USDA program to give GMOs carte "blanche"

The USDA has started a new program that makes it even easier for genetically engineered organisms to become deregulated—by having the corporations themselves provide all the documentation and analysis. The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is responsible for granting or denying petitions from companies to deregulate genetically engineered organisms. Now APHIS has announced a two-year program called the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Pilot Project.

Currently, APHIS prepares an Environmental Assessment (EA) or an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to show what impact a GE food or organism might have on the environment, to help determine whether it should be regulated or not. The petitioner requesting deregulated status (Monsanto, for example) has to submit specific information, but it is up to the APHIS to prepare the environmental documents and analyze all the info. Under this new program, the petitioners will submit the environmental documents and analysis themselves. The Monsantos of the world can give the USDA all the environmental “analysis” necessary to support their own case—removing objectivity entirely from the process.

Furthermore, instead of APHIS taking the analysis and developing an EA or EIS, an outside contractor will prepare the EIS—but the petitioner will provide the funds for it. This is another outrageous conflict of interest: petitioners will be providing the funds to support their own studies to determine the outcome of their own case. Would we trust a sugar company to fund a report on whether sugar causes cavities in teeth?