Please invest in Our Daily Planet today, by making a one time or monthly contribution.
We do not charge our readers a subscription fee for our content. We want to continue to grow our readership, particularly among millennials and public servants. Voluntary contributions from readers will help us employ interns and freelance journalists, expand our content, and reach a larger audience.
If you make a contribution of $150 or more, you will become an official “Friend of the Planet” and receive a Friend of the Planet T-shirt or water bottle. You can also submit opinion essays to us for our consideration for posting on our new “Bright Ideas” op-ed page.
Image: Jim Patrico/DTN
Yesterday, Bayer AG said it will scrap a nearly $1 billion project to produce the chemical dicamba in its Luling, Louisiana planet. This comes after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the sale and use of the herbicide, stating that “the EPA substantially understated the risks related to the use of dicamba, a chemical found in herbicides sold by Bayer and rivals that are sprayed on genetically engineered soybeans and cotton.”
BUT, this week the Trump EPA also issued guidance stating that farmers can use existing supplies of an agricultural weed killer linked to crop damage, despite the 9th Circuit Court’s ruling.
Why This Matters: After the 9th Circuit’s decision, there remains confusion within the industry on if or how this court order will be enforced by state or federal pesticide regulators. EPA has not yet informed the states or registrants what legal steps the agency will take and thus state agencies have not enforced the ruling.
The pressure to restrict dicamba arose because the herbicide spreads and kills crops that are not genetically resistant to it. While total reports of contamination have fallen, they have declined sharply in states that imposed tough regulations on the pesticide, while increasing in states that have not.
The Legal Case: As Progressive Farmer explained, the 9th Circuit ruling was the result of a lawsuit first filed in 2017 by a group of farm and environmental groups, which argued that EPA violated both its governing law (the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, FIFRA), and the Endangered Species Act when it registered XtendiMax (Bayer’s formulation of dicamba).
The Future: Without the EPA providing ample guidance, it’s difficult to know when state regulatory agencies will begin to enforce the phase-out of dicamba. This is certainly an ongoing story.
by Julia Fine Last month, we wrote about the outbreak of locust swarms traveling from East Africa to the Indian subcontinent. Now, as the New York Times reported yesterday, the locusts have made their way to New Delhi. The capital region’s fields, metro stations, suburbs, and more are now teeming with swarms. We previously noted […]
Continue Reading 487 words
Our nation is in the midst of a moment where statues and monuments celebrating our racist past are being reevaluated and taken down. However, some on the political right have begun calling into question the validity of this conversation. Conservative media personality Meghan McCain wrote in a tweet that we’re “one week removed from entire […]
Continue Reading 426 words
The House was set to vote to pass the Great American Outdoors Act, which will provide nearly $1B annually for parks and other conservation, but a group of Western Republicans has raised procedural hurdles that will delay final passage until late July, The Hill reported yesterday. And, a new report from the Center for American Progress (CAP) urges the United States to launch a major effort—a “Race for Nature” — to help the nation’s agricultural producers, who are facing a bleak economic future, by increasing opportunities to pay them for their conservation efforts.
Why This Matters: As the CAP Report explains, “Family farmers and ranchers need lifelines…Bold and swift investment in nature conservation can provide one.”
Continue Reading 524 words