50 percent over the previous year. These adverse trends will continue without new state-of-the-art solutions like the Enlist Weed Control System."
Enlist is Dow’s name for the crops resistant to 2,4-D and the accompanying herbicide.
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Item 2
USDA to Tackle 2,4-D-Resistant Engineered Crops Without Needed Regulations
Doug Gurian-Sherman
Union of Concerned Scientists, May 13 2013
http://blog.ucsusa.org/usda-to-tackle-24-d-resistant-engineered-crops-without-needed-regulations
It is encouraging that USDA will produce an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for crops resistant to 2,4-D or dicamba. These crops, through the herbicides they are designed to use, have potential to cause substantial environmental and human harm, especially due to drift and volatility. Weed scientists have projected dramatically increased use of these herbicides, and herbicides in general, if these crops are approved.
Dicamba and 2,4-D herbicides have been known to travel considerable distances from the fields where they are applied, harming fruit, vegetable and other crops, and natural areas that provide pollinators and other beneficial organisms for crops. This is because they not only drift beyond crop fields when they are sprayed, they also volatilize from crops after being applied. Broadleaf crops like grapes and cotton, as well as many others, are extremely sensitive to even low concentrations of these herbicides. In fact, they have been considered to be the most destructive herbicides of neighboring vegetation.
While the pesticide companies claim that new formulations of these herbicides will greatly reduce volatilization, that remains to be seen, because public data supporting this assertion have been scarce. And in any case, some improvement in reducing volatilization may be offset by greatly increased use and new use patterns. In particular, the herbicide-resistant corn and soybeans will allow spraying directly on the growing crops, later in the season, when other crops and wild vegetation have leafed out and are more vulnerable. Previously, most uses of these herbicides have been for pre-emergence (pre crop germination) or post crop harvest.
There is also considerable epidemiology linking these herbicides to certain cancers in farmers and farmworkers. While not conclusive, it does suggest caution. In general, pesticide laws are not as protective of farmers and farmworkers exposed through work as for consumers exposed via residues on food.
In addition, weed scientists predict that the widespread use of these crops will simply speed up the development of more resistant weeds, leading to even more herbicide use. They are especially concerned about the ongoing development of weeds resistant to multiple herbicides, which will further limit farmer options.
The Walking Dead-USDA Regulation of GE Crops is Barely Breathing
It will be important to monitor how thoroughly the USDA does its job. In the past, it has neglected important considerations of harm to growers from contamination by engineered genes or the development of resistant weeds. That was the reason for previous lawsuits that USDA usually lost.
Also important will be how USDA handles the requirement under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to seriously consider alternatives to approving the engineered crops without restriction. In the past, USDA has not adequately fulfilled this requirement. It should fully consider the best alternatives to the main reason for these crops, the epidemic of glyphosate-resistant weeds.
That should include practices that are known to work well, and to be profitable and highly productive, in particular, crop rotation, judicious tillage (conservation tillage), cover crops, and for non-organic systems, minimal use of various herbicides. Substantial research is accumulating that shows that this approach is viable, and much better for the environment and workers.
Another huge problem, confirmed in its press release, is that USDA is using its regulatory authority under the Plant Protection Act (PPA) only to determine whether 2,4-D- or dicamba-resistant crops are plant pests. The PPA will ultimately determine whether USDA decides that these crops have unacceptable risks. That is because NEPA is a procedural, rather than proscriptive, law. Even if the EIS says that there are risks, it cannot prevent approval. And plant pests, as the term suggests, are usually pathogens, or parasitic plants. So it is unlikely that USDA will find that these herbicide-resistant crops are plant pests, even if they can do considerable harm-they have yet to do so for any GE plant.
The dependence on plant pest properties as a a definition of risk is also vulnerable to newer ways to make engineered crops. USDA has used the biologically unsupportable fiction that engineered crops may be plant pests simply because a pathogen (Agrobacterium) has been used to deliver the genes into the plant, or that the driver of engineered gene function, called a promoter, came from a plant pathogenic virus. But it is easy to avoid these in many engineered crops now. USDA has affirmed that it would not have jurisdiction to regulate many GE crops if they do not fit these artificial criteria. It did so last year for engineered Kentucky Bluegrass. This does not pertain to 2,4-D or dicamba, which are in the regulatory hopper now, but that could change in the future.
The shame of it is that USDA also has authority under the PPA to determine whether a GE crop is a noxious weed. The statutory definition of a noxious weed under the PPA is quite broad, and gives USDA much greater purview for determining risk than under the plant pest provisions. Despite passage in 2000, USDA has yet to finalize its regulations under the PPA that would include use of its noxious weed authority.
Previous attempts to write regulations, never finalized, inappropriately narrowed the statutory definition of noxious weeds to such an extent that it could have allowed large amounts of harm to the environment, farmers and crops. Fortunately, the Obama administration has not finalized these harmful regulations.
But the lack of appropriate regulations that include a reasonable noxious weed authority greatly limits the types of real environmental impact that USDA will consider, and leaves USDA to regulate these crops with one hand tied behind its back.
One reason that USDA is performing an EIS on these crops is probably the strong public response to earlier actions. Over 400,000 comments on these crops were submitted by the public. Continuing public pressure, including pressure from scientists during the 60-day comment periods for the EIS, will be important for establishing a public record that pushes USDA to do the right thing. We should also demand that USDA develop regulations protective of agriculture and the environment under the PPA. Failure to do so is a dereliction of its responsibility to protect the public and the environment.
[About the author: Doug Gurian-Sherman is a former EPA GM crops assessor and senior scientist, Food and Environment at UCS. He is also a widely-cited expert on biotechnology and sustainable agriculture. He holds a Ph.D. in plant pathology.]