Tom Philpott introduces the documentary about the EPA’s failure to rein in the use of clothianidin in Grist magazine:

“In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, President Obama made the case that excessive regulation is a key factor holding back the U.S. economy. The president may have been seeking to burnish his bipartisan credentials with the piece; it made me groan.

Echoing this classic right-wing talking point seems an odd move in the wake of Wall Street meltdown, the Upper Big Branch mining disaster, and the BP oil spill — all directly related to excessive de-regulation. And let’s not forget the sad saga of the EPA’s attempts to reckon with clothianidin, the agrichemical giant Bayer’s blockbuster pesticide that the EPA’s own scientists think may be harming our extremely fragile honeybee population. It’s only through the dogged efforts of Colorado beekeeper Tom Theobald that we even know of these concerns among the agency’s scientists.

In the video below, Theobald tells the long, sad story of how the agency came to permit this pesticide to be sprayed on millions of acres. Are you listening, Mr. President?”

Below, excerpts from the Independent on the pesticide.

Watch the video:

The Independent writes:

“A new generation of pesticides is making honeybees far more susceptible to disease, even at tiny doses, and may be a clue to the mysterious colony collapse disorder that has devastated bees across the world, the US government’s leading bee researcher has found. Yet the discovery has remained unpublished for nearly two years since it was made by the US Department of Agriculture’s Bee Research Laboratory.

The release of such a finding from the American government’s own bee lab would put a major question mark over the use of neonicotinoid insecticides – relatively new compounds which mimic the insect-killing properties of nicotine, and which are increasingly used on crops in the US, Britain and around the world.

Bayer, the German chemicals giant which developed the insecticides and makes most of them, insists that they are safe for bees if used properly, but they have already been widely linked to bee mortality. The US findings raise questions about the substance used in the bee lab’s experiment, imidacloprid, which was Bayer’s top-selling insecticide in 2009, earning the company £510m. The worry is that neonicotinoids, which are neurotoxins – that is, they attack the central nervous system – are also “systemic”, meaning they are taken up into every part of the plant which is treated with them, including the pollen and nectar. This means that bees and other pollinating insects can absorb them and carry them back to their hives or nests – even if they are not the insecticide’s target species.”