“If the bee disappears from the earth, man would have no more
than four years to live.” Albert Einstein.
They have been in existence for over 100 million years, but
it has taken us less than 30 years to kill almost all of them off. Honey bees are responsible for pollinating
60% of the world’s food supply. Without them, the human race would face
starvation. A worldwide epidemic, it has
been called the bee apocalypse by
Russia’s president, but it is worse
in the United States than any other country.
Since 1972, feral honey bees in the United States have declined 80% to
near extinction, and domestic bees in the United States are down to 60%. Since 2006, the epidemic has been referred to
as colony collapse disorder, describing the disappearance of entire colonies of
bees.
Among the causes cited for this disaster of epidemic
proportions are parasites, the decrease in abundance and diversity of
wildflowers, insecticides and genetically engineered foods (GMO’s) that create
their own synthetic pesticides which kill bees as well as other insects. But one thing is for certain-- mankind is
responsible for the drastic decline in bee population and the United States
government is doing nothing about it. On
the contrary, the government has taken measures to make the problem worse.
While other countries around the world are taking action to
try to stop the bee apocalypse, such as the UK, which passed the Bees Act in
1980 and the European Union, who is moving to ban bee killing pesticides, the
United States has done nothing to halt the use of bee killing pesticides and is
actually encouraging the continued use of genetically engineered plants that have
been proven in our courts and others around the world to be dangerous to the
environment.
Monsanto’s Mon810 corn is genetically engineered to produce
a synthetic pesticide that has been proven to destroy bees and has been banned
in Poland. Monsanto’s GMO’s are no
longer welcome in Europe, and, as a result, the company no longer markets them
there. Neonicotinoid pesticides,
manufactured in the United States by Bayer and in Switzerland by Swiss GMO
manufacturer and pesticide giant Syngenta, are being banned in Europe for
massive bee deaths. But, due to the fact
that giant companies like Monsanto can buy themselves legislation to immunize
themselves from liability, don’t expect the United States to ban the bee
killing pesticides or plants anytime soon.
On March 31, 2013, the Senate passed the “Farmer Assurance
Provision,” which was signed into law by President Obama on March 26,
2013. The Provision has been dubbed the
“Monsanto Protection Act,” after the huge chemical conglomerate who makes the
offending genetically engineered seeds.
The Plant Protection Act, passed in 2000 (7 USC section 7701
et. Seq.), authorizes the Dept. of Agriculture to prevent the introduction of
“plant pests” into the United States food supply. Regulations classify genetically engineered
plants as “plant pests.” Persons wishing
to plant such genetically engineered plants are prohibited from doing so unless
granted non-regulated status by the Animal and Plant Inspection Service. In order to grant the non-regulated status, a
detailed environmental impact statement must be prepared by the federal
agencies responsible.
What the Monsanto Protection Act does is strip the federal
courts of their power to protect the environment by making any court reversal
of non-regulated status or a court injunction against growing plants that have
been proven to be dangerous ineffectual, at the request of any grower or seed producer, who petitions the Dept. of
Agriculture for an exemption. Hence the
term “Monsanto Protection Act” as Monsanto is the largest producer of genetically
engineered seeds in the world, and certainly footed the lobby bill for the
provision.
The bad news is that giant corporations throw giant money to
lobbyists who control Congressmen and Senators who are supposed to work for
you. The good news is that this
provision is temporary and there is a huge grass roots movement calling for its
repeal. So effective has been the
movement, that Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon (where non-approved Monsanto
wheat recently contaminated wheat fields, nine years after and 500 miles away
from Monsanto field trials), is proposing to introduce an amendment to repeal
the provision. Contamination of natural
plant life by genetically engineered crops, which are engineered to resist insecticides
and herbicides, occurs naturally by the process of pollination. The wheat crisis is being minimized by the
government, despite the fact that it could affect wheat exports, which are
mostly to countries who will not accept the genetically engineered wheat. The United States is the largest exporter of
wheat in the world.
You can be sure that the practice of bypassing courts by
custom designed legislation will continue, which raises the question of the constitutionality
of this practice. Courts must begin with
the presumption that an Act of Congress is constitutional, unless the lack of
constitutional authority is clearly demonstrated. United
States v. Harris, 106 U.S. 629, 635 (1883).
Does our constitution protect our environment from destruction and
guarantee us the right not to be poisoned in our own backyard? “A law that impinges upon a fundamental right explicitly or implicitly secured by
the Constitution is presumptively unconstitutional.” City of
Mobile, Alabama v. Bolden, 446 U.S. 55 (1979). Therefore, if the right to an environment
free from destruction is a fundamental right, there is some authority to argue
that the Monsanto Protection Act, and other laws that are sure to follow it,
are unconstitutional.
The prevention of the destruction of our environment has
been recognized internationally as a fundamental human right, and it is a
violation of international law to subject individuals to scientific
experimentation without their consent. “In 1955, the
draft International Covenants on Human Rights was revised to add a second
sentence to its prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment. The addition provided that "[i]n particular, no
one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation
involving risk, where such is not required by his state of physical or mental
health." Annotations on the text of the draft International Covenants
on Human Rights, at 31, U.N.
GAOR, 10th Sess., Annexes, agenda item 28(II), U.N. Doc. A/2929 (July 1, 1955).
The clause was later revised to offer the simpler and sweeping prohibition that
"no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or
scientific experimentation." ICCPR, supra, at art. 7. This prohibition
became part of Article 7 of the ICCPR, which entered into force in 1976, and is
legally binding on the more than 160 States-Parties that have ratified the
convention without reservation to the provision. By its terms this prohibition is not
limited to state actors; rather, it guarantees individuals the right to be free
from nonconsensual medical experimentation by any entity—state actors, private
actors, or state and private actors behaving in concert.” See Abdullahi
v. Pfizer, Inc., 562 F.3d 163 (2nd Cir. 2009).
The Ninth Circuit has upheld the prosecution of human rights
violations in other countries under the Alien Torts Statute for actions which
result in the destruction of the environment.
Sarei v. Tinto, PLC, 671 F. 3d
736 (9th Cir. 2011). It
stands to reason that the citizens of our own country should also have the same
human rights.
Moreover, to allow the executive branch (such as the Dept.
of Agriculture) to exempt persons affected by a court order or judgment from
the effect of that order or judgment is a violation of the constitutional
separation of powers. The separation of powers
into the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government is
fundamental to its survival and the preservation of liberty. These distinctions are designed to act as
checks and balances against each other and the lines between them should not be
blurred at the request of one individual or, in this case, one company, at the
expense of the protection of our food supply and our very survival. “Our federal system
provides a salutary check on governmental power. As Justice Harlan once
explained, our ancestors "were suspicious of every form of all-powerful
central authority." Harlan, supra n. 16, at 944. To curb this evil, they
both allocated governmental power between state and national authorities, and
divided the national power among three branches of government. Unless we zealously protect these
distinctions, we risk upsetting the balance of power that buttresses our basic liberties,” Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission v. Mississippi, 456 U.S. 742 at 791 (1982),
Justice O’Connor concurring and dissenting in part (emphasis added).
“The "concept of separation of powers," then, is exemplified
by "the very structure of the Constitution." Miller v. French, 530 U.S. 327, 341, 120 S.Ct. 2246, 147 L.Ed.2d 326 (2000) (internal quotation marks omitted). "The Framers regarded the
checks and balances that they had built into the tripartite Federal Government
as a self-executing safeguard against the encroachment or aggrandizement of one
branch at the expense of the other." Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 122, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976).
"While the boundaries between the three branches are not `hermetically'
sealed, the Constitution prohibits one
branch from encroaching on the central prerogatives of another." Miller, 530 U.S. at 341, 120 S.Ct. 2246 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
Accordingly, the Supreme
Court has "not hesitated to strike down provisions of law that either
accrete to a single Branch powers more appropriately diffused among separate
Branches or that undermine the authority and independence of one or another
coordinate Branch." Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 382, 109 S.Ct. 647, 102 L.Ed.2d 714 (1989). . .In cases
involving the Judicial Branch, the Court has traditionally acted to ensure
"that the Judicial Branch neither be assigned nor allowed tasks that are
more properly accomplished by other branches," and "that no provision of law impermissibly
threatens the institutional integrity of the Judicial Branch." Mistretta, 488 U.S. at 383, 109 S.Ct. 647 (citation, internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). "Even
when a branch does not arrogate power to itself, . . . the separation-of-powers doctrine
requires that a branch not impair another in the performance of its
constitutional duties." Loving, 517 U.S. at 757, 116 S.Ct. 1737.” Mc
Mellon v. United States, 387 F. 3d 329 at 342 (4th Cir. 2004) (emphasis added).
Congress cannot vest review of the decisions of Article III courts in
officials of the Executive Branch. Hayburn’s Case, 2 Dall. 409 (1792), Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514
U.S. 211 (1995). Interference by the
executive branch, with orders of the judicial branch violates the separation of
powers. See Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997).
In
this case, not only is the legislative branch interfering with the powers of
Article III courts, but the interference also allows the executive branch (the
USDA) to set aside and invalidate the enforcement of a court judgment, order or
injunction. We must protect our courts
from this interference. They are the
only vestige of the government that we can actually reach out to as individuals
and who must listen to and answer us.
And they may be the only hope for the bees’ (and our) survival.
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