More Danger Signals for Farmers at the EPA
December 3, 2014
From: Roll Call Commentary
By John R. Block
For years now, farmers have been trying to fend off an EPA rule that would treat everything from run-off ditches to farm sloughs as “waters of the U.S.” under the Clean Water Act, hog-tying farmers in miles of red tape and allowing the agency to micromanage almost every action we take on the farm.
Now the EPA is preparing another startling regulatory overreach that could be just as damaging. While they haven’t announced it yet, every indication suggests the agency will soon impose new rules that ban certain uses of some of the most important crop protection products we rely on.
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Until now, the EPA has been sticking to the science: the number one cause of bee problems it says is the parasitic varroa mite. Good science doesn’t support the contention that neonics are to blame. In fact, two pre-eminent Canadian researchers, Cynthia Scott-Dupree and Chris Cutler, have just published the results of the largest-ever field study on neonics and bees. A million-dollar study, done in consultation with the EPA and performed at the highest standards, called Good Laboratory Practices, it completely exonerates neonics. It confirms what other field studies and real world evidence demonstrates — that bees actually thrive in crops, such as canola, that are seed-treated with neonics.
2 Comments Leave a Comment
1.
Cin An | December 4, 2014 at 11:23 am
And now we see that those behind the EU ban on neonics, to which many in the U.S. point as a rationale for a US ban, in fact rigged the process from the start according documents exposed in the Times of London. This expose shows how activist interests pre-determined the results of the studies they conducted to claim neonics are potentially harmful to pollinators. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environment/article4286838.ece
2.
Editor | December 4, 2014 at 5:31 pm
The Review of Bee Health Decline thanks the reader for highlighting an important story. We will continue to follow and report on the Times (London) story about rigging of European science reports on neonicotinoids. Reason magazine discusses the Times story here, http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/04/bee-apocalypse-science-scandal-did-scien.
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