Hidden inside the massive federal budget that President Obama signed on Thursday is a small paragraph that has infuriated opponents of genetically-engineered crops. The provision is designed to protect those crops from court challenges. Audie Cornish talks to Dan Charles for more.
Copyright ? 2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
AUDIE CORNISH HOST: Tucked away inside the new federal budget for this year, which President Obama signed yesterday, is one small paragraph dealing with genetically engineered scrops. That paragraph, actually one long complicated sentence, has the biotech industry smiling. But opponents of biotech crops are hopping mad. They say this biotech rider, as they call it, is a blatant attempt to shield biotech crops from all judicial oversight.
Joining me now to talk about this is NPR's Dan Charles. Welcome, Dan.
DAN CHARLES, BYLINE: Nice to be here.
HOST: All right. So be patient with me here as I kind of read through this because it's complicated. It seems that this paragraph is saying that if the USDA approves a genetically engineered crop and then a court says that approval violates the law for some reason, the USDA is supposed to go ahead with temporary permits that let farmers keep growing the crops anyway. Is that right?
CHARLES: That is pretty much what it seems to say, if we all understand it correctly. And none of this has been litigated yet, and that may still be to come. But the thing is, this comes with a kind of a back story. There have been genetically engineered crops that have been challenged in court, specifically two cases got the sort of the Ag lobby really angry. In 2007, an alfalfa - genetically engineered alfalfa was taken off the market because of a court decision. And in 2009, sugar beets, which had been approved by the USDA were taken off the market because a court decided.
In both cases, the same court in San Francisco, decided that the USDA had not done all the environmental reviews that it should have done. So those crops went off the market for three or almost four years and then the USDA finished all their environmental reviews and they came back on the market again.
Farmers and the Biotech industry were, frankly, just outraged by these court decisions. It sort of played into their feeling that, you know, the courts, especially this court in San Francisco, just doesn't understand agriculture. So this law, you can see, it's kind of an attempt to basically tell the courts, you can't get in the way of these biotech crops.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
At the same time, I can imagine that it would raise some serious constitutional issues.
CHARLES: Yeah. It seems to, although it's a little unclear at this point. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has asked his general counsel to look at this provision. According to Vilsack, it seems to preempt a judicial review, and so it may be unenforceable. Some legal scholars that I've talked to say it's a little unclear. They say agencies do, in fact, have this authority to go ahead on an interim basis when a particular ruling has been struck down to come up with a temporary solution to a problem.
But the problem may be, for this provision, that Congress isn't saying the agency has the right to do this in its good judgment. Congress is saying the agency shall do this. The agency shall not allow a court to simply stop a biotech crop from being planted.
CORNISH: Give us a sense of the reaction here. I mean, how big is it?
CHARLES: Well, it's a controversial provision, obviously. Even when it was being considered in the Senate, Senator Jon Tester, who is a farmer, actually from Montana, he got up and was outraged, not just at this provision, but a couple of other provisions that that Ag lobby had been pushing.
SENATOR JON TESTER: These provisions are giveaways, pure and simple, and will be a boon worth millions of dollars to a handful of the biggest corporations in this country.
CHARLES: Some other opponents call this provision the Monsanto Protection Act, referring to, you know, the big biotech company that sells a lot of genetically engineered crops. And on the other hand, some farm groups, the biotech industry was reacting to this law with satisfaction. In fact, they have a different name for the provision. They call it the Farmer Assurance Provision.
They say this simply makes sure that farmers, if a crop is approved and they plant it, that they'll be able to harvest it.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Dan Charles. Dan, thank you.
CHARLES: Nice to be here.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
Copyright ? 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
tony nominations dark knight trailer dallas mavericks washington capitals delmon young amare stoudemire tallest building in the world
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.