VICTORY! FEDERAL COURT
RESCINDS USDA APPROVAL OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SUGAR
BEETS
ORDER BANS PLANTING OR SALE OF CONTROVERSIAL CROP. COURT
DENIES MONSANTO REQUEST TO ALLOW CONTINUED PLANTING
Today Judge Jeffrey White, federal district judge for the
Northern District of California, issued a ruling granting the
request of plaintiffs Center for Food Safety, Organic Seed Alliance,
High Mowing Organic Seeds, and the Sierra Club to rescind the United
States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) approval of genetically
engineered “Roundup Ready” sugar beets (Center for Food Safety v. Vilsack,
No. C08-00484 JSW [N.D. Cal.
2010]). In September 2009, the Court had found that the USDA
had violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by
approving the Monsanto-engineered biotech crop without first
preparing an Environmental Impact Statement. The crop was engineered
to resist the effects of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, which it
sells to farmers together with the patented seed. Similar
Roundup Ready crops have led to increased use of herbicides,
proliferation of herbicide resistant weeds, and contamination of
conventional and organic crops.
In today’s ruling the Court officially “vacated” the USDA
“deregulation” of Monsanto’s biotech sugar beets and prohibited any
future planting and sale pending the agency’s compliance with NEPA
and all other relevant laws. USDA has estimated that an EIS
may be ready by 2012.
Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of plaintiff and co-counsel
the Center for Food Safety, stated, “This is a major victory for
farmers, consumers and the rule of law. USDA has once again
acted illegally and had its approval of a biotech crop
rescinded. Hopefully the agency will learn that their mandate
is to protect farmers, consumers and the environment and not the
bottom line of corporations such as Monsanto.”
Paul Achitoff of Earthjustice, lead counsel for the plaintiffs,
commented: “Time and again, USDA has ignored the law and abdicated
its duty to protect the environment and American agriculture from
genetically engineered crops designed to sell toxic chemicals.
Time and again, citizens speaking truth to power have taken USDA to
court and won.”
In his order, Judge White noted that USDA’s “errors are not minor
or insignificant, and his “concern that Defendants are not taking
this process seriously.” He also pointed out that “despite the
fact that the statutes at issue are designed to protect the
environment,” USDA and the sugar beet industry focused on the
economic consequences to themselves, yet “failed to demonstrate that
serious economic harm would be incurred pending a full economic
review....”
The Court held in part:
…the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs’
request to vacate APHIS’s decision to deregulate genetically
engineered sugar beets and remands this matter to APHIS. Based
on this vacatur, genetically engineered sugar beets are once again
regulated articles pursuant to the Plant Protection Act. This
vacatur applies to all future plantings…
This is the second time a Court has rescinded USDA’s approval of
a biotech crop. The first such crop, Roundup Ready alfalfa, is
also illegal to plant, based on the vacating of its deregulation in
2007 pending preparation of an EIS. Although Monsanto took
that case all the way to the Supreme Court and the High Court set
aside part of the relief granted, the full prohibition on its
planting – based on the same remedy granted here, the vacatur –
remains in place. In the past several years federal courts
have also held illegal USDA's approval of biotech crop field trials,
including the testing of biotech grasses in Oregon and the testing
of engineered, pharmaceutical-producing crops in
Hawai’i.
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