Judge refuses to block Roundup Ready sugar beet crop this year

By WES SANDER

Capital Press

A federal judge has refused to block the cultivation of biotech sugar beets this season, but the sugar industry remains hanging on an appeals court decision in a separate case that could determine the fate of U.S. sugar production in 2012.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, in San Francisco, has dismissed a request for an injunction that would have blocked USDA's plan for allowing cultivation this year of beets with Monsanto's Roundup Ready genes. White denied a motion to add the challenge to an existing lawsuit, citing a lack of jurisdiction.

In August, White revoked the beets' deregulated status until USDA performs a more thorough environmental impact study, concluding three years of litigation brought by the Center for Food Safety, the Sierra Club and organic growers. White left it to USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service how to regulate the crop in the meantime.

USDA announced on Feb. 4 its interim rules allowing production of Roundup Ready beets the next two seasons, while the agency completes a court-ordered environmental study.

Sugar beet growers, cooperatives and seed companies filed suit Feb. 7 in Washington, D.C., asking a federal court there to declare the interim rules sound and block further legal challenges. The court had yet to move on the case by midweek.

The Center for Food Safety, Sierra Club and organic growers, also on Feb. 7, asked White for a restraining order and injunction blocking the plan.

Plaintiffs tried to attach their challenge to a related suit involving sugar beet stecklings in which White is already leaning their way. But White said he cannot consider the injunction because it addresses new environmental studies that support USDA's interim plan.

Those studies didn't exist when the ongoing suit originated, so the plaintiffs must file a separate challenge to address them, White said.

Closely following the August decision, USDA issued permits to cultivate stecklings, the rootstock for seed production. Plaintiffs in the original case filed suit, arguing the action violates the National Environmental Policy Act, and White said he was inclined to agree.

In December, White ordered this year's stecklings destroyed. The order has been appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

If they survive, this year's stecklings will produce seed for some 95 percent of domestic sugar beets next year.