​US govt’s wanton approval of harmful pesticides fueling ‘bee holocaust’ - lawsuit

From RT

In response to rapidly dwindling global honey bee populations - vital in pollinating a third of the world’s crops - environmental and food safety groups have sued the EPA for approving bee-ravaging pesticides despite damning evidence of their effects.
The Center for Food Safety filed in mid-December a legal brief in support of a lawsuit backed by many organizations that seeks a reversal of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) May decision to approve sulfoxaflor - a type of insecticide chemical known as a neonicotinoid that is associated with mass death among bee populations worldwide.
In fact, the European Union has banned neonicotinoids for two years based on scientific studies that have linked their use to sudden eradication of entire beehives - a phenomenon dubbed ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’ (CCD).

 From The Center for Food Safety

On the heels of their neonicotinoid lawsuit, CFS files brief in new lawsuit to protect bees
Late Friday, Center for Food Safety filed a legal brief on behalf of numerous environmental, consumer and sustainable agriculture organizations in support of a lawsuit by the nation’s major beekeeping associations against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The beekeepers, including the Pollinator Stewardship Council, American Honey Producers Association, National Honey Bee Advisory Board, and the American Beekeeping Federation, are requesting that a Federal Court vacate EPA’s decision to register sulfoxaflor, a new chemical in the category of the controversial insecticides known as neonicotinoids, several of which are now under a two year ban in the European Union because of their impacts.
As CFS explained in its brief, “Scientists have linked the drastic declines in honey bee and other pollinator populations to systemic pesticides, and more specifically, to a category of systemic pesticides known as neonicotinoids.  Sulfoxaflor is a systemic pesticide with the same mode of action as neonicotinoids, that EPA determined is ‘very highly toxic’ to bees.  EPA’s registration of sulfoxaflor will introduce yet another systemic and highly toxic insecticide into the environment, intensifying the ecological crises of [Colony Collapse Disorder] and other pollinator losses.”