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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan Goes to Bat for Monsanto
  • Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 09:41:29 -0600



Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan Goes to Bat for Monsanto
http://www.truthout.org/supreme-court-nominee-elena-kagan-goes-bat-monsanto-sides-with-conservative-justices59456
Thursday 13 May 2010 by: Joshua Frank,

Alfalfa is the fourth largest crop grown in the United States and Monsanto
wants to control it. On April 27, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case
that could well write the future of alfalfa production in our country.

Fortunately, for those who are concerned about the potential environmental
and health impacts of genetically engineered (GE) crops, Supreme Court
nominee Elena Kagan is not yet residing on the bench.

For the past four years, the Center for Food Safety (CFS), a Washington
DC-based consumer protection group, and others have litigated against
Monsanto and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) regarding the
company's Roundup Ready alfalfa. The coalition has focused their fight
against Monsanto's GE alfalfa, based on concerns that the plants could
negatively impact biodiversity as well as other non-GE food crops.

In 2007, a California US District Court ruled in a landmark case that the
USDA had illegally approved Monsanto's GE alfalfa without carrying out a
proper and full Environmental Impact Statement. The plaintiffs argued that GE
alfalfa could contaminate nearby crops with its genetically manipulated
pollen. Geertson Seed Farm, with the help of CFS, claimed that the farm's
non-GE crops could be damaged beyond repair by Monsanto's Roundup Ready
alfalfa.

Monsanto's well-paid legal team appealed the court's decision, but, in June
2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the previous ruling and
placed a nationwide ban on Monsanto's Roundup Ready alfalfa.

"USDA should start over and truly evaluate the contamination of non-GM
alfalfa and the potential affects on seed growers, organic and natural meat
producers, dairy producers, and conventional and organic honey producers,"
said farmer and anti-GE advocate Todd Leake shortly after the ruling.

Monsanto, however, didn't back down and appealed the Ninth Circuit's decision
to the US Supreme Court. In stepped Elena Kagan, whose role as solicitor
general is to look out for the welfare of American citizens in all matters
that come before the high court.

Unfortunately, Kagan opted to ditch her duty and instead side with Monsanto.
In March 2010, a month before the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case,
the solicitor general's office released a legal brief despite the fact that
the US government was not a defendant in the case.

As Kagan's office argued, "The judgment of the court of appeals should be
reversed, and the case should be remanded with instructions to vacate the
permanent injunction entered by the district court."

Despite numerous examples of cross-pollination of GE crops, Monsanto argued
during the April 27 court proceedings that this was highly unlikely to occur.
CFS and other plaintiffs are concerned that a federal law could be affected
by the Supreme Court's ruling. Courts in Oregon and California have already
argued in previous cases that GE seeds must also be studied as to the
potential impact on other conventional and organic crops.

Surprisingly, it seems that Kagan does not support a thorough study of GE
seeds and their potential impact on environmental and human health. In doing
so, Kagan has sided with conservative justices on the court who appeared
skeptical that the lower courts had made the right decision in banning GE
alfalfa.

During the Supreme Court hearings, Chief Justice John Roberts questioned
whether the Ninth Circuit had the authority to issue a ban on GE alfalfa.
Roberts contented that the court ought to have instead remanded the issue
back to the USDA. Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia took his defense of
Monsanto even further, stating, "This isn't the contamination of the New York
City water supply," he said. "This isn't the end of the world, it really
isn't."

Apparently Scalia and Roberts aren't up on the latest scientific analysis
that Monsanto's GE crops have, in fact, bred new voracious super-weeds, which
have forced farmers to "spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds
by hand, and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing."

"Bowing to pressure from Monsanto and the other biotech companies, our
federal agencies approved [GE] corn and cotton without requiring any
mandatory testing for environmental impacts," Andrew Kimbrell, executive
director for the CFS recently wrote. "And the expected happened: a few years
later, independent university researchers - again not the government -
discovered that this [GE] pesticide was potentially fatal to Monarch
butterflies and other pollinators ... Without mandatory government testing,
we're clueless about the universe of keystone pollinators and other species
that are being decimated as the [GE] plants continue to proliferate in our
fields."

The Supreme Court's decision on Monsanto's alfalfa ban will likely come early
this summer. Justice Stephen Breyer recused himself from the case because his
brother Charles Breyer oversaw the lower court's decision against the
company. Unsurprisingly, Justice Clarence Thomas, who once worked in the
legal department for Monsanto, did not recuse himself from the matter.

While Elena Kagan has no experience on the bench and has provided the public
with little to no information about where she stands on some of the most
important issues of the day, the fact that she came to bat for Monsanto two
months, at a time when the company is reeling from negative press, may shed
some light on how she could rule in future GE cases if she's confirmed as the
next Supreme Court justice.




  • [Livingontheland] Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kagan Goes to Bat for Monsanto, Tradingpost, 05/14/2010

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