The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has announced it will no longer conduct a National Environmental Policy Act analysis when approving genetically engineered seeds as “unregulated articles” that can be freely sold on the interstate market. APHIS regulates genetically engineered organisms, and those regulations allow APHIS to grant unregulated status to a GE seed if the plant grown from the GE seed would not pose a greater pest risk than a similar organism. In the past, APHIS has also conducted NEPA reviews when granting unregulated article status to a GE seed to fully consider the expected environmental impacts of the decision. However, following a recent Supreme Court ruling in which the Court held that agencies are not required to conduct NEPA reviews of actions where they do not have the statutory discretion to consider environmental impacts. That means it could be easier to bring new GE seeds to market.
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