{"id":28525,"date":"2021-01-11T00:01:25","date_gmt":"2021-01-11T04:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=28525"},"modified":"2021-01-10T21:56:01","modified_gmt":"2021-01-11T01:56:01","slug":"take-action-tell-president-elect-biden-and-congress-to-clean-up-at-epa-end-the-era-of-corporate-deception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/01\/take-action-tell-president-elect-biden-and-congress-to-clean-up-at-epa-end-the-era-of-corporate-deception\/","title":{"rendered":"TAKE ACTION: Tell President-Elect Biden and Congress to Clean Up at EPA\u2014 End the Era of Corporate Deception"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

(Beyond Pesticides<\/em>, January 11, 2021)\u00a0Treatment of chemical companies as clients rather than regulated entities is not new at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but corruption reached new highs during the Trump administration. With a new administration, it is time to end the rule of corporate deception at EPA. This goes beyond the use of the Congressional Review Act to reverse individual rules (adopted in the last six months) that defy scientific findings and compliance with environmental and public health standards. We can no longer rely on bad science and unscrupulous chemical manufacturers that put profits above concerns for the health of people and the environment. EPA must audit pesticide registrants for integrity to scientific process and set a moratorium on future pesticide registration until the agency can assure the public that their science is not corrupt<\/u>, as it has been in the past.<\/p>\r\n

Tell President-elect Biden and Congress to clean up the corruption of science at EPA and set a moratorium on future pesticide registrations\u2014until the agency can assure the public that the chemical manufacturers’ science supporting pesticide registrations is not corrupt.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\r\n

The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting published a story<\/a> in early December on yet another example of the corporate malfeasance that exalts profit far above concerns for safety, health, and ecosystems. The Midwest Center’s investigation finds that Monsanto and BASF, makers of the extremely problematic herbicide dicamba<\/a>, engaged in a variety of deceitful, unethical, and possibly fraudulent practices to enable its use. The bottom line is that the companies knew, before they released dicamba, about the massive damage it would cause\u2014and then put it on the market. Beyond Pesticides has reported on the corporate greed that fuels the downstream public health, environmental, and economic devastation these pesticides cause, and advocated for their removal from the market.<\/p>\r\n

Such unscrupulous behavior is not confined to Monsanto and BASF. Bayer (which now owns Monsanto) and Syngenta are also implicated in similar actions related to other pesticides\u2014glyphosate<\/a> and atrazine<\/a>, respectively. Over recent decades, large agrochemical corporations have pursued not only extreme market penetration for their toxic products, but also, vertical integration that, in the case of Bayer\/Monsanto, \u201crepresents a near-monopoly on the agriculture supply chain<\/a>.\u201d Corporate ownership of the patent on genetically engineered (GE) seeds\u2014which work only when paired with pesticides the company manufactures\u2014not only suppresses competition, but also, with enough market share, essentially imposes near-complete reliance by farmers on one company’s products. Even those who do not want to use the herbicide buy the seeds in self-defense. Such practices pose a serious threat to global food supply, health, biodiversity, and the environment\u2014which EPA is supposed to protect.<\/p>\r\n

When EPA fails to enact its mission to protect health and the environment by allowing use of pesticides that result in harm, the agrochemical landscape gets even uglier. A bit of review of the dicamba saga will be helpful. Dicamba<\/a> is a particularly problematic herbicide, given its propensity to drift<\/a>, the widespread damage it causes to non-target flora<\/a>, and industry’s intensive marketing of various product iterations. Added to that list are its impacts on human health: carcinogenicity, neurotoxicity, hepatic and renal damage, and developmental effects, among others. Further, it is toxic to birds, fish, and other aquatic organisms, which is especially relevant where it shows up in groundwater, as it tends to in the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\r\n

The herbicide was used for decades on its own to control weeds on cropland. The \u201cmodern\u201d dicamba debacle began in 2016 when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved Monsanto’s dicamba \u201cstrategy\u201d for cotton and soybeans: the dicamba formulation Xtendimax<\/a> for use with seeds genetically engineered to be dicamba tolerant. Once deployed, because of the herbicide’s strong tendency to drift<\/a> for significant distances, its use resulted in<\/a> \u201cmillions of acres of crop damage across the Midwest and South; widespread tree death<\/a> in many rural communities, state parks and nature preserves; and an unprecedented level of strife<\/a> in the farming world.\u201d As reports of this extreme damage<\/a> began to roll in, states began to scramble <\/a>to regulate dicamba’s use, absent federal efforts, to try to curb some of the devastation.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cHoldout\u201d farmers, including organic growers, who have rejected the use of the GE-seed-plus-herbicide scheme, have been particularly vulnerable to the ravages of dicamba drift. Their complaints to neighboring farmers, whose dicamba use has compromised yield, destroyed crops, or rendered them no longer organic, are often met with indifference or anger. These farmers are faced, as the Midwest Center writes<\/a>, with the choice to \u201cget poisoned or get on board\u201d the (GE-seed-plus-herbicide) train.<\/p>\r\n

As Beyond Pesticides reported in early 2020<\/a>, a Missouri peach farmer won $265 million in compensation for damage to his trees from Bayer and BASF because of \u201cnegligence in the design of their dicamba herbicides, and failure to warn farmers about the dangers of their products….The jury determined that the joint venture between the two companies amounted to a conspiracy to create an ‘ecological disaster’ in the name of profit.\u201d An attorney for the plaintiff in that case, Billy Randles,\u00a0commented<\/a>, \u201cThis is the first product in American history that literally destroys the competition….You buy it or else.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

These realities demonstrate the perverse elegance of strategic corporate \u201cverticality-plus-penetration.\u201d Pesticide manufacturers control supply chains, functionally force farmers into intense reliance on their products, and then use other farmers as leverage on those who resist to get them to \u201cget with the program.\u201d Monsanto has been notorious for bankrupting small farmers<\/a> who have dared to say \u201cno\u201d to its near-hegemony by, for example, saving seeds<\/a> to plant in the following season, thus opting out of purchasing the company’s GE seeds.<\/p>\r\n

This Midwest Center reporting shows that executives at Monsanto, knowing full well the potential damage of their dicamba\/GE seed system, proceeded. The story reveals<\/a> that Monsanto:<\/p>\r\n