Judge Overturns USDA Rule on Genetically Engineered Plants

The Agriculture Department shirked its duties in a 2020 rule that exempted genetically engineered plants from pre-market review if they were unlikely to pose an environmental risk, ruled U.S. district judge James Donato on Tuesday. Donato overturned the rule, issued during the first Trump administration, and told USDA to reconsider it.

Dubbed SECURE, the regulation was the fruit of a multiyear effort to modernize USDA plant regulation. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said it would streamline innovation. Opponents said it would allow the majority of genetically engineered and gene-edited plants to escape USDA review. Previously, all such plants needed USDA approval before they could be commercialized, based on its authority to prevent the introduction of plant pests.

In a 26-page opinion, Donato accepted the plaintiffs’ argument that the USDA acted arbitrarily and capriciously in issuing the regulation. “The final rule is vacated and remanded to APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) for reconsideration consistent with this order,” wrote the judge, based in San Francisco.

“This is a critical victory on behalf of farmers, the planet, and scientific oversight,” said George Kimbrell, legal director for the Center for Food Safety, one of the six plaintiffs. “USDA tried to hand over its job to Monsanto and the pesticide industry.”

The 2020 rule was issued 11 months after President Trump told the three federal regulators of biotechnology — the USDA, FDA, and EPA — to modernize their handling of ag biotech. In an executive order, he said the agencies should exempt low-risk products of agriculture biotechnology from undue regulation. At that point, gene editing was a new tool in biotechnology and was described as a safe and speedier way to produce plants with traits that could have been developed by traditional breeding techniques.