National Agriculture Law Center reports:
The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has announced that it will no longer conduct a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis when approving genetically engineered (GE) seeds as “unregulated articles” that can be freely sold in the interstate market.
APHIS regulates GE organisms under 7 C.F.R. Part 340. Those regulations allow APHIS to grant unregulated status to a GE seed if the plant grown from the GE seed would not pose a greater pest risk than a similar organism. In the past, APHIS has also conducted NEPA reviews when granting unregulated article status to a GE seed to fully consider the expected environmental impacts of the decision.
However, following the recent United States Supreme Court ruling in Seven Cnty. Infrastructure Coal. v. Eagle Cnty. where the Court held that agencies are not required to conduct NEPA reviews of actions where they do not have the statutory discretion to consider environmental impacts. According to APHIS, when granting unregulated status to GE seeds, the agency is not allowed to consider environmental impacts, making NEPA review inappropriate.
This could make it easier for GE seed developers to bring new products to market.
