Source: The Oregonian
One of a handful of government scientists who will help decide whether a new genetically modified grass strain goes on the market oversaw its development while he was privately employed, court documents show.
The documents, made public by a technology watchdog group that is suing the federal government to block the bentgrass seed's commercial release, were submitted last week in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
The lawsuit and the strain's future hold significant implications for Oregon, the country's leading grass-seed producer and the state where much of the research on the herbicide-resistant grass has taken place.
The nonprofit International Center for Technology Assessment of Washington, D.C., contends that the scientist's previous ties to the Roundup-resistant bentgrass and The Scotts Co. should bar him from a deregulation process that Scotts and Monsanto Co. are now pursuing. Monsanto makes Roundup, the world's most widely used weed-killer.
"A person that helped develop the product is out there doing the regulatory review -- that's not impartial, and it's not the way good government is supposed to work," said Joseph Mendelson, the center's legal director.
A spokesman for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said the agency would not comment directly on the review process for the new bentgrass because of the lawsuit. However, he said he saw no appearance of conflict in a public employee's review of a product he oversaw for private industry.
"This is not a matter of opinion -- it's a matter of regulation," said Jim Rogers of the inspection service. "If you do what the regulations require, you will pass through. If you don't, you won't."
Rogers said he was not aware of any movement to remove the scientist, Virgil Meier, from the review process. The review will determine whether the genetically modified seed is environmentally safe and can emerge from a tightly controlled developmental phase.
He also said the agency would not allow Meier to answer questions from The Oregonian.
In a court declaration, Meier said that before he joined the inspection service, he was Scotts' manager for seed research. In that capacity, his declaration said, he "managed the development of Scotts' glyphosate-tolerant bentgrass and bluegrass."
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup.
Rogers said typically four biotechnologists such as Meier study applications to deregulate genetically modified plants. Those scientists make recommendations to one or two managers, who make final decisions.
Monsanto and Scotts are hoping that through deregulation they will be able to market their new seed to golf course operators, who are eager for a grass that thrives while pesky weeds are killed by spraying Roundup.
The deregulation process has dragged on since last year, however, and has drawn opposition from federal land managers, environmentalists and even some grass-seed growers who fear that the new bentgrass will proliferate in the wild.
Those fears intensified last month after a study showed that pollen from the modified bentgrass had traveled much farther than previously suspected -- as much as 13 miles away from the Central Oregon fields where the first commercial seed crop was harvested last year. Those seeds are in storage awaiting the federal review.
Meier was defended from an unlikely corner Thursday. Bill Rose, a leading Oregon seed grower and critic of Scotts' modified bentgrass, said he had known Meier for years and believed him capable of being impartial.
"I think he's doing the best he can and will use his best judgment," Rose said.
