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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.