Presidential acknowledgement of the issue is significant, isn’t it?  A task force is not the “usual channels” which are clearly helpless against Big Ag.  And a Presidential task force puts the onus on Obama rather than Vilsack — 

Meanwhile, how many of you have switched to eating only organic?  That’s an easy first step.  Save a bee yourself today.

Donna




On Jun 21, 2014, at 3:25 PM, l <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Laurel says this initiative is a feel-good thing. I agree.--Tom Mathews


-----Original Message-----
From: Laurel Hopwood <[log in to unmask]>
To: CONS-SPST-BIOTECH-FORUM <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sat, Jun 21, 2014 12:26 pm
Subject: White House task force charged with saving bees from mysterious decline

White House task force charged with saving bees from mysterious decline
(edited)

Barack Obama is taking steps save honey bees from the die-off, ordering new research into the pesticides linked to the pollinators' collapse.

The presidential memorandum released by the White House charges a new task force with producing a strategy to stop the alarming decline of honeybees, butterflies and other pollinators. The memorandum also for the first time directs the EPA to carry out research into the role of a new class of pesticides, neonicotinoids, that have been linked with the collapse of the honeybees.

However, Obama stopped short of a ban on neonicotinoids, as the European Union has done.

The Center for Food Safety in its response said: "There is already a wealth of peer reviewed literature demonstrating the harms of pesticides to bees and other pollinators."

laurel writes: The evidence is in about the neonic link with the honeybee demise. Too bad the President bowed down to big ag and failed to follow the EU lead. This is a feel good thing.

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