EPA Targets Already Depleted Bee Population

The administrator of Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency is now taking steps that could promote expanding the use of insecticides that are helping befuddle and kill off bees.

Neonicotinoids, the world’s most popular insecticides, affect the central nervous systems of insects, causing paralysis and death. The European Union imposed a partial ban on three neonicotinoids in 2013 because of the harm the insecticides can do to bees and butterflies that pollinate plants. Honeybee colonies have fallen by 59% in North America, and populations of British moths have dropped by 30% a decade.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is considering allowing a type of neonicotinoid, thiamethoxam, manufactured by Syngenta, to be sprayed directly on about 165 million acres of wheat, barley, corn, sorghum, alfalfa, rice and potatoes. Thiamethoxam is currently used as a seed coating.

“If the EPA grants Syngenta’s wish, it will spur catastrophic declines of aquatic invertebrates and pollinator populations that are already in serious trouble,” said Lori Ann Burd, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s environmental health program.

Former President Barack Obama ordered the EPA in 2014 to assess the effect of pesticides, including neonicotinoids, on bees and other insects that pollinate plants. The EPA has been evaluating imidacloprid and clothianidin, manufactured by Bayer; thiamethoxam; dinotefuran, developed by Mitsui Chemicals; and acetamiprid, sold by Nisso Chemical.


https://www.dcreport.org/2017/12/26/epa-targets-already-depleted-bee-population/