WASHINGTON, April 22, 2016 - It’s Earth Day. Secretary of State John Kerry will be in New York to
join other nations in signing the Paris climate agreement. The commitments in
the agreement are non-binding, but President Obama says in his Earth Day
proclamation that the targets for greenhouse gas reductions “are ambitious and
specific” and “necessary to solving the climate crisis.”
A leading Republican critic of the agreement, Senate Environment and
Public Works Chairman Jim Inhofe, says the Paris agreement “is full of empty
promises” that will have no significant impact on the climate.
USDA
is marking Earth Day by showcasing water and wastewater projects that the
department is funding across the country. USDA’s undersecretary for rural
development, Lisa Mensah, and other USDA officials will be visiting projects
today in Vermont, Kentucky, New Mexico and California.
EPA advisers wary of EPA reliance on pesticide study. An EPA scientific
advisory panel appears unlikely to support the agency’s use of a single
epidemiological study to support its proposal to revoke tolerances for the
widely-used insecticide chlorpyrifos, reports Agri-Pulse’s Steve
Davies.
At the conclusion of three days of meetings this week, panel members
from a variety of scientific disciplines expressed uneasiness with EPA’s
reliance on the study conducted by the Columbia Center for Children’s
Environmental Health. The science advisers say they don’t object to using
epidemiology to inform EPA decisions. The problem, they say, is using only one
such study to make the decision.
The panel heard criticism of EPA’s proposed use of the study from
industry, including Dow AgroSciences, Syngenta and CropLife America. The Natural
Resources Defense Council and Farmworker Justice supported EPA.
EPA is under a court-ordered deadline to decide by the end of the year
on its proposal. The scientific advisory panel must deliver its conclusions to
EPA within 90 days.
Roberts eyes ‘breakthrough’ on biotech labeling. There’s still no sign
of a bipartisan deal on the GMO labeling issue. But Senate Agriculture Chairmen
Pat Roberts, R-Kan., tells Agri-Pulse he’d like to have some progress
to show before the Senate breaks for a week-long recess the first week of May.
Republican and Democratic aides were working on the issue yesterday.
“I don’t want to leave for the break … without some degree of a
breakthrough so we can see a path forward,” he said.
Sixth Circuit keeps grip on WOTUS case. The fate of the Obama
administration’s “waters of the U.S.” rule is staying in the hands of the 6th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Industry and environmental groups want a lawsuit
challenging the rule turned over to the district courts. But
the 6th Circuit declined yesterday to reconsider its decision to keep the case
at the appellate level. The 6th Circuit issued a nationwide stay of the
rule in October.
Yesterday’s Senate vote on the latest GOP attempt to stop the rule made
clear that its opponents are going to have to rely on the courts to kill it or
else wait for a Republican president. Republicans fell four votes short of
getting the 60 necessary to amend the Army Corps of Engineers spending bill to
defund the rule.
The two senators still running for president, Ted Cruz and Bernie
Sanders, both missed the vote, but they would have cancelled each other out.
Pork leaders think candidates will come around on TPP. Pork
industry leaders are dismayed with the criticism that the Trans-Pacific
Partnership has received in the presidential race. But the president of the
National Pork Producers Council, John Weber, said he thinks the next president
will warm up to the deal once in office.
Weber said that the candidates “understand the importance of trade more
than they’re what they are letting on during this campaign.”
NPPC CEO Neil Dierks agrees, saying he hopes “cooler heads would
prevail.”
“In reality, can you walk away from it? I don’t think so,” Dierks said.
“If you do, the willingness is there to do that, maybe we’re condemned to
relive the ‘30s with erecting tariffs and everything else which was exactly the
opposite thing to do in the middle of a depression.”
Key lawmakers back dairy industry on TPP. Agriculture Secretary
Tom Vilsack is in Japan for a G7 ministerial meeting where he planned to push
Canada to fulfill its commitment under the TPP to open up access to U.S. dairy
products. He’ll have support during those discussions in the form of a
bipartisanletter from
key members of the House, including leaders of the House Ways and Means
subcommittee on trade.
The lawmakers expressed concern that Canada would try to cut back on
existing dairy trade.
She said it. “For anyone who is passionate about environmental
protection, Earth Day is like the Super Bowl and the Final Four combined.” -
Jennie Saxe of EPA’s Mid-Atlantic region, writing on an EPA blog.
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