USDA withholds decision from public and ignores its responsibility to regulate GMO trees

The US Department of Agriculture is allowing GE tree giant ArborGen to develop their new GE loblolly pine tree in the United States with NO regulations or risk assessments!

This is the first genetically engineered forest tree to be approved for commercial production anywhere in the world (outside of China).

The potential impacts to the public or to the environment will not be evaluated, and overwhelming public opposition to GE trees is being completely ignored.

This decision was withheld from the US public for almost five months, because the USDA knows you and millions of others reject GE trees.

Let them know! Say NO to GE trees! Tell the USDA and ArborGen that you oppose the unregulated and untested release of GE trees into the environment.

Click here: http://stopgetrees.org/take-action-reject-unregulated-genetically-engineered-loblolly-pines/

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In the past weeks, we have been letting you know about the USDA's recent green-lighting of ArborGen's plans to commercially develop their newest genetically engineered (GE) loblolly pine tree. Doing this, the USDA backed out of its responsibility to regulate GE trees.

The decision has been getting some attention!

For example, on 16 February 2015, Christine Graef of MintPress published an article titled "USDA Moving Toward Less Oversight, Regulation Regarding New GE Trees." In it, she explains how "without regulatory oversight or public consultation, the USDA [allowed] for the commercial production of a new GE pine variety."

Graef details the concerns and dangers of this USDA decision to allow GE tree company ArborGen to deploy GE loblolly pines across the US South where they also grow in native forests.

In the article, Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project and Coordinator of the International Campaign to STOP GE Trees, and Rachel Smolker, Co-director of Biofuelwatch and member of the Steering Committee of the Campaign to STOP GE Trees, explain the dangers of developing these GE pine trees and the inevitability of them irreversibly contaminating their native wild relatives.

Read More:
http://www.mintpressnews.com/usda-moving-toward-less-oversight-regulation-regarding-new-ge-trees/202163/