Obama Orders Review of Pesticides’ Effect on Bees

On Friday, the White House ordered environmental regulators to review the pesticides that are suspected of wiping out a significant amount of bees and other pollinators in recent years. While the plan is welcomed, it is a long overdue measure that if done sooner, could have potentially saved millions of bees. Meanwhile, the European Union has already banned three neonicotinoids, the pesticides that created mass bee die offs. The government’s new plan calls for the Environmental Protection Agency to “assess the effect of pesticides, including neonicotinoids, on bees and other pollinator’s health, and to take action, as appropriate,” within 180 days. The memo, signed by President Barack Obama, also called for a sweeping strategy to be produced across government agencies in the next six months, that would protect pollinators by improving their habitat. ?Over the past few decades, there has been a significant loss of pollinators, including honey bees, native bees, birds, bats, and butterflies, from the environment,” Obama said. “The problem is serious and requires immediate attention.”

Justices Uphold Emission Limits on Big Industry

On Monday, the Supreme Court effectively endorsed the Obama administration?s efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from sources like power plants. In a 7-2 opinion written by Scalia, the court held that the Environmental Protection Agency may regulate the greenhouse gas emissions of any “major emitting facility” already required to receive a permit under the Clean Air Act’s Prevention of Significant Deterioration (“PSD”) program due to its emission of other air pollutants. According to EPA calculations, this covers roughly 83 percent of stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions in America.? Only 3 percent more would have been covered in a total victory for the Obama administration. Industry challengers were hoping for 0 percent. The downside to the decision is that by a narrow 5-4 vote, the court’s conservatives concluded that the Clean Air Act neither compels nor permits the EPA to adopt an interpretation of the act that triggers the PSD program’s permitting requirements solely because of its greenhouse gas emissions. The PSD program requires stationary sources with emissions of over 100, or 250 tons per year, of “any air pollutant” to obtain a permit before construction or modification. In this part of the court’s opinion, the court’s conservatives concluded that the phrase “any air pollutant” does not include greenhouse gases for purposes of triggering the PSD program and that EPA’s attempt to tailor the related statutory thresholds to cover the largest emitters of greenhouse gases was impermissible. While this 5-4 ruling on a key issue is disappointing, it is important again to recognize that the government, and the environment, still won much more than it lost in this case.

Study Links Pesticide Exposure in Pregnancy to Autism

A new study has found that children with an autism spectrum disorder were more likely to have mothers who lived close to fields treated with certain pesticides during pregnancy. This is the third study to link autism specifically to pesticide exposure. Without more research, scientists can?t say for certain that pesticides cause autism, but evidence suggests a direct link is plausible. For this study, the researchers tracked exposures during pregnancy for the mothers of 970 children who lived in areas where pesticide use was heavy. The children included 486 with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 168 with a developmental delay and 316 with typical development. About a third of mothers had lived within a mile of fields treated with pesticides, most commonly organophosphates. Children of mothers exposed to organophosphates were 60 percent more likely to have an ASD than children of non-exposed mothers. It is clear that the effects of harsh chemical pesticides, frequently used in industrial agriculture, are unforgiving, but so are the pesticides we use on golf courses, suburban lawns, and the aerial spray that counties do for mosquitoes! And we can’t ignore the effect that these pesticides can have on our bodies when ingested. We can all benefit by choosing to support farms that avoid these dangerous substances, by encouraging golf courses to go green, and by pressuring our representatives to outlaw these dangerous chemicals.