[THS] SCOTUS Nominee Elena Kagan Goes to Bat for Monsanto

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SCOTUS Nominee Elena Kagan Goes to Bat for Monsanto,
Sides With Conservative Justices
Thursday 13 May 2010
by: Joshua Frank, t r u t h o u t | Report

http://www.truthout.org/supreme-court-nominee-elena-kagan-goes-bat-monsanto-
sides-with-conservative-justices59456

Alfalfa is the fourth largest crop grown in the United States and Monsanto wants to
control it.

On April 27, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could well write the
future of alfalfa production in our country.

Fortunately, for those who are concerned about the potential environmental and
health impacts of genetically engineered (GE) crops, Supreme Court nominee Elena
Kagan is not yet residing on the bench.

For the past four years, the Center for Food Safety (CFS), a Washington DC-based
consumer protection group, and others have litigated against Monsanto and the
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) regarding the company's Roundup
Ready alfalfa. The coalition has focused their fight against Monsanto's GE alfalfa,
based on concerns that the plants could negatively impact biodiversity as well as
other non-GE food crops.

In 2007, a California US District Court ruled in a landmark case that the USDA had
illegally approved Monsanto's GE alfalfa without carrying out a proper and full
Environmental Impact Statement. The plaintiffs argued that GE alfalfa could
contaminate nearby crops with its genetically manipulated pollen. Geertson Seed
Farm, with the help of CFS, claimed that the farm's non-GE crops could be damaged
beyond repair by Monsanto's Roundup Ready alfalfa.

Monsanto's well-paid legal team appealed the court's decision, but, in June 2009, the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the previous ruling and placed a nationwide
ban on Monsanto's Roundup Ready alfalfa.

"USDA should start over and truly evaluate the contamination of non-GM alfalfa and
the potential affects on seed growers, organic and natural meat producers, dairy
producers, and conventional and organic honey producers," said farmer and anti-GE
advocate Todd Leake shortly after the ruling.

Monsanto, however, didn't back down and appealed the Ninth Circuit's decision to
the US Supreme Court. In stepped Elena Kagan, whose role as solicitor general is to
look out for the welfare of American citizens in all matters that come before the high
court.

Unfortunately, Kagan opted to ditch her duty and instead side with Monsanto. In
March 2010, a month before the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case, the
solicitor general's office released a legal brief despite the fact that the US government
was not a defendant in the case.

As Kagan's office argued, "The judgment of the court of appeals should be reversed,
and the case should be remanded with instructions to vacate the permanent
injunction entered by the district court."

Despite numerous examples of cross-pollination of GE crops, Monsanto argued
during the April 27 court proceedings that this was highly unlikely to occur. CFS and
other plaintiffs are concerned that a federal law could be affected by the Supreme
Court's ruling. Courts in Oregon and California have already argued in previous cases
that GE seeds must also be studied as to the potential impact on other conventional
and organic crops.

Surprisingly, it seems that Kagan does not support a thorough study of GE seeds and
their potential impact on environmental and human health. In doing so, Kagan has
sided with conservative justices on the court who appeared skeptical that the lower
courts had made the right decision in banning GE alfalfa.

During the Supreme Court hearings, Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether
the Ninth Circuit had the authority to issue a ban on GE alfalfa. Roberts contented
that the court ought to have instead remanded the issue back to the USDA.
Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia took his defense of Monsanto even further,
stating, "This isn't the contamination of the New York City water supply," he said.
"This isn't the end of the world, it really isn't."

Apparently Scalia and Roberts aren't up on the latest scientific analysis that
Monsanto's GE crops have, in fact, bred new voracious super-weeds, which have
forced farmers to "spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand, and
return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing."

"Bowing to pressure from Monsanto and the other biotech companies, our federal
agencies approved [GE] corn and cotton without requiring any mandatory testing for
environmental impacts," Andrew Kimbrell, executive director for the CFS recently
wrote. "And the expected happened: a few years later, independent university
researchers - again not the government - discovered that this [GE] pesticide was
potentially fatal to Monarch butterflies and other pollinators ... Without mandatory
government testing, we're clueless about the universe of keystone pollinators and
other species that are being decimated as the [GE] plants continue to proliferate in
our fields."

The Supreme Court's decision on Monsanto's alfalfa ban will likely come early this
summer. Justice Stephen Breyer recused himself from the case because his brother
Charles Breyer oversaw the lower court's decision against the company.
Unsurprisingly, Justice Clarence Thomas, who once worked in the legal department
for Monsanto, did not recuse himself from the matter.

While Elena Kagan has no experience on the bench and has provided the public with
little to no information about where she stands on some of the most important issues
of the day, the fact that she came to bat for Monsanto two months, at a time when
the company is reeling from negative press, may shed some light on how she could
rule in future GE cases if she's confirmed as the next Supreme Court justice.