Posted March 2, 2015
An environmental group sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accusing regulators of discounting the dangers of a widely used herbicide threatening the declining monarch butterfly population, according to Reuters. NBC News also published an article available hereand MSN News here.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed suit against the (EPA) in U.S. District Court in New York. The suit alleged the agency has failed to regard warnings about the dangers to monarchs posed by glyphosate, the key ingredient in a widely used herbicide such as, Monsanto Co’s Roundup and other herbicides.
Federal law requires EPA to ensure that pesticides it approves will not cause “unreasonable adverse effects on the environment, including wildlife,” the lawsuit states. “However, the agency has never considered glyphosate’s impacts on monarchs,” according to NBC News.
“EPA is taking a number of measures to protect the monarch butterfly and other pollinators. With regard to pesticide exposure, EPA is looking holistically at all herbicides, not only glyphosate, to determine the effects on monarchs and resources critical to butterfly populations,” the agency said.
The lawsuit states that the monarch population has declined from 1 billion in 1997 to 56.6 million this winter, and it seeks a court order to force EPA to evaluate the effects of glyphosate on the monarch’s population, according to MSN.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has launched a $3.2 million campaign to aid in efforts supporting the butterfly’s habitat.
For more information on environmental law, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
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