Having Trouble Submitting Comments to the Docket?

If you are unable to access the docket, you can still let your voice be heard. Use the form below to send an email to comments@beyondpesticides.org and we will submit your comments to the docket for you. You may use the sample text below, however we recommend that you edit the text in order to have the most impact.

For background information, please see www.beyondpesticides.org/pollinators/TakeAction.

Subject:

Your Letter:

Given how important pollinators, especially honey bees, are to our food supply, I am outraged that your agency has denied the petition to suspend uses of clothianidin, and recognize that honey bees face “imminent hazard”  from clothianidin exposures.

Research has shown that clothianidin and other neonicotinoid exposures cause significant problems for honey bee health, including disruptions in mobility, navigation, feeding, foraging, memory, learning, and overall hive activity. In fact, the science is growing, demonstrating neonicotinoid’s ill-effect on pollinators:

-A January 2012 Purdue University study reveals that honey bees are exposed to clothianidin through dust that is expelled from mechanical planters containing coated seeds.

-An April 2012 study out of France shows that when exposed to sublethal doses of thiamethoxam, honey bees’ foraging and feeding behavior were significantly degraded.

-A study released in May 2012 by the University of California at San Diego finds that small doses of imidacloprid depress honey bees’ ability to communicate and effectively feed the colony

EPA has failed to follow its own regulations when it granted a conditional, or temporary, registration to clothianidin in 2003 without a required field study establishing that the pesticide would have no “unreasonable adverse effects” on pollinators. The granting of the conditional registration was contingent upon the subsequent submission of an acceptable field study, but this requirement has not been met. EPA continues to allow the use of clothianidin nine years after acknowledging that it had an insufficient legal basis for initially allowing its use.

With one in three bites of my family’s food dependent on honey bee pollination, the agency should move quickly to protect the health of honey bees and suspend the use of the chemical linked to bee die-offs. Please suspend clothianidin now!

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