MEDIA RELEASE
In an ongoing effort to protect bees and other pollinators, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed new pesticide labels that prohibit use of some neonicotinoid pesticide products where bees are present.
“Multiple factors play a role in bee colony declines, including pesticides. The Environmental Protection Agency is taking action to protect bees from pesticide exposure and these label changes will further our efforts,†said Jim Jones, assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.
“The proper use of pesticides is critical for the protection of honey bees, and the crops that depend on them for pollination,†said Kathleen Johnson, EPA’s Enforcement Division Director for the Pacific Southwest. “We will be working with our state partners to ensure the pesticides subject to these new labeling requirements are applied correctly.â€
The new labels will have a bee advisory box and icon with information on routes of exposure and spray drift precautions. Today’s announcement affects products containing the neonicotinoids imidacloprid, dinotefuran, clothianidin and thiamethoxam.
The EPA will work with pesticide manufacturers to change labels so that they will meet the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) safety standard.
In May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and EPA released a comprehensive scientific report on honey bee health, showing scientific consensus that there are a complex set of stressors associated with honey bee declines, including loss of habitat, parasites and disease, genetics, poor nutrition and pesticide exposure.
The agency continues to work with beekeepers, growers, pesticide applicators, pesticide and seed companies, and federal and state agencies to reduce pesticide drift dust and advance best management practices.
The EPA recently released new enforcement guidance to federal, state and tribal enforcement officials to enhance investigations of beekill incidents.
— Find out more:
www.epa.gov/opp00001/ecosystem/pollinator/index.html
This is not journalism it is a Press Release engineered by the EPA to give the illusion of regulation when there is none, passed along without comment.. It addresses only foliar applications, when the major delivery system for neonicotionoids is seed treatment. These pesticides have half lives of years and there is no protection by applying them foliarly after sunset of when it is below 55 degrees because they will contaminate the plants, soil and water for years and the EPA knows this full well. Most of the language is advisory, which means it has no more force of law than if you or I were to comment. Where the EPA does use mandatory language it then guts any likelihood of increased protection by offering a list of conditions under which the law can be disregarded. These label changes do not offer increased protection, in fact the changes are a primer on how users can avoid compliance with the law.
“Smoke,
mirrors and snake oil. The changes
to pesticide labels are purely
cosmetic, dreamed up by the poison
manufacturers PR department. Over
10 million bee colonies have been
killed in the USA since 2003
(conservatively). They were killed
by neonicotinoid insecticides,
which have been banned in France
since 2000AD. Neonics are SYSTEMIC
– they are not sprayed onto the
leaves of flowering crops; they
are applied as seed coatings at
the time of planting. The poison
is then absorbed into the entire
cellular structure of the living
plant, whether it be corn, wheat,
soya, canola, sunflowers, peas,
beans, almonds, apples, tomatoes,
blueberries or your garden
geraniums.
The plant
may flower weeks or months after
the poison was applied to the seed
but the poison is waiting there
all the time; as soon as the plant
blooms the poison appears in the
pollen and nectar and the bees,
bumblebees and butterflies die in
their billions.
Ordering
farmers to only apply pesticides
when the crop is not flowering is
pure sophistry.
The poison is already there, in
the soil and the seeds, in the
stems, in the sap, in the flowers,
in the pollen and the nectar.
The EPA
has NOTHING to do with
environmental protection. The real
organisation was hijacked years
ago by Bush Senior, and filled
with Monsanto executives. Its only
purpose today is to keep the
poison on the market and the vast
profits rolling in. Everything
else – the bees, the water, the
frogs, the birds, the bats – you
and me – all of that is
expendable.
America
needs a revolution in its
‘regulation’ of pesticides; currently there is NO REGULATION.
Nothing
but a complete re-start will do. The Poison Manufacturers conquered
your regulatory castles long ago; all
those well-fed regulators, with fat
salaries, sitting in those air
conditioned offices, they
are in fact ‘pesticide lobbyists’,
masquerading as environmental
watchdogs. Sadly, America’s pesticide-watchdog is deaf, blind and
toothless; Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta castrated it years ago.”