Time to boot up the trusty old fact-check-o-matic
and debunk-a-tron...

> "NRDC legal experts and a leading bee researcher..."

A lady named Gabriela Chavarria, who got her PhD punched
down in Mexico, and has apparently never published 
anything on honey bees or CCD, but suddenly declares 
herself a "leading" bee researcher.   One is forced to 
guess that this must be due to her work on non-apis 
bees, but wouldn't Bee-L subscribers tend to know the 
"leading bee researchers", be they interested in apis 
or non-apis bees?  Anyone even heard of her before now?

> "...are convinced that the US Environmental Protection Agency 
> (EPA) has evidence of connections between pesticides and 
> the mysterious honey bee die-offs reported across the 
> country. The phenomenon has come to be called "colony 
> collapse disorder," or CCD..."

I sent and e-mail to, and got a call back from the NRDC spokesman, 
Josh Mogerman this evening (08/18/08).  I asked him repeatedly
and in increasingly pointed ways to substantiate any one of the 
claims made by the NRDC about a claimed link between pesticides 
and CCD, and he had nothing to offer except lame attempts to 
back-pedal on all the specific statements regarding CCD. 

The poor kid had that deer-in-the-headlights voice when he
tried to answer my questions. He did not understand that
a press release about a lawsuit is not a great place to
make claims that are factually wrong when describing
the motivation for the lawsuit.  He honestly thinks that 
the false statements about pesticides and CCD are "not the
story", but at the same time, he wants everyone to assume
that the lack of prompt response by EPA under the Bush
Administration is cause to assume that there is some sort
of cover-up of smoking-gun-quality data that would tie
pesticides to CCD.

Sadly, the NRDC has no new data to link pesticides to CCD
themselves, nor is there any data anywhere that even hints 
that there might be such a link.

The NRDC claim is pure hot air - nothing but the attempt by yet 
another self-serving group to try and leverage the problems of
beekeepers for their own agenda.  Note that the NRDC has 
done nothing to assist the CCD research effort, and has offered 
no support of any type to the CCD effort.

> "The pesticide in question, clothianidin, recently was banned 
> in Germany..."

Nope, we covered that here on Bee-L.  It was a very temporary 
suspension, one that was lifted in short order.

> "...due to concerns about its impact on bees. A similar insecticide 
> was banned in France for the same reason a couple of years before." 

Not for the same reason at all, again, for reasons clearly
outlined here on Bee-L.  More bull.  More spin. More agenda
that can only result in hard feelings and less cooperation.

> "In the United States, these chemicals still are in use despite a 
> growing consensus among bee specialists that pesticides, including 
> clothianidin and its chemical cousins, may contribute to CCD..."

Sadly, the NRDC spokesman could not list a single "bee expert" by
name who was part of this "growing consensus".  Yes, there are
many good reasons to keep looking at pesticide residues, and no
one has ever suggested that anyone stop looking at pesticide 
residues, but a "consensus" among "experts" would be based upon
something I like to call "data", and so far, all the data has
done nothing but show a lack of any link between any specific
pesticide or class of pesticides and CCD.  What the data does
show is that we have a "pathogen problem", rather than a 
"pesticide problem".

> "Despite bees' critical role for farmers, consumers, and the 
> environment, the federal government has been slow to address 
> the die-off since the alarm bells started in 2006."

Yes, they have, but will suing the EPA speed up the government's
response, or slow it down?

> "In recent Congressional hearings, USDA was unable to account 
> for the $20 million that Congress has allocated to the 
> department for fighting CCD in the last two years."

Yes, this is true. At a House Ag subcommittee hearing on June 26, 
the head of USDA ARS was unable to explain how money spent to
date was spent (inexcusable!), and declined to speculate as to 
how much more money might be required to solve the problem 
(reasonable).

But I'm not sure that congress allocated $20 million over the
past two years to CCD work.  If they did, where and when did 
they order this?  How did we all miss this?

> "This is a real mystery right now," said Dr. Gabriela Chavarria, 
> director of NRDC's Science Center.... Just try to imagine a pizza 
> without the contribution of bees! No tomatoes. No cheese. No peppers. 
> If you eat apples, cucumbers, broccoli, onions, squash, carrots, 
> avocados, or cherries, you need to be concerned." 

*Snort* what a lame list - she forgot alfalfa and clover for 
beef cattle for the pepperoni, but he also forgot almonds, 
apricots, artichoke, asparagus, avocados, beans, beets, 
blackberries, blueberries, brussel sprouts, cashews, 
cauliflower, celery, chives, citrus, coconuts, coriander, 
cranberries, cucumbers, currants, dates, eggplant, endive, 
figs, gherkins, gooseberries, grapefruit, green peppers, 
guava, kiwi fruit, leeks, lettuce, macadamia nuts, mangoes, 
muskmelon, nectarines, okra, olives, oranges, papaya, 
parsnips, passion fruit, peaches, peanuts, pears, persimmons, 
plums, pomegranates, prunes, pumpkin, quinces, radishes, 
raspberries, rutabaga, soybean-based Soylent-Green extruded 
food-like products, strawberries, turnips, watermelon, 
every spice you can name, and eleventy-seven other things 
I can't think of right now.

These NRDC guys seem to be cut from the same cloth as the
Xerces Society "Pollinator Week" gang who couldn't even 
be bothered to include a honey bee in their silly postage 
stamp set last year, then hijacked HR 1709, jammed Senate 
Bill 1694 (the "Pollinator Protection Act of 2007") down 
everyone's throats, adding all the non-CCD-related funding 
for native pollinator research, and thereby caused both the 
House and Senate bills to languish and die in committee.

Remember how everyone said "Oh, Jim, you are being too hard
on those good-hearted people - they aren't as self-serving 
as you want to claim"?  Well, the Xerces folks haven't
done anything to contribute to the CCD effort either, have
they?  Any money they raised (and they raised millions on
their fear-mongering end-of-the-world scare tactic claims) 
they kept for their own agenda.  

After more than a year, I think I can safely say 
"I told you so", but here I am calling the shot yet again,
so ignore these words at your own peril:

These NRDC people are no different from the Xerces gang,
and they will be happy to use you and your problems 
for their own ends, while doing nothing to help you 
or the people who are actually working on your problems.

These people are NOT our allies.

It is yet ANOTHER "Pollinator Protection Racket"!!!

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