After the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it had begun issuing permits to sugar beet seed producers to plant genetically modified (GM) crops this fall, the Center for Food Safety and a number of other groups filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the action. When Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the agency’s “next steps” as to Roundup Ready® sugar beets, he acknowledged the August 2010 federal court ruling that returned GM sugar beets to regulated status until the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) can complete an environmental impact statement (EIS) about the effects of deregulating the crop. According to APHIS, producers who have applied for the permits will be allowed to plant GM seedlings immediately but must not allow them to flower, and the agency will make decisions about interim regulatory measures by the end of the year on the seed producer’s request to partially deregulate…
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A federal court in California has decided to stop all new planting of genetically modified (GM) sugar beets in light of its September 2009 ruling that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) violated environmental law when it deregulated the crop without conducting an appropriate environmental assessment. Ctr. for Food Safety v. Vilsack, No. 08-00484 (N.D. Cal., decided August 13, 2010). Additional information about the court’s prior ruling appears in Issue 320 of this Update. While the court granted the plaintiffs’ request to vacate APHIS’s deregulation decision, it denied their motion for a permanent injunction. The court determined that vacatur was justified because APHIS’s errors were serious. “Moreover,” the court observed, “APHIS’s apparent position that it is merely a matter of time before they reinstate the same deregulation decision, or a modified version of this decision, and thus apparent perception that conducting the requisite comprehensive…
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has published a notice of its intent to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) on genetically modified (GM) sugar beets. The agency had previously deregulated sugar beets genetically modified for glyphosate resistance without preparing an EIS and was ordered in September 2009 by a federal court in California to prepare one after its action was challenged by organic seed and nonprofit organizations. The court concluded that the environmental assessment which APHIS prepared failed to consider a number of environmental and related economic impacts of the GM crops. Thus, APHIS is planning to prepare an EIS and requests public comment by June 28, 2010, on the potential issues and reasonable alternatives it intends to include. Among those issues identified in the notice are data on production levels of organic and conventional sugar beets and other crops by region, state…
A federal court in California has denied a request for preliminary injunction to halt the cultivation of genetically engineered (GE) sugar beets while the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) completes its court-ordered environmental impact statement (EIS) for the crop under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Ctr. for Food Safety v. Schafer, No. 08-00484 (N.D. Cal., decided March 16, 2010). Because the court already determined that APHIS improperly deregulated Monsanto’s Roundup Ready® sugar beet seed without preparing an EIS, the judge noted that the plaintiffs have established the initial element for obtaining injunctive relief, that is, a likelihood of succeeding on the merits. The judge also found that they have demonstrated the likelihood of irreparable harm, given evidence that the GE crop is capable of contaminating conventional and organic corps. Still, he refused to issue a preliminary injunction to immediately halt the sale, planting, cultivation, and harvesting…
