Thursday, September 22nd 2016
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should not be regulating neonicotinoid seed treatments in the same way it regulates other pesticide applications, the agency and a list of agriculture companies and interest groups told a federal court Friday. The agency filed a motion for summary judgement in the U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California in San Francisco. It was joined in that motion by CropLife America, American Seed Trade Association, Agricultural Retailers Association, American Soybean Association, National Cotton Council of America, National Association of Wheat Growers and National Corn Growers Association. The motion asks the court to rule in their favor on a lawsuit environmentalists and beekeepers filed earlier this year. Summary judgement means the defendants in the case want the court to issue a ruling on the facts agreed upon by both sides. Such a ruling essentially would end the lawsuit without a trial taking place. The lawsuit in question was filed in early 2016 to force the EPA to require neonicotinoid seed treatments to have full label registration through the Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, or FIFRA, just as pesticides that are sprayed on crops must have. The lawsuit was filed by The Center for Food Safety and other environmental groups, beekeeper groups from California, South Dakota and Pennsylvania, as well as farmers from Pennsylvania and Kansas. EPA has maintained that treating seed with a pesticide is not the same as a broad application of that pesticide. The plaintiff groups argue that neonicotinoids, due to their use on a high percentage of commodity crop seeds, are used extensively enough on large acreages that EPA needs to more thoroughly assess their environmental effects. The court is scheduled to hold a hearing on the motion next month.