EPA issues final biotech pesticide rules
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday issued final rules on plants that express pesticides such as Bt. EPA issued a proposed rule in 1994 and has been struggling for six years with plant breeders, academic scientists and their allies in Congress who are concerned that the agency would unnecessarily impede the development of new plant varieties. The final rules formalize EPA's existing process for regulating plant-incorporated protectants (PIPs) and "do not change significantly EPA's current system for scientifically evaluating a plant-incorporated protectant," according to the agency. Most plant-protectants derived from genetic engineering will continue to be subject to regulation. The genetic material involved in the production of a pesticide substance will be exempt from regulation; in other words, if a gene for Bt is inserted into a plant, the Bt product is regulated, not the gene. In addition, PIPs developed through conventional breeding are not regulated. ...