regulation

September 14, 2022

Court smacks USDA for lack of transparency in GMO labeling

By Carey Gillam

Years of legislative and court battles over the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) food took another turn this week when a federal court determined on Tuesday that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) erred in allowing food companies to label GE products simply with digital codes that consumers have to scan, without any accompanying disclosure options.

Under USDA rules that took full effect earlier this year, food made with genetically modified crops can be labeled simply as “bioengineered” (BE), or come with a QR code guiding consumers to more information online, among other options.

But the court said those rules did not comply with the law, and found that the USDA knew that allowing “standalone electronic disclosure” would not provide consumers “sufficient access” to disclosures about bioengineering involved in creating certain products.

September 8, 2022

Postcard from California: Can new laws slow the “plastics pandemic?”

In July, a 130-foot vessel called the Kwai docked in Sausalito carrying a sickening cargo: 96 tons of plastic garbage and other trash recovered from the Pacific Ocean during a 45-day voyage from Honolulu.

Before arriving in California, the Kwai had sailed through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – an area more than twice the size of Texas that has been described as a “cloudy soup” of plastic debris and other trash accumulating in a vortex of swirling ocean currents.

The voyage was a project of the nonprofit Ocean Voyages Institute in partnership with the government of the Marshall Islands, which like other island nations is acutely threatened by rising sea levels from the melting of polar ice caps and icebergs. Since 2009, the institute’s Pacific expeditions have recovered nearly 700,000 pounds of trash; 340,000 pounds were collected in 2020 alone.

Each year, approximately 460 million metric tons of these plastics become plastic waste, and more than 90 percent does not get recycled.

September 2, 2022

Roundup litigation at turning point as Bayer rejects “global resolution plan”

By Carey Gillam

Fresh off a fifth-in-a-row trial victory, Monsanto owner Bayer AG is rejecting a proposed “global resolution plan” put forward by plaintiffs’ lawyers as a last chance to try to settle tens of thousands of pending Roundup cancer claims before a wave of new trials get underway, newly filed court documents show.

The company stance comes at a pivotal point in the ongoing nationwide litigation involving plaintiffs who allege they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) from exposure to Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weed killers, such as Roundup.

The group of law firms leading the cases in what is called “multidistrict litigation (MDL)” is asking US District Court Judge Vince Chhabria to approve a plan that would set a 60-day window in which both sides would try to forge a final global settlement that would cover the claims of roughly 30,000 plaintiffs.

If no settlement can be reached, the plaintiffs’ firms want the judge to start the process of dissolving the MDL and clearing waves of cases to go to trial in the states where they originated.

The plaintiffs’ law firms say the current court-approved settlement process, which has been ongoing for two years, is too slow and ties plaintiffs into a mediation process that provides only low-ball settlement offers to plaintiffs while delaying trials.

“The offers made within the settlement program appear to be woefully inadequate. Thus, a substantial number of MDL cases remain unresolved by the settlement program, and it is highly unlikely that these cases will be settled absent global resolution or an imminent trial setting,” the plaintiffs’ firms said in a Sept. 1 court filing.

In opposing the proposal, Monsanto lawyers said the current MDL structure should be maintained and the mediation process kept in place. The company lawyers argued that disbanding the MDL and sending “thousands of current and future cases to district courts throughout this country” would “bring chaos to bear.”

September 1, 2022

Jury finds for Monsanto in St. Louis Roundup cancer case

By Carey Gillam

After brief deliberations, a St. Louis jury on Thursday sided with Monsanto in the latest Roundup cancer trial. The win puts Monsanto and its German owner Bayer AG at five trials won versus three won by plaintiffs. The jury took only a few hours to reach the defense verdict.

The decision in favor of the company came after a lawyer for three cancer patients failed to convince jurors that his clients’ exposure to Monsanto herbicides caused their illnesses, as a lawyer for the company insisted that scientific evidence proves the products are safe.

The five-week trial closed as it began – with starkly different presentations about decades of scientific studies about glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup weed killer and other herbicides, and with evidence about Monsanto efforts to thwart concerns that its products might cause cancer.

The case is part of the sprawling nationwide litigation that began in 2015 after the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen. More than 100,000 people in the US have brought claims alleging they developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) after long-term use of Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides, including Roundup.

Bayer, which bought Monsanto in 2018, has settled the majority of the cases, but this was the eighth to go to trial. Many more are scheduled over the next several months and into next year.

August 31, 2022

NOAA is damaging marine life by bottom trawling Gulf of Mexico

By Shannon Kelleher

A U.S. government agency that is supposed to protect ocean resources is instead endangering coral reefs, fish, and other marine life as it collects data from the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental watchdog group alleged this week.

In an Aug. 29 letter, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) called on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to stop scraping the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico with heavy nets for fishery studies. PEER is a Washington, DC-based group that works to expose improper government actions related to the environment.

Peer said it received concerning information from a NOAA scientist about the practice, and a review of NOAA’s own data demonstrates that the “bottom trawling” may inflict irreparable damage on sea floor habitats that can last for years.

“Ironically, NOAA’s own marine protection policies are designed to minimize the very type of damage these research trawls cause,” PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse said in a press release. “We believe that that the damage caused outweighs the marginal research value of these trawls.”

PEER said the trawls involve dragging heavy nets, large metal doors, and chains over the sea floor to catch fish, similar to industrial fishing. The trawls sometimes result in nets abandoned in the ocean, where they can entangle sea turtles and other marine animals, PEER said.

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August 23, 2022

Bayer facing long line-up of new Roundup trials as cancer takes toll

Cancer has taken an unrelenting toll on 72-year-old Mike Langford. After being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in 2007 he suffered through five recurrences despite multiple rounds of chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant. Now he struggles with chemo-related neuropathy in his arms and legs, and new tests show the cancer is back.

Langford blames his cancer on his longtime use of the popular weed-killing product Roundup, which he applied countless times over decades using a backpack sprayer around his five-acre California property and a vacation lake home. He alleges in a lawsuit that Monsanto, the longtime Roundup maker now owned by the German company Bayer AG, should have warned of a cancer risk.

Last month, a San Francisco judge ruled that Langford’s health is so poor that he is entitled to a speedy hearing of his claims. A trial is set for Nov. 7 in San Francisco County Superior Court.

“I’ve had it so long. I’m very angry,” Langford said in an interview, a day after doctors biopsied an enlarged lymph node. “The future doesn’t look too terribly promising,” he said, trying to hold back tears. He learned last week that the preliminary biopsy results show a return of NHL.

August 12, 2022

House vote on Inflation Reduction Act sets stage for big climate gains

With the US House of Representatives positioned to approve on Friday the largest investment by the US government to combat climate change, some analysts are projecting the measures contained in the landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) could reduce greenhouse gas emissions even more than the government has projected.

The measure, which passed the US Senate on Sunday, contains $369 billion earmarked for a range of energy and climate investments over the next decade.

The bill could slash emissions from the electricity sector by as much as 75% below levels seen in 2005 by 2030, according to Kevin Rennert, a fellow at Resources for the Future, based on an initial analysis. Absent the new investment, their forecast predicted that current policies would cut emissions more modestly — about 48.5%. Rennert shared these numbers during a seminar this week sponsored by Resources for the Future.

The US government has said the measures would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030.

The bill expands a tax credit for carbon capture, incentivizes the production of sustainable aviation fuel, provides for grant programs aimed at decarbonizing emissions-heavy sectors, and includes a methane reduction program for oil and gas facilities, among other provisions.

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August 11, 2022

FDA says 59% of US foods tested contain pesticide residues

Pesticide residues were detected in 59% of US food samples tested by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in its most recently completed annual testing program, the agency revealed in a new report.

Roughly 77% of domestic fruits, 60% of US vegetables and about 53% of US grains sampled showed residues.

The agency said overall it analyzed 2,078 human food samples, finding that 51.6% of imported foods contained pesticide residues compared to 59.2% of domestic US foods.

It is common for conventional farmers to use a range of pesticides, including herbicides, insecticides and fungicides on their fields, and sometimes apply the chemicals directly onto their crops, as a means to fight weeds, bugs and plant diseases. Residues of these chemicals are found not only in food but often in drinking water as well.

Both the FDA and the US Department of Agriculture have been tracking levels of pesticide residues in foods for decades, reporting their findings annually.

The FDA said its 2020 sampling was reduced by the Covid-19 pandemic. It did not include US milk or dairy products this year in its sampling. The FDA said 84% of the samples for this report were imported from other countries. The new report is for the fiscal year 2020 but was just finalized and released this month.

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August 2, 2022

Guest column: Farmers Need Safe, Effective Pesticides, Including Chlorpyrifos

Our food supply needs pesticides – it’s as simple as that. Without access to these tools, US and global agriculture could not sustainably feed the world. Furthermore, attempts to do so would likely lead to environmental catastrophe. It is true that some production methods, such as organic, may use fewer pesticides than conventional agriculture—although, even organic producers can and do use some pesticides. However, contrary to popular belief, pesticides are responsible for significantly improving environmental outcomes in agriculture.

A 2021 meta-analysis found conventional crops averaged a 25% greater yield than their organic counterparts, with cereal crops reaching a 30% average yield gap. This means if we were to switch our entire food production system to organic, we would need to put at least 25% more land—hundreds of millions of acres—into agricultural production to feed the planet’s existing population, to say nothing of a rapidly growing global population. Pesticides also make possible many important conservation practices used by farmers, such as cover crops and no-till soil management. These pesticide-supported practices sequester carbon in the soil, reduce soil erosion, minimize nutrient losses to rivers and streams, among other benefits.

July 29, 2022

“A clear injustice,” hearing calls for leaded aviation fuel ban

Just five blocks away from the Reid-Hillview Airport in Santa Clara County, California, Maricela Lechuga lives among a community of 52,000 residents who are predominantly Latino, many also immigrants.

The general aviation airport does not serve commercial air travel, but does serve a range of other public aviation activities; in 2019 it had more than 200,000 take-offs and landings.

It is also known as one of the highest lead emitting airports in the United States, a fact spotlighted Thursday in a U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform subcommittee hearing called to examine health harms associated with leaded aviation fuel.

The Clean Air Act banned leaded gas for passenger cars in 1996 after phasing in an unleaded gasoline. However, lead fuel continues to power over 170,000 piston-engine aircrafts mainly flown for hobbyist, private, emergency, or training purposes. These planes and helicopters contribute about 70% of all lead emissions to the air in the United States, according to a 2021 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Despite petitions calling to ban leaded aviation fuel that date back to 2006, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has failed to address the issue through regulation, a delay that is creating injustice and danger for people living not just near Reid-Hillview Airport, but numerous others around the country, according to critics.