www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

A series of court decisions is calling into question the U.S. Agriculture
Department's regulation of genetically engineered crops, March 2007 by
Philip Brasher.

Three rulings challenge the USDA's handling of field trials and its
process to approve the widespread cultivation of biotech crops. Depending on
the government's response, the cases could lead to a slowdown in
commercialization of new transgenic varieties, experts say.

One possible outcome: USDA could be required to conduct environmental-impact
studies before approving some crops. Studies can cost hundreds of thousands
of dollars and take years to complete.

Biotech companies such as Pioneer Hi-Bred International and Monsanto Co. are
using genetic engineering to make crops such as corn, soybeans and cotton
resistant to insects and herbicides and better able to survive droughts.
Companies also alter the genes of crops such as switchgrass that someday may
be used to make ethanol.

Last August, a federal judge in Hawaii decided that USDA improperly allowed
biotech companies to plant fields of corn and sugar cane that had been
engineered to produce pharmaceutical products.

On Feb. 5, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that USDA allowed
field tests of a biotech turfgrass without considering adequately the
potential environmental damage if the herbicide-resistant grass spread
beyond the research fields.

Then, a judge in San Francisco ruled USDA improperly approved the
commercialization of herbicide-resistant alfalfa without doing an
environmental-impact study. Among other things, the judge said, USDA should
have looked at how organic alfalfa would be hurt if the crops were
contaminated by pollen from biotech fields.

USDA "is going to have to take a real hard look at all of those impacts,
biodiversity impacts, impacts on endangered species and organic impacts,"
said George Kimbrell, an attorney with the Center for Food Safety, a
Washington-based advocacy group involved in bringing all three cases. "It
will slow things down."

How much is the question.

USDA officials say they're still studying the rulings, including whether the
cases will be appealed.

The department has been working for more than three years on revisions to
its regulations for biotech crops, a process that itself includes developing
an environmental-impact statement. Officials say they expect to issue the
proposed rules for public comment sometime this year.

"The court cases seem to be coming across some procedural things that need
to be addressed," said Mike Phillips, vice president of food and
agriculture, science and regulatory policy for the Biotechnology Industry
Organization, which represents biotech giants such as Monsanto Co. of St.
Louis and Pioneer Hi-Bred International of Des Moines.

A report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, another advocacy
group, found that USDA already has been taking longer to review crops before
deciding whether to approve them.

Before 2000, the approval process took an average of six months for each
crop trait. From 2001 to 2005, the average exceeded 15 months.

The process will almost certainly take longer if USDA is required to do more
environmental-impact studies, as compared to its relatively brief
"environmental assessments."

In one sense, the alfalfa case is unusual. Alfalfa is a perennial, unlike
corn, soybeans and cotton that are the most widely cultivated biotech crops.
And alfalfa is pollinated by bees, which can spread its pollen for miles.

But some of the same complaints leveled against the genetically modified
alfalfa have been made against other crops, including biotech corn. As with
alfalfa, the potential for cross-pollination makes it hard to keep fields of
conventional and organic corn free of biotech contamination.

The judge cited issues that he said merited an environmental-impact
statement, including the possibility that the crop would "degrade the human
environment by eliminating a farmer's choice to grow non-genetically
engineered alfalfa and a consumer's choice to consume such food."

Requiring USDA to spend more time studying new biotech traits doesn't mean
the ultimate outcome will be any different, legal experts say.

But the point of genetic engineering is to speed up the development of new
genetic traits. Get enough lawyers involved, and conventional breeding won't
look so slow anymore.

[www.desmoinesregister.com]