Faulting EPA, Green Leaders Warn Obama: Bees Running Out of Time

Obama's task force report is past due and it may not show up until 2016.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/05/faulting-epa-green-leaders-warn-obama-bees-running-out-time

Faulting EPA, Green Leaders Warn Obama: Bees Running Out of Time
A federal task force is moving too slow and the nation's pollinators and food supply are at perilous risk, environmental NGOs tell president in urgent letter
byJon Queally, staff write

They speak for the bees.

In a letter destined for President Obama on Thursday, eleven of the nation's top environmental and public health advocacy groups, representing millions of Americans, are demanding the administration take much stronger and swifter action to end the perilous situation of the nation's most prolific pollinators, most prominently the honey bee, caused by the widespread use of neonicotinoids, a dangerous class of pesticide.

The letter (pdf) calls on Obama to instruct the Environmental Protection Agency to immediately suspend neonicotinoid use and take retroactive and proactive steps to curb their adverse impacts.

"Bees and other pollinators are essential to our nation’s food supply, farming system, economy, and environment," the letter states, "but they are in great peril and populations are dwindling worldwide. A growing body of scientif ic evidence points to the widespread and indiscriminate use of a class of neurotoxic pesticides called neonicotinoids (‘neonics’) as a key factor in bee die - offs ."

Specifically, the groups charge that although Obama appointed a special inter-agency panel, called the Pollinator Health Task Force, to study pollinator health last year, that effort is simply moving too slowly and time is running out. Mandated to assess the crisis of bee die-offse and offer recommendations after 180 days, the Task Force missed their deadline and have now indicated their report may not arrive until 2016.

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