By Chris Clayton
DTN Ag Policy Editor
OMAHA (DTN) -- Several major agricultural groups have opted to join a legal battle over neonicotinoid seed treatments and support the Environmental Protection Agency's motion to dismiss the case originally brought by environmental groups and a handful of beekeepers.
The litigation over neonicotinoids has significant possible implications regarding how EPA might regulate seed treatments now used by farmers on more than 150 million acres nationally.
The Center for Food Safety and its attorneys are spearheading a case filed at the beginning of the year with other environmental groups and beekeepers from California, South Dakota and Pennsylvania, as well as farmers from Pennsylvania and Kansas.
The groups, which filed the case in the Northern District of California in San Francisco, want the EPA to require neonicotinoid registrations under the Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, or FIFRA. The groups argue that neonicotinoids are used extensively on crop acreage but EPA has not adequately assessed the seeds under FIFRA as a pesticide.
EPA filed a motion to dismiss the case last week, arguing that most of the issues raised in the litigation lack jurisdiction because the plaintiffs want a federal court review of a "guidance document" that is not EPA's final regulatory action. In another argument, EPA claims the plaintiffs haven't defined a clear duty EPA should take to enforce the FIFRA law.
Several agricultural groups jumped into the fray on Wednesday seeking to intervene in the case on EPA's behalf. They include CropLife America, the American Seed Trade Association, Agricultural Retailers Association, American Soybean Association, National Cotton Council of America, National Association of Wheat Growers and National Corn Growers Association. The groups filed a motion supporting EPA's case and asked the court to grant EPA's motion to dismiss.
The agribusiness groups argue seed treatments were created to provide precise, low-dose applications of pesticides and are economical to use. The treatments minimize impacts to non-target organism and reduce the amounts of chemical pesticides applied by sprayers.
Further, the agricultural groups argue that EPA has conducted a vigorous review of seed treatments under the FIFRA law and found that seed treatments perform their "intended function without unreasonable adverse effects on the environment."
Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com
Follow him on Twitter @ChrisClaytonDTN
(AG)
© Copyright 2016 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved.