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US Beekeepers File Suit Against Trump EPA Charging ‘Illegal’ Approval of Insecticide Linked to Mass Die-Off
US Beekeepers File Suit Against Trump EPA Charging ‘Illegal’ Approval of Insecticide Linked to Mass Die-Off
“Honeybees and other pollinators are dying in droves because of insecticides like sulfoxaflor, yet the Trump administration removes restriction just to please the chemical industry.”
“It is inappropriate for EPA to solely rely on industry studies to justify bringing sulfoxaflor back into our farm fields,” said Michele Colopy of the Pollinator Stewardship Council, a party to the suit. “Die-offs of tens of thousands of bee colonies continue to occur and sulfoxaflor plays a huge role in this problem. EPA is harming not just the beekeepers, their livelihood, and bees, but the nation’s food system.” (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
A group of beekeepers joined forces on Friday against Trump’s EPA by filing a lawsuit over the agency’s move to put a powerful insecticide—one that scientists warn is part of the massive pollinator die-off across the U.S.—back on the market.
The lawsuit (pdf) charges that the EPA’s approval of sulfoxaflor—touted by its manufacturer, agro-chemical giant Corteva, as a “next generation neonicotinoid”—was illegally rendered as it put industry interests ahead of the health of pollinators and ignored the available science.
“EPA is harming not just the beekeepers, their livelihood, and bees, but the nation’s food system.”
“Honeybees and other pollinators are dying in droves because of insecticides like sulfoxaflor, yet the Trump administration removes restriction just to please the chemical industry,” said Greg Loarie, an attorney with Earthjustice, the legal aid group representing the beekeepers. “This is illegal and an affront to our food system, economy, and environment.”
According to a statement by Earthjustice:
EPA first approved sulfoxaflor in 2013, but thanks to a lawsuit brought by Pollinator Stewardship Council, the American Beekeeper Federation, and Earthjustice, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision. The Court ruled EPA failed to obtain reliable studies regarding the impact of sulfoxaflor on honeybee colonies.
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Environmentalists Are Taking California To Court Over Illegal Oil Industry Wastewater Injection
Environmentalists Are Taking California To Court Over Illegal Oil Industry Wastewater Injection
Environmentalists filed a motion requesting a preliminary injunction today in a California court to immediately stop the daily illegal injection of millions of gallons of oil field wastewater into protected groundwater aquifers in the state.
Last week, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity in Alameda County Superior Court that challenges California regulators’ emergency rules meant to rein in the state’s disastrous Underground Injection Control (UIC) program.
Officials with the state’s Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) have admitted that their agencyimproperly permitted more than 2,500 wells to pump oil industry wastewater and fluids from enhanced oil recovery techniques like acidization and steam flooding into groundwater aquifers that should be protected under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.
Instead of shutting down the offending wells, however, DOGGR issued emergency rules last February that would allow many of them to continue operating until 2017, according to the complaint filed by Earthjustice, which seeks to have the new rules thrown out and the wells operating in protected aquifers shut down while new regulations are being developed.
“Both the emergency regulations and the status quo fail to protect California’s underground drinking water sources from harm,” the complaint states. “Since DOGGR continues to fail in implementing its regulatory duties, this Court must vacate the emergency regulations and ensure that DOGGR complies with the law by ordering DOGGR to take all immediate action necessary and available to it to meet its obligations to prohibit illegal injection of wastewater into protected aquifers.”
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