Couple of things here:

1)  Courts tend to give plaintiffs the "relief" they ask for when
plaintiff's win.  I have not read the complaint, but I'll bet the bulk of
the blame for the "revocation", rather than an order to fully halt the use
of the chemical and the (alleged) harm to bees, is to be laid at the feet of
the plaintiffs.  If the plaintiffs would have asked for a managed shutdown,
with rules and regs to remain in place for existing stocks, the judges would
likely have approved it.

2)  The EPA is not the enemy.  The EPA certainly may have been more willing
to approve a permit to drill for oil in your beeyard than to regulate
pesticides under the prior administration, but the current administration
has not hobbled the EPA at all.  The problem is that there simply is not
adequate funding for, nor is there interest in the tedious sort of
toxicology studies required to fact-check the issues in play.  

3) Further, the experience of those such as Cynthia Scott-Dupree (U Guelph)
is that doing ANY toxicology work and getting even obliquely involved in
pesticides can result in one being vilified by the (ignorant) general
public.  Jerry Bromenshenk was treated even worse by the media, for merely
having formerly done some pesticide-related work.  The writing on the wall
is clear - researchers who do work related to pesticides and toxicology risk
their reputation and careers unless they produce crowd-pleasing
horror-stories rather than impartial scientific results.

4)  The EPA is just like any federal agency, they employ a lot of attorneys,
and they are regularly sued as a normal part of their operations.  They have
staff defense attorneys on their payroll, so the claim that "money spent
defending lawsuits is money taken away from regulating" is flatly wrong.   

5) The NRDC invented the concept of "suing the EPA", as it was formed with
the sole stated purpose of being an "EPA Watchdog" immediately after the EPA
was set up by Nixon.  (Yes, Nixon, he was a lot more progressive than those
who came before him, and just about everyone that came after, except Bernie
Sanders.  He also worried about the concept of for-profit health care, like
the Kaiser-Permanente HMO, with his famous quote "You know I'm not too keen
on any of these damn medical programs.")  Most groups view "suing the EPA to
stop x" as the ultimate high-profile dragon-slaying role, as they want to
emulate the NRDC and their massive fund-raising.  So getting a chemical
"banned" is something that looks like a win that everyone likes as it makes
a nice short headline, and can be used to raise more funds to run more ads
to raise more funds, and so on.  But it is not what the bees need, and if
the plaintiffs are not doing this "for the bees", then what is their actual
agenda?  

6) I keep seeing efforts that seem to be aimed at creating liability on the
part of the pesticide companies, as if beekeepers might someday collect
large payments in a class-action suit.  Forget it.  The EPA approval process
removes significant liability from the companies and diffuses it on the
government, researchers, and other 3rd parties.  The pesticide companies are
"heavily regulated", and are thereby hard to hold to account for actions
that they were required to perform by the regulations.

7) Despite all the hue and cry, there STILL simply has not been a
significant increase in the net dollars allocated by the US to actual honey
bee research at state and federal labs.  It should be obvious that the only
solution to the problems of bees and beekeepers is not going to come from
anyone who went to law school, or from anyone who studies anything other
than the health of the subject insects.  For the record, honey bees and
bumblebees are the specific insects having problems, the other types of bees
are not victims of these health problems, are "collateral damage" in the
general environmental degradation we suffer, and are NOT appropriate
subjects for study with "bee funding", unless and until a species can be
shown to be of tangible practical value in US agriculture as it exists today
(not in some fairy-tale "farm" taken from the daydreams of Marie Antoinette
or Walt Disney).

8)  I've been saying these uncomplimentary things and taking these unpopular
positions for longer than most beekeepers have been keeping bees.  This
particular novice error made here was made once before, and my analysis was
picked up by the press and quoted here and there at the time.  But the same
error was made again.  It does not take that much research, nor does it
require much insight or intellectual prowess to draw the semi-obvious
conclusions I draw, yet I feel like Isaiah  (in John 1:23  - "I am the voice
of one crying out in the wilderness.")  When is "our industry" going to
start thinking about what happens after what comes next, rather than not
even working out what might come next?  






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