The implications of the court's ruling or rulings in this case will be vast.—Courthouse News
The Ninth Circuit Court Judges came to Hawai’i to hear four appeals to rulings that held that county ordinances and a citizens’ initiative were pre-empted by state and federal law. The proceedings were live-streamed as residents traveled from neighbor islands and packed the court to overflowing.
If the Ninth District rules with the pesticide companies, these cases could torpedo GMO and pesticide ordinances in West Coast communities like those in Oregon.
This video shows the problems and passions ignited because Hawai’i is being used as pesticide experimenting grounds by the chemical/GMO companies, Syngenta, Monsanto, Dow, Pioneer and Bayer.
First up was Syngenta’s lawsuit to prevent Kaua’i from creating no-spray buffer zones around schools and hospitals — a position that has been internationally reviled. In this case, like all four cases, the administration was glaringly absent and defense of this particular ordinance was argued by Paul Achitoff, of EarthJustice on behalf of Kamika Ho'opono, Surfrider Foundation and the Pesticide Action Network of North America.
Second was Achitoff again defending the Big Island ordinance prohibiting GMO planting. He argued that there was no objection when years ago the state banned GMO taro and coffee.
The introduction of GMO papaya contaminated much of Big Island papaya and farmers saw a decline in the price they could get as a result. This was the impetus behind the ordinance banning other GMO plantings.
Third up was the Maui County ordinance banning GMOs until the companies could prove their operations were safe. EarthJustice attorney Summer Kupao-Odu was appealing the lower court’s denial of intervention on behalf of her clients, MOM Hui, Molokai Mahi Ai, Jerry Ross and the Center for Food Safety.
Molokai (part of Maui county) as well as Maui island have large amounts of chemical company experimental fields, many of them close to schools and homes.
The lower court ruled against Kupoa-Odu saying that the SHAKA movement attorney, Bernie Bays was already defending the citizens’ initiative.
Why is this critical? SHAKA, the organization which got the initiative passed, for some reason, passed over Maui’s experienced and brilliant environmental attorneys, Lance D. Collins and Isaac Hall, and picked instead Bays, a construction attorney with zero environmental law experience who is clearly blowing it. Western U.S. communities are in deep trouble if this case is decided against Maui County. All GMO restrictions are in trouble. The issue of Federal preemption can invalidate all the western states’ GMO ordinances.
The Court continued hearing arguments on the Maui initiative as the fourth case.
It is unknown when the Court will render its decision.
According to Court News:
The Ninth Circuit is the biggest federal appeals court in the country, covering Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
The implications of the court's ruling or rulings in this case will be vast.