==================================================================
1.Supreme
Court Ruling in Monsanto Case is Victory for Center for Food Safety,
Farmers
2.Supreme Court's Ruling on Monsanto's GM Alfalfa: Who
Won?
NOTE: Monsanto and much of the US's mainstream media are declaring
today's Surpreme Court verdict a victory for Monsanto, with headlines declaring
the ban on GM alfalfa has been lifted - not so fast say these
commentators.
---
---
1.Supreme Court Ruling in Monsanto Case is
Victory for Center for Food Safety, Farmers
Center for Food Safety, June 21
2010
http://truefoodnow.org/2010/06/21/supreme-court-ruling-in-monsanto-case-is-victory-for-center-for-food-safety-farmers/
*High Court Delivers Ruling that Leaves Ban on Planting of Roundup Ready
Alfalfa in Place in First-Ever Case on a Genetically-Engineered
Crop
[image caption: CFS staff attorney George Kimbrell speaks to members
of the press after Tuesday's Supreme Court hearing]
The Center for Food
Safety today celebrated the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Monsanto
v. Geerston Farms, the first genetically modified crop case ever brought before
the Supreme Court. Although the High Court decision reverses parts of the
lower courts’ rulings, the judgment holds that a vacatur bars the planting of
Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Alfalfa until and unless future deregulation
occurs. It is a victory for the Center for Food Safety and the Farmers and
Consumers it represents.
“The Justices’ decision today means that the
selling and planting of Roundup Ready Alfalfa is illegal. The ban on the
crop will remain in place until a full and adequate EIS is prepared by USDA and
they officially deregulate the crop. This is a year or more away according
to the agency, and even then, a deregulation move may be subject to further
litigation if the agency’s analysis is not adequate,” said Andrew Kimbrell,
Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “In sum, it’s a significant
victory in our ongoing fight to protect farmer and consumer choice, the
environment and the organic industry.”
Add to FacebookAdd to DiggAdd to
Del.icio.usAdd to StumbleuponAdd to RedditAdd to BlinklistAdd to TwitterAdd to
TechnoratiAdd to Yahoo BuzzAdd to Newsvine
In the majority opinion
written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court held: “In sum…the vacatur of APHIS’s
deregulation decision means that virtually no RRA (Roundup Ready Alfalfa) can be
grown or sold until such time as a new deregulation decision is in place, and we
also know that any party aggrieved by a hypothetical future deregulation
decision will have ample opportunity to challenge it, and to seek appropriate
preliminary relief, if and when such a decision is made.” (Opinion at p. 22).
The Court also held that:
* Any further attempt to
commercialize RRA even in part may require an EIS subject to legal challenge.
* The Court further recognized that the threat of transgenic
contamination is harmful and onerous to organic and conventional farmers and
that the injury allows them to challenge future biotech crop commercializations
in court.
USDA indicated at the Supreme Court argument that full
deregulation is about a year away and that they will not pursue a partial
deregulation in the interim. Any new attempt at deregulation in full or
part will be subject to legal challenge.
“The bottom line is that the
Supreme Court set aside the injunction because the vacating of the
commercialization decision already gave us all the relief we needed, by
forbidding RRA planting until a new decision is made by the agency. And at
such time, farmers and consumers still have the right to challenge the adequacy
of that process.” said George Kimbrell, senior staff attorney for CFS. “The
Court’s decision affirmed that the threat of genetic contamination of natural
plants posed by biotech crops is an issue of significant environmental concern
now and in the future.”
In this case, CFS faced off against powerful
opposing entities, including the Department of Agriculture and the agricultural
biotech giant, Monsanto Corporation. The Center and the other respondents were
supported by a broad array of diverse interests, marshalling no less than seven
amicus briefs in support. The amici included three states’ attorneys
general, leading scientific experts, legal scholars, former government
officials, farmers, exporters, environmental groups, food companies and organic
industry trade groups. The Organic Trade association and companies like
Stonyfield Farms, Cliff Bar and Eden Foods voiced united concern over the threat
a ruling for Monsanto would pose to the organic food businesses, the fastest
growing sector in the American food industry. Attorneys general from
California, Oregon and Massachusetts filed a brief on behalf of their citizens
emphasizing “the States’ interests in protecting the environment, their natural
resources and their
citizens’ rights to be informed about the environmental
impacts of federal actions.” A full list of the more than sixty organizations,
companies and individuals who filed briefs in support of CFS and opposed to
Monsanto can be viewed at
http://truefoodnow.org/publications/supreme-court-briefs/.
Monsanto was
supported by a bloc of powerful corporate interests and industry groups,
including the American Farm Bureau, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the
American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and CropLife
America.
The environmental, health, cultural, and economic impacts of the
genetically-engineered alfalfa seed, which is designed to be immune to
Monsanto’s flagship herbicide Roundup, and the USDA’s plan to commercialize it,
was at the heart of this dispute since 2006, when CFS filed a lawsuit against
the USDA on behalf of a coalition of non-profits and farmers who wanted to
retain the choice to grow non-GE alfalfa. Central to the issue is unwanted
transgenetic drift: GE alfalfa can spread uncontrollably by way of bees that can
cross-pollinate plants many miles away, contaminating both conventional and
organic alfalfa with foreign DNA, patented by Monsanto.
“We brought this
case to court because I and other conventional farmers will no doubt suffer
irreversible economic harm if the planting of GE alfalfa is allowed,” said
plaintiff Phil Geerston. “It was simply a question of our survival, and
though we did not win on all points of the law, we are grateful that the
practical result of today’s ruling is that Monsanto cannot take away our rights
and Roundup Ready alfalfa cannot threaten our livelihoods.”
Alfalfa is
the fourth most widely grown crop in the U.S., and a key source of dairy forage.
Organic and conventional farmers faced the loss of their businesses due to
widespread contamination from Monsanto’s patented GE alfalfa, and the
foreseeable contamination of feral or wild alfalfa would ensure an ongoing and
permanent source of transgenic pollution in wild places akin to that of invasive
species. The New York Times (link) recently covered the epidemic of
super-weeds Monsanto’s Roundup Ready crops are causing across the
country.
Further background information on the history of this case and
scientific studies are available at
http://truefoodnow.org/publications/supreme-court-briefs/. The Supreme Court
decision can be viewed here:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/09-475.pdf
# #
#
The Center for Food Safety is national, non-profit, membership
organization, founded in 1997, that works to protect human health and the
environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and by
promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture. On the web at:
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org
---
---
2.Supreme Court's Ruling on
Monsanto’s GE Alfalfa: Who Won?
Tom Laskawy
Grist, June 21st
2010
http://civileats.com/2010/06/21/supreme-court%E2%80%99s-ruling-on-monsanto%E2%80%99s-ge-alfalfa-who-won/#more-8478
The sustainable agriculture world is abuzz today with news of the
Supreme Court’s ruling regarding an earlier lawsuit, brought by alfalfa farmers,
that sought to stop any planting of Monsanto’s genetically engineered Roundup
Ready alfalfa seed. While the press coverage heralds the ruling as a decisive
victory for Monsanto, a close reading shows that, in fact, it’s a fairly
significant win for opponents of biotech crops.
Hay dudes, not so
fast
The background: As the fourth most-planted U.S. crop behind corn,
soybeans, and wheat, alfalfa is worth $9 billion a year — the dairy industry is
the bigest consumer — with annual seed sales valued at $63 million, according to
a USDA study. Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa seed has been genetically
engineered to be tolerant of glyphosate, the active ingredient of Monsanto’s
herbicide Roundup.
Earlier this year, the U.S. District Court in San
Francisco found that the USDA had illegally approved Roundup Ready alfalfa for
planting — which the agency refers to as “deregulating” — by allowing Monsanto
to sell and farmers to plant the seeds without the USDA completing a required
full Environmental Impact Statement. (A preliminary one was under
way.)
In response to a lawsuit filed by GMO-opposed alfalfa farmers along
with the Center for Food Safety on behalf of consumers, the District Court
halted all planting of Roundup Ready alfalfa until the USDA completes the EIS,
which could take years. It also issued two injunctions: one that prevented the
USDA from performing a so-called “partial deregulation” of Roundup Ready
alfalfa, i.e. allowing restricted and otherwise limited planting, while it
prepared the final environmental statement; the other stopping farmers from
planting any Roundup Ready alfalfa starting with the 2010 crop year. (For a
deeper look into the lead-up to the case, read Matt Jenkins’ excellent 2007
feature “Brave New Hay” from High Country News.)
Today, in a 7-1 opinion
written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court reversed both District Court
injunctions, saying that the Court had overreached itself procedurally in
halting the plantings. (Both Justices Steven Breyer and Clarence Thomas had
conflicts of interest in the case — Breyer’s brother was the District Court
judge on the case, while Thomas was corporate counsel for Monsanto earlier in
his career, but only Breyer saw fit to recuse himself.)
Despite the news
reports claiming victory for Monsanto, the Supreme Court did not overturn the
central tenet of the case: that the USDA illegally approved Roundup Ready
alfalfa. The District Court, in effect, made it once again illegal to plant
Roundup Ready alfalfa — and the Supreme Court endorsed that ruling.
In
short, it remains illegal to plant RoundUp Ready alfalfa. While the Justices did
declare that the USDA, if it wants to, has the right to give the seed a
preliminary approval (i.e. for limited, restricted planting), the Supreme Court
ruling does not by itself give Roundup Ready alfalfa the green light.
And
it’s important to note that the USDA has not yet formally announced any
intention to re-authorize the restricted plantings, which would come in the form
of a rule for “partial deregulation” of Roundup Ready alfalfa. In fact, the
agency and Monsanto hed preciously submitted such a plan to the District Court
in hopes that it would be incorporated into the final ruling, and instead, they
received an injunction.
To some, that move appeared to be an attempt at
an end run around the official rulemaking process. It’s not clear if the USDA
will move forward with anything other than the “final” environmental
review.
No mo’ gene flow?
More importantly, the Supreme Court has
also now ruled for the very first time that “environmental harm” includes
economic effects such as reduced agricultural yield or loss of market due to
genetic contamination, as well as the concept of what biologists refer to as
“gene flow” (in practice, the idea that genetically engineered material may get
into conventional plants through cross-pollination). The Supreme Court now
accepts that this phenomenon in and of itself is harmful and illegal under
current environment protections.
“That’s a huge win for our side … That’s
gigantic!” Michael Hansen, senior staff scientist of Consumers Union, told me.
Future lawsuits can now confidently use the gene-flow argument against approval
and use of genetically engineered crops.
Others share his glee. The
Center for Food Safety called the ruling “a victory for the Center for Food
Safety and the farmers and consumers it represents.”
For its part,
Monsanto is spinning the ruling positively. In a statement posted on its
website, the company said:
This is exceptionally good news received in
time for the next planting season. Farmers have been waiting to hear this for
quite some time. We have Roundup Ready alfalfa seed ready to deliver and await
USDA guidance on its release. Our goal is to have everything in place for
growers to plant in fall 2010.
Well, from all appearances Monsanto has
this flat wrong. Farmers can’t plant Roundup Ready alfalfa just yet. And even if
the USDA tries for that preliminary approval, the Supreme Court made very clear
that today’s ruling does not presume that any preliminary approval is (or isn’t)
legal.
Indeed, the legal issues at the heart of the ruling aren’t over
the rights of corporations or the science behind genetically engineered seed,
but about the separation of powers between co-equal branches of government. The
Supreme Court today stopped a District Court from telling a federal agency that
it couldn’t make regulatory rules. For the judiciary to stop the government from
doing its job requires meeting a very rigorous set of standards. After the
Supreme Court decided to make this point the crux of its ruling, all the other
issues fell by the wayside. Another way of looking at it is that the supposed
“overreach” by the District Court was against the USDA, not Monsanto.
The
Supreme Court has also made the point very clearly that outside groups have the
ability to file lawsuits in order to stop any poorly conceived or improperly
executed rule that a federal agency passes. And surprisingly enough, the Court —
with its expansion of the definition of “environmental harm” to include things
like gene flow — just gave consumer groups a whole new set of legal weapons to
wield against the same companies currently crowing over the implications of
today’s events.
Tom Laskawy blogs on food and the environment at
Grist.org and Beyond Green, where he covers food policy, alternative energy,
climate science, and
politics.
................................................................
Website:
http://www.gmwatch.org
Profiles:
http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/GM_Watch:_Portal
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/GMWatch
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/GMWatch/276951472985?ref=nf
This email
should only be sent to those who have asked to receive it.
To unsubscribe,
contact
[log in to unmask], specifying which list you wish to unsubscribe
from.