I’ve got to give credit to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) for persistence. USDA APHIS has proposed new rules for regulating genetically engineered (GE) crop plants (AKA genetically modified organisms: GMOs) on three different occasions over the last decade: in October of 2008, January of 2017 and again a couple of months ago.

There is no doubt that USDA APHIS needs new regulations for GMOs. Rather than based on science or risk assessment, the current rules are based on whether a GMO was engineered using a vector, vector agent, or DNA from an organism on USDA’s plant pest list. Consequently, the rules don’t apply to all GMOs and GMOs that likely don’t pose a “plant pest” or “noxious weed” risk are being regulated while others that could pose such risks are not being regulated at all.

But despite the agency’s efforts to update its regulations, the 2008 and 2017 proposals were withdrawn and–based on public comments it received on its most recent proposal–I expect (or at least hope) that the newly proposed regulations will be withdrawn as well.

Most of the comments on the new regulations proposed in the June 6, 2019 Federal Register (I estimate greater than 90% of them) were from individual citizens who were understandably unhappy that APHIS was planning to let developers of new GMOs determine for themselves whether their products required regulatory review or not. But citizen consumers were not the only ones worried about foxes guarding the henhouse…a group of U.S. grain and oilseed organizations submitted a pretty harsh critique of the new proposed rules as well.

Leaders of the National Grain and Feed, Corn Refiners, National Oilseed Processors, North American Export Grain, and North American Millers’ associations all believe that “APHIS’s largely deregulatory approach” would not only “undermine consumer confidence in the U.S. regulatory system” but also “create further impediments” to their industry’s ability to market grains and oilseeds in global markets because it “directly contradicts the well-established international norms of case-by-case risk-assessment” and is thus “largely out of step with key international markets and governments.” They also noted (as an aside) the aviation industry’s current “significant turmoil and scrutiny over the safety certification process where the federal government leaned heavily on self-determination by an aircraft manufacturer.”

They additionally called out APHIS for exempting some engineered crops from the new regulations “because they could be produced through traditional plant breeding techniques and thus are unlikely to pose a greater plant pest risk than traditionally bred crops, which APHIS has historically not regulated.” [Emphasis added by the grain industry leaders.]  This statement by APHIS, these industry leaders believe, provides “insufficient scientific justification for granting broad exemptions.” (As an aside, I note that assumptions about pilots being able to handle any failures or misfires associated with the new technology on board the Boeing 737 MAX, and about the technology’s failure being “unlikely to result in death or the loss of the plane” [my emphasis], contributed to the aviation industry’s current turmoil referred to above.)

The grain industry leaders also noted that “APHIS would be ill-advised to issue a final rule” until USDA had coordinated its efforts on “rules and guidance on genome editing and other forms of plant breeding innovation” with FDA and EPA. After all, the U.S. approach to regulating GMOs is supposed to comprise a “Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology;” therefore, these grain industry leaders recommend that the efforts of USDA APHIS, FDA and EPA “should all be compatible with each other and be coordinated through the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.”

In summary, the leaders of these U.S. grain associations “believe that APHIS’s new proposed rule is fundamentally flawed.” Two years ago they “jointly urged APHIS to go back to the drawing board in response to its 2017 proposed rule to modernize its biotechnology regulations….” Now they “strongly urge APHIS to amend” its newly proposed rule to “require all technology providers to notify the agency in advance before introducing gene-edited or other plant breeding innovation traits for commercialization–even those within APHIS’s expressly exempted categories–so that the agency can issue an official letter for all traits attesting that they do not present a plant pest risk.” [Emphases added by the grain industry leaders.]

I agree whole-heartedly with these agricultural industry leaders. It’s time for USDA APHIS (together with FDA and EPA) to go back to the drawing board and try again to craft effective regulations for GMOs.

Let’s hope APHIS has the persistence to get these regs right on the fourth try.