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Deregulatory Blitz at EPA Includes Climate and Water Rules That Impact Agriculture

News Feed
Thursday, March 13, 2025

On March 12, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced more than 30 deregulatory actions the agency is taking, including steps to roll back rules that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and farm pollution, and to eliminate environmental justice efforts. In their last evaluation of the climate crisis, the world’s top scientists found climate change is already making it harder for farmers to produce food—and that challenges including extreme heat, droughts, and destructive weather events will get worse without rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Zeldin’s actions will move the EPA off that path significantly with a reconsideration of what is called the “endangerment finding,” a scientific decision the agency made determining greenhouse gases endanger public health, which underpins the agency’s other climate rules and regulations. “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families,” Zeldin said in a statement. Another stop in Zeldin’s plan is to once again review a rule that determines which bodies of water are subject to restrictions on runoff from farms. Called Waters of the U.S., or “WOTUS,” the rule has been in flux for decades, with every administration changing it and the Supreme Court already weighing in. It has been a key issue for the American Farm Bureau Federation, and House Agriculture Committee Chair G.T. Thompson thanked Zeldin “for listening to America’s farmers and delivering much needed relief to our rural communities.” And Zeldin officially ended all of EPA’s office environmental justice work, shutting down offices around the country. Some environmental justice programming at EPA focused on communities disproportionately affected by air and water pollution from the food system. “By shutting down environmental justice, Trump’s EPA is turning its back on protecting clean air and safe drinking water for every American, regardless of where they live or who they voted for,” said Michelle Roos, Executive Director at the Environmental Protection Network, in a statement. (Link to this post.) The post Deregulatory Blitz at EPA Includes Climate and Water Rules That Impact Agriculture appeared first on Civil Eats.

On March 12, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced more than 30 deregulatory actions the agency is taking, including steps to roll back rules that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and farm pollution, and to eliminate environmental justice efforts. In their last evaluation of the climate crisis, the world’s top scientists found climate change is […] The post Deregulatory Blitz at EPA Includes Climate and Water Rules That Impact Agriculture appeared first on Civil Eats.

On March 12, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced more than 30 deregulatory actions the agency is taking, including steps to roll back rules that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and farm pollution, and to eliminate environmental justice efforts.

In their last evaluation of the climate crisis, the world’s top scientists found climate change is already making it harder for farmers to produce food—and that challenges including extreme heat, droughts, and destructive weather events will get worse without rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Zeldin’s actions will move the EPA off that path significantly with a reconsideration of what is called the “endangerment finding,” a scientific decision the agency made determining greenhouse gases endanger public health, which underpins the agency’s other climate rules and regulations. “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families,” Zeldin said in a statement.

Another stop in Zeldin’s plan is to once again review a rule that determines which bodies of water are subject to restrictions on runoff from farms. Called Waters of the U.S., or “WOTUS,” the rule has been in flux for decades, with every administration changing it and the Supreme Court already weighing in. It has been a key issue for the American Farm Bureau Federation, and House Agriculture Committee Chair G.T. Thompson thanked Zeldin “for listening to America’s farmers and delivering much needed relief to our rural communities.”

And Zeldin officially ended all of EPA’s office environmental justice work, shutting down offices around the country. Some environmental justice programming at EPA focused on communities disproportionately affected by air and water pollution from the food system. “By shutting down environmental justice, Trump’s EPA is turning its back on protecting clean air and safe drinking water for every American, regardless of where they live or who they voted for,” said Michelle Roos, Executive Director at the Environmental Protection Network, in a statement. (Link to this post.)

The post Deregulatory Blitz at EPA Includes Climate and Water Rules That Impact Agriculture appeared first on Civil Eats.

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California bill would restore wetlands protections in wake of Supreme Court ruling

A Supreme Court ruling placed limits on federal protections for many streams and wetlands. A bill in California's Legislature seeks to restore safeguards.

California lawmakers are proposing legislation that aims to reestablish safeguards for the state’s streams and wetlands in response to a Supreme Court ruling limiting federal clean water regulations. Supporters say the legislation has taken on heightened urgency as the Trump administration begins to scale back protections for many streams and wetlands, making them vulnerable to pollution and worsening water quality. “We need clean water to drink, to grow our food, to safely bathe and swim in, to support healthy ecosystems and the environment,” said state Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), who introduced the bill. “It’s about protecting our water supply, and it’s a common-sense measure that simply restores the protections that our waterways have always enjoyed since 1948.”Federal standards have since 1948 limited pollution discharges into waterways. Such standards later became a central part of the federal Clean Water Act, adopted in 1972.In Sackett vs. EPA, the Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that Clean Water Act protections don’t apply to many wetlands and ephemeral streams, which flow when it rains but otherwise sit dry much of the time. The court ruled that the law’s protections for the “waters of the United States” apply only to wetlands and streams that are directly connected to navigable waterways.The decision was supported by groups representing developers and the agriculture industry, who say the EPA had overstepped its authority by restricting private property owners from developing their land.California officials and clean water advocates counter that the rollback of protections will jeopardize vital water sources and ecosystems throughout the arid West.“It should be recognized as not just a threat to water quality but overall quality of life, and frankly, a threat to our state,” said Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-San José), the bill’s co-author. Kalra said the court ruling has stripped federal protections “from many of our most precious wetlands and streams, each a crucial linkage in a complex water network that undergirds every animal, every plant, every human being in our state.”The bill, SB 601, would restore previous protections for California’s wetlands and streams by requiring permits for pollution discharges from businesses and construction projects. The measure calls for state standards that meet or exceed the regulations previously in place during the Biden administration.“This was a system that was working well,” Allen said. “We’ve got to step up.”The legislation, he said, effectively rolls back the clock prior to the court decision to maintain protections, and “enshrines a new framework into state law.” Under the bill, titled the Right to Clean Water Act, the State Water Resources Control Board would be tasked with implementing and enforcing the rules. A cormorant presides over what’s left of a snorkeling pool in the drying Kern River in Bakersfield. (Gary Kazanjian / For The Times) “It’s critical that our state protects our waterways in the same way that we have over the last 50 years,” said Sean Bothwell, executive of the group California Coastkeeper Alliance, which is supporting the legislation.He called the Supreme Court ruling misguided, saying it was biased toward waterways in the wetter East Coast climate, and doesn’t fit California’s reality, where many streams flow only when it rains.“Our Mediterranean climate doesn’t allow for our rivers and streams, and the creeks that flow into them, to flow permanently,” Bothwell said. “What this bill does is it maintains the protections that Californians have enjoyed.”While the legislation is being discussed in Sacramento, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has begun to revise the so-called Waters of the United States rule to bring regulations into line with the Supreme Court ruling.Announcing plans for the regulatory rollback last week, the EPA said the agency, acting together with the Army Corps of Engineers, will “move quickly to ensure that a revised definition follows the law, reduces red-tape, cuts overall permitting costs, and lowers the cost of doing business.” The EPA said it will begin its review by seeking input from stakeholders.“We want clean water for all Americans supported by clear and consistent rules,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in the announcement. He said the previous version of the regulations “placed unfair burdens on the American people and drove up the cost of doing business.”The EPA has also announced plans to roll back more than two dozen other regulations, which environmentalists say would severely harm the nation’s progress in addressing air and water pollution.Bothwell said the EPA’s new rule, once adopted, might go beyond the Supreme Court ruling and make it “more sweeping than it already was.”Without the state legislation, he said, the combination of the court decision and the Trump administration’s pullback of regulations will leave seasonal streams and many wetlands without Clean Water Act protections. “We can no longer rely upon the federal government to protect and provide clean and affordable water,” Bothwell said.State officials and environmental advocates have said because about 90% of California’s wetlands have already been drained and destroyed, strong protections for those that remain are vital.Whether protective measures are in place could affect the state’s aquatic ecosystems. There are nearly 4,000 freshwater species in California, and researchers at the Public Policy Institute of California said in a report last year that there are no protections in place for many species that are threatened.“Our waters are connected. Our freshwater ecosystems, groundwater aquifers, rivers, wetlands and other waterways are all interconnected,” said Ashley Overhouse, a water policy advisor for the nonprofit group Defenders of Wildlife.She said when pollution flows into wetlands or streams, the effects on threatened species and water quality can be widespread, harming ecosystems that are also suffering from the effects of climate change.The bill would provide “clarity and efficient protections for the state at a time of regulatory and political uncertainty,” Overhouse said.The ultimate goal, she said, is to ensure “a future where clean, healthy water is guaranteed for all communities and all wildlife.”

USDA Faces Lawsuit and Congressional Action Over Funding Freeze and Cancellations

With a broad pause on grant funding still in place across many USDA programs and grant cancellations beginning to roll out, the agency is now facing a lawsuit and pushback from Congress. Today, the environmental group Earthjustice sued the USDA on behalf of five farms and three nonprofit organizations over the freezing of funds allocated […] The post USDA Faces Lawsuit and Congressional Action Over Funding Freeze and Cancellations appeared first on Civil Eats.

With a broad pause on grant funding still in place across many USDA programs and grant cancellations beginning to roll out, the agency is now facing a lawsuit and pushback from Congress. Today, the environmental group Earthjustice sued the USDA on behalf of five farms and three nonprofit organizations over the freezing of funds allocated through former President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). (A previous lawsuit over frozen IRA funds targeted the Trump administration more broadly.) Researchers at the University of Illinois recently estimated farmers stand to lose $12.5 billion if those funds are not delivered as promised. “The Trump administration’s unlawful actions are hurting communities across the country. This is not government efficiency. It is thoughtless waste that inflicts unwarranted financial pain on small farmers and organizations trying to improve their communities,” Hana Vizcarra, senior attorney at Earthjustice, said in a statement. At the same time, a group of Democrats in the Senate are sending a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins asking her to reinstate the two local food programs USDA canceled earlier this week, Reuters reported. Meanwhile, Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, shared with Civil Eats a legislative amendment he’s prepared that would order the USDA to honor its signed contracts with farmers. The amendment directs the USDA to immediately “unfreeze funding for and implement all contracts entered into by the Secretary prior to the date of enactment of this Act” and to pay past-due amounts on contracts as rapidly as possible. It also prohibits the cancellation of “any signed contract with a farmer or an entity providing assistance to farmers, unless the farmer or entity has failed to comply with the terms and conditions of the contract.” Booker has been vocal in recent Senate hearings about calls and emails he’s been getting from farmers across his home state. “For some of these farmers, they’re saying if they’re not able to move forward with their spring planting, they’re ultimately at risk of losing their farms,” he said. At this moment, there is no clear path for Booker to introduce the amendment. The Senate is currently debating a Republican-backed bill to keep the government funded beyond Friday night; Booker, like most Senate Democrats, is committed to opposing the bill, so won’t introduce the amendment until the current crisis is resolved. (Link to this post.) The post USDA Faces Lawsuit and Congressional Action Over Funding Freeze and Cancellations appeared first on Civil Eats.

Destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam left behind a toxic legacy

The 2023 breach of the Kakhovka dam drained a huge reservoir and exposed a vast area of toxic sediment, creating a debate about how best to rebuild after the Russia-Ukraine war

The Kakhovka dam on 6 June 2023, shortly after its partial destructionUkrhydroenergo / UPI / Alamy The 2023 breach of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam caused deadly flooding downstream, threatened to disrupt the cooling system of a nuclear power plant and deprived the region of water for irrigation. But an analysis almost two years later finds the most lasting consequence may be the huge volume of contaminated sediment left behind in the drained reservoir. “The area of the former reservoir served as a big sponge that was accumulating various pollutants,” says Oleksandra Shumilova at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Germany. Exposure to these contaminants across an area almost as large as Luxembourg could pose a long-term threat to local populations and ecosystems, and could complicate debates about whether to rebuild the dam when the Russia-Ukraine war ends, she says. On 6 June, 2023, a section of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine collapsed after an explosion, releasing a torrent of water from one of the world’s largest reservoirs into the lower Dnieper river and Black Sea beyond. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of destroying the dam, which was controlled by Russian forces at the time. Ukrainian officials immediately anticipated that the flooding and pollutants in the water would destroy ecosystems. A spokesperson for the UK-based Conflict and Environment Observatory calls the destruction of the dam “the single most environmentally damaging act of the full-scale invasion”. But the ongoing war has made a more complete assessment in the area challenging. To get a fuller picture, Shumilova and her colleagues reconstructed the flow of water and sediment after the breach using hydrological models, satellite images and data collected before Russia’s invasion. “Our aim was to give a clear scientific answer: What has happened based on scientific evidence?” she says. They found the resulting flood would have carried nearly a cubic kilometre of sediment in the reservoir downstream, much of which was contaminated with toxic heavy metals and other pollutants from upstream industry and agriculture. The flood would also have picked up around seven cubic kilometres of sediment downstream of the dam, as well as oil and other chemical products from flooded facilities along the river. When it reached the Black Sea, this floodwater formed a plume visible in satellite images across 7300 square kilometres of water. Changes in water cover after the Kakhovka dam burstEOSDA While this immediate flooding was harmful, the researchers found the contamination left behind poses a big problem of its own. They estimate more than 99 per cent of the contaminated sediment in the reservoir remained. These sediments may contain more than 83,000 tonnes of toxic heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and nickel – and they are now exposed to the air across nearly 2000 square kilometres of the former reservoir. This poses a health hazard to local people still collecting water from ponds that have formed there, says Shumilova. It may also harm plants and animals that have rapidly moved on to what was the bed of the reservoir. It could also complicate arguments from some Ukrainian environmental groups that the dam shouldn’t be rebuilt after the war in order to allow this once-flooded ecosystem to restore itself, she says. Bohdan Vykhor at the World Wide Fund for Nature’s Ukraine division agrees that the contamination poses an issue for restoring the ecosystem. But he says other, more sustainable alternatives to supply the region with water and electricity should be considered, rather than simply rebuilding the dam. “Building of the Kakhovka dam for the first time was a disaster for nature, destruction of the dam was a disaster for nature, and if we rebuild, it might be another disaster for nature,” he says.

What’s Driving High Egg Prices: Bird Flu, or Corporate Greed?

Bird flu is sweeping through egg-laying chickens in the United States at an unprecedented rate. So far in 2025, 30 million layers, as they’re known, have been culled, close to the 38 million killed throughout all of last year: Nearly 10 percent of the country’s annual number of egg-layers have been wiped out. But one of the big questions, as egg prices become a potent political football, is this: Are these shocking infection rates and cull tallies to blame for skyrocketing prices? Or is something else going on?Last month, Democratic lawmakers including Elizabeth Warren, James McGovern, and Cory Booker cast doubt on the idea that highly pathogenic avian influenza, known as HAPI, alone was to blame for soaring egg prices, writing in a letter to the Trump administration that “egg producers and grocery stores may leverage the current avian flu outbreak as an opportunity to further constrain supply or hike up egg prices to increase profits.” In the past few days, multiple outlets have reported that the U.S. Department of Justice is now opening an investigation into egg producers’ practices.Trump administration officials have, meanwhile, offered puzzling and sometimes contradictory insights. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, recently said that health agencies will not recommend poultry vaccines. (This recommendation would typically come through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, over which Kennedy has no jurisdiction.) “We’ve in fact said, at the USDA, that they should consider maybe the possibility of letting it run through the flock so that we can identify the birds and preserve the birds that are immune to it,” Kennedy said on Fox News recently. Brooke Rollins, USDA secretary, suggested that consumers concerned about egg prices could try their hand at backyard poultry farming. Few people seem to doubt that bird flu is playing some role in current prices. Food economists say we’re currently seeing a classic example of what happens when an inelastic product, or something that people typically buy no matter the price, becomes scarce and retailers begin bidding against each other to keep their shelves full. “I’m going to bid more than Aldi or Trader Joe’s is going to bid, because I have to buy those eggs,” is the way Jada Thompson, an associate professor in agricultural economics at the University of Arkansas, described the mindset.It’s also clear that some egg producers have been devastated by the culls. “I wouldn’t be surprised that some companies go out of business,” Rocio Crespo, a professor in poultry health and management at NC State University, told me. Smaller producers who have lost their entire flocks aren’t able to benefit from high prices right now.But the producers still able to sell eggs are experiencing a boom. Cal-Maine Foods, the largest egg producer in the country—and the only one publishing financial information, because it’s publicly traded—reported in January that net sales nearly doubled in a year, jumping up to $954.7 million in the quarter ending November 30, from $523.2 million at the same time the previous year.  And that was months ago, before prices went this high.Warren and her fellow lawmakers are skeptical for a reason: In December 2023, an Illinois jury found five major egg companies—Cal-Maine, United Egg Producers, United States Egg Marketers, and Rose Acre Farms—liable for millions in damages after engaging in price gouging, where the producers intentionally created the conditions of scarcity by killing hens early or exporting more eggs to other countries in order to drive up prices.A Food and Water Watch report released last Wednesday found that retail egg prices even in places without bird flu outbreaks more than doubled between January 2022 and January 2023. The Southeast region only reported its first case this past January, and raised more eggs in recent years than before the outbreak began, yet still saw the same rise in prices as the rest of the country.Even at the national level, the idea that bird flu has constrained supply, the report suggested, doesn’t quite fit: “From April to December 2023, national retail inventories of eggs exceeded the five-year average by as much as 12.8 percent. Nevertheless, average egg prices exceeded the five-year average in each month as well.” In 2023, for example, despite having no bird flu outbreaks, Cal-Maine’s egg prices soared by more than 700 percent, and the company awarded dividends to shareholders totaling $250 million—a 40-fold increase from 2022. (Cal-Maine did not respond to media inquiries by press time.)Still, other experts say, that’s hardly proof that something sketchy is going on. In order to know whether companies are engaging in anything underhanded, “you’re going to need a whole bunch of proprietary data, which I’m going to guess you don’t have—if you do, please send my way,” Thompson told me. Otherwise, “nobody will be able to tell you that answer,” she said. “I can’t tell you that there’s no additional margins being taken somewhere, but I can tell you that HPAI is having—probably a very large portion of this is going to be related to supply.” And “unless the government is setting the price, prices are going to be set by market forces,” she added.Scarcity is far and away the clearest reason for current price hikes, David Ortega, a food economist and professor at Michigan State University, told me. “When you have less supply of eggs and demand is relatively inelastic, then you can expect a pretty significant increase in the price.” He cautioned against making a “one-to-one” comparison, expecting egg prices to rise only by about 10 percent because that’s how far egg inventory has dropped. “That’s the crux of the question: why are prices 125% up if supplies are only down seven [percent], right?” Thompson said.But when inventory drops by any amount, bidding can go much higher. And because of decontamination needs and the fact that it takes egg-layers between four and five months to reach maturity, bird flu can take egg facilities offline for about six months. Chickens raised for meat, on the other hand, are usually slaughtered around eight weeks of age. That’s why there have been fewer shortages driving up chicken prices, Ortega said.But, he said, “the egg industry has some dominant players, and I think that plays a role here. If you’re an egg producer that hasn’t had an outbreak in one of your facilities, you’re not incurring costs—so you are benefiting from those higher egg prices.”Perhaps the bigger problem is that some companies may not be investing profits from the current crisis in the precautions that would slow bird flu’s spread and reduce egg-price instability in the future. Cal-Maine just paid out big dividends to shareholders this month. Yet those profits do not seem to be going back into efforts to flu-proof their operations, like building smaller facilities and hiring more dedicated workers who don’t go from chicken house to chicken house potentially spreading the virus—measures that would make outbreaks hurt a lot less. Instead, they seem to be expanding bigger facilities. Egg-laying facilities can house a million chickens or more, which can create the perfect conditions for bird flu to spread—and mutate. “When everything is good, everything goes great and perfect, but when there is a problem, it’s a disaster,” Crespo said.H5N1 actually started on poultry farms in both 1959 and 1996, and intensive food animal production drives outbreaks forward. Wild birds and other intermediary animals are the spark, but farms can be the tinder.“Obviously, the data for biosecurity is very broken,” Crespo said. Right now, we’re pretty good at diagnosing the virus and culling all chickens in order to stop the spread—but we haven’t yet figured out how to prevent outbreaks in the first place. Farmers know how to reduce some risks—keeping birds contained inside, rather than roaming outside, helps; so does washing equipment like trucks that go between farms. “But there are still some things we don’t understand fully of this virus… We don’t have the whole picture.”Jennifer Nuzzo, professor of epidemiology and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, agreed. “I don’t think we have a very clear sense of what is driving the spread of this virus,” she said. Are rodents, including mice and rats, helping to spread bird flu when they get into the feed or facilities? Is the virus being spread by poultry workers? Right now, there are too many unanswered questions. And that matters when it comes to biocontainment, or measures to stop the virus’s spread, Nuzzo said: “If we’re going to be spending money, wouldn’t it be nice to know where we can best apply those resources to mitigate future costs?” In other words, she said, “how many billions are we going to keep throwing after this virus without trying to figure out a way to take this virus off the table as a public health and agricultural threat?”One option for safeguarding farms against future outbreaks would be to break them up—creating smaller operations that make outbreaks less devastating. Farms could also employ more workers and invest in more equipment. “Rather than have one supervisor, I need five supervisors; rather than have one tractor, I may need to buy five tractors… so the people and the machines and everything don’t just cross-contaminate each other.” That’s an expensive proposition that could eat into the margins of smaller producers—but for companies making the big bucks right now, it would be a worthwhile investment to keep eggs on our tables. Another option is vaccines. There are approved vaccines for use in poultry, and countries like China have used them for years. “I understand why they don’t want to use vaccines. I get it. It’s expensive. It’s going to be a hard issue for trade,” Nuzzo said, because eggs from vaccinated chickens usually can’t be exported. But at this point, the benefits might outweigh the downsides, she said.Vaccines—for poultry and for people—are “one of the critical areas that could help you be in a position to be prepared and to intervene in time before it goes from an epidemic outbreak to a pandemic,” said Christopher Heaney, associate professor of environmental health, epidemiology, and international health at the Johns Hopkins University. “Even at the highest levels of biosecurity, you’re still going to have a challenge managing vermin and rodents,” Heaney said. “The idea of biosecurity alone preventing this from evolving, and creating a barrier between external wild animal populations and the internal environment, is just a challenging one to be able to put all of our confidence and faith in.”This means that even if producers do it right, egg prices could stay high, because adding vaccines and producing eggs in smaller operations with more workers and equipment all costs money. “The solution is not going to give us a cheaper option for the eggs,” Crespo said. But she encouraged consumers to think of it a different way: “Why does the egg have to be so inexpensive when it is such a great source of protein?”These are pressing problems that will only grow in urgency as the outbreak does. “This virus is not going to go away. This will become a recurring hazard and a recurring challenge for consumers unless we figure out a way to sustainably deal with this virus,” Nuzzo said. “Otherwise, we’re going to continue to throw billions of dollars at this problem with no sustainable solution in sight.”

Bird flu is sweeping through egg-laying chickens in the United States at an unprecedented rate. So far in 2025, 30 million layers, as they’re known, have been culled, close to the 38 million killed throughout all of last year: Nearly 10 percent of the country’s annual number of egg-layers have been wiped out. But one of the big questions, as egg prices become a potent political football, is this: Are these shocking infection rates and cull tallies to blame for skyrocketing prices? Or is something else going on?Last month, Democratic lawmakers including Elizabeth Warren, James McGovern, and Cory Booker cast doubt on the idea that highly pathogenic avian influenza, known as HAPI, alone was to blame for soaring egg prices, writing in a letter to the Trump administration that “egg producers and grocery stores may leverage the current avian flu outbreak as an opportunity to further constrain supply or hike up egg prices to increase profits.” In the past few days, multiple outlets have reported that the U.S. Department of Justice is now opening an investigation into egg producers’ practices.Trump administration officials have, meanwhile, offered puzzling and sometimes contradictory insights. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, recently said that health agencies will not recommend poultry vaccines. (This recommendation would typically come through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, over which Kennedy has no jurisdiction.) “We’ve in fact said, at the USDA, that they should consider maybe the possibility of letting it run through the flock so that we can identify the birds and preserve the birds that are immune to it,” Kennedy said on Fox News recently. Brooke Rollins, USDA secretary, suggested that consumers concerned about egg prices could try their hand at backyard poultry farming. Few people seem to doubt that bird flu is playing some role in current prices. Food economists say we’re currently seeing a classic example of what happens when an inelastic product, or something that people typically buy no matter the price, becomes scarce and retailers begin bidding against each other to keep their shelves full. “I’m going to bid more than Aldi or Trader Joe’s is going to bid, because I have to buy those eggs,” is the way Jada Thompson, an associate professor in agricultural economics at the University of Arkansas, described the mindset.It’s also clear that some egg producers have been devastated by the culls. “I wouldn’t be surprised that some companies go out of business,” Rocio Crespo, a professor in poultry health and management at NC State University, told me. Smaller producers who have lost their entire flocks aren’t able to benefit from high prices right now.But the producers still able to sell eggs are experiencing a boom. Cal-Maine Foods, the largest egg producer in the country—and the only one publishing financial information, because it’s publicly traded—reported in January that net sales nearly doubled in a year, jumping up to $954.7 million in the quarter ending November 30, from $523.2 million at the same time the previous year.  And that was months ago, before prices went this high.Warren and her fellow lawmakers are skeptical for a reason: In December 2023, an Illinois jury found five major egg companies—Cal-Maine, United Egg Producers, United States Egg Marketers, and Rose Acre Farms—liable for millions in damages after engaging in price gouging, where the producers intentionally created the conditions of scarcity by killing hens early or exporting more eggs to other countries in order to drive up prices.A Food and Water Watch report released last Wednesday found that retail egg prices even in places without bird flu outbreaks more than doubled between January 2022 and January 2023. The Southeast region only reported its first case this past January, and raised more eggs in recent years than before the outbreak began, yet still saw the same rise in prices as the rest of the country.Even at the national level, the idea that bird flu has constrained supply, the report suggested, doesn’t quite fit: “From April to December 2023, national retail inventories of eggs exceeded the five-year average by as much as 12.8 percent. Nevertheless, average egg prices exceeded the five-year average in each month as well.” In 2023, for example, despite having no bird flu outbreaks, Cal-Maine’s egg prices soared by more than 700 percent, and the company awarded dividends to shareholders totaling $250 million—a 40-fold increase from 2022. (Cal-Maine did not respond to media inquiries by press time.)Still, other experts say, that’s hardly proof that something sketchy is going on. In order to know whether companies are engaging in anything underhanded, “you’re going to need a whole bunch of proprietary data, which I’m going to guess you don’t have—if you do, please send my way,” Thompson told me. Otherwise, “nobody will be able to tell you that answer,” she said. “I can’t tell you that there’s no additional margins being taken somewhere, but I can tell you that HPAI is having—probably a very large portion of this is going to be related to supply.” And “unless the government is setting the price, prices are going to be set by market forces,” she added.Scarcity is far and away the clearest reason for current price hikes, David Ortega, a food economist and professor at Michigan State University, told me. “When you have less supply of eggs and demand is relatively inelastic, then you can expect a pretty significant increase in the price.” He cautioned against making a “one-to-one” comparison, expecting egg prices to rise only by about 10 percent because that’s how far egg inventory has dropped. “That’s the crux of the question: why are prices 125% up if supplies are only down seven [percent], right?” Thompson said.But when inventory drops by any amount, bidding can go much higher. And because of decontamination needs and the fact that it takes egg-layers between four and five months to reach maturity, bird flu can take egg facilities offline for about six months. Chickens raised for meat, on the other hand, are usually slaughtered around eight weeks of age. That’s why there have been fewer shortages driving up chicken prices, Ortega said.But, he said, “the egg industry has some dominant players, and I think that plays a role here. If you’re an egg producer that hasn’t had an outbreak in one of your facilities, you’re not incurring costs—so you are benefiting from those higher egg prices.”Perhaps the bigger problem is that some companies may not be investing profits from the current crisis in the precautions that would slow bird flu’s spread and reduce egg-price instability in the future. Cal-Maine just paid out big dividends to shareholders this month. Yet those profits do not seem to be going back into efforts to flu-proof their operations, like building smaller facilities and hiring more dedicated workers who don’t go from chicken house to chicken house potentially spreading the virus—measures that would make outbreaks hurt a lot less. Instead, they seem to be expanding bigger facilities. Egg-laying facilities can house a million chickens or more, which can create the perfect conditions for bird flu to spread—and mutate. “When everything is good, everything goes great and perfect, but when there is a problem, it’s a disaster,” Crespo said.H5N1 actually started on poultry farms in both 1959 and 1996, and intensive food animal production drives outbreaks forward. Wild birds and other intermediary animals are the spark, but farms can be the tinder.“Obviously, the data for biosecurity is very broken,” Crespo said. Right now, we’re pretty good at diagnosing the virus and culling all chickens in order to stop the spread—but we haven’t yet figured out how to prevent outbreaks in the first place. Farmers know how to reduce some risks—keeping birds contained inside, rather than roaming outside, helps; so does washing equipment like trucks that go between farms. “But there are still some things we don’t understand fully of this virus… We don’t have the whole picture.”Jennifer Nuzzo, professor of epidemiology and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, agreed. “I don’t think we have a very clear sense of what is driving the spread of this virus,” she said. Are rodents, including mice and rats, helping to spread bird flu when they get into the feed or facilities? Is the virus being spread by poultry workers? Right now, there are too many unanswered questions. And that matters when it comes to biocontainment, or measures to stop the virus’s spread, Nuzzo said: “If we’re going to be spending money, wouldn’t it be nice to know where we can best apply those resources to mitigate future costs?” In other words, she said, “how many billions are we going to keep throwing after this virus without trying to figure out a way to take this virus off the table as a public health and agricultural threat?”One option for safeguarding farms against future outbreaks would be to break them up—creating smaller operations that make outbreaks less devastating. Farms could also employ more workers and invest in more equipment. “Rather than have one supervisor, I need five supervisors; rather than have one tractor, I may need to buy five tractors… so the people and the machines and everything don’t just cross-contaminate each other.” That’s an expensive proposition that could eat into the margins of smaller producers—but for companies making the big bucks right now, it would be a worthwhile investment to keep eggs on our tables. Another option is vaccines. There are approved vaccines for use in poultry, and countries like China have used them for years. “I understand why they don’t want to use vaccines. I get it. It’s expensive. It’s going to be a hard issue for trade,” Nuzzo said, because eggs from vaccinated chickens usually can’t be exported. But at this point, the benefits might outweigh the downsides, she said.Vaccines—for poultry and for people—are “one of the critical areas that could help you be in a position to be prepared and to intervene in time before it goes from an epidemic outbreak to a pandemic,” said Christopher Heaney, associate professor of environmental health, epidemiology, and international health at the Johns Hopkins University. “Even at the highest levels of biosecurity, you’re still going to have a challenge managing vermin and rodents,” Heaney said. “The idea of biosecurity alone preventing this from evolving, and creating a barrier between external wild animal populations and the internal environment, is just a challenging one to be able to put all of our confidence and faith in.”This means that even if producers do it right, egg prices could stay high, because adding vaccines and producing eggs in smaller operations with more workers and equipment all costs money. “The solution is not going to give us a cheaper option for the eggs,” Crespo said. But she encouraged consumers to think of it a different way: “Why does the egg have to be so inexpensive when it is such a great source of protein?”These are pressing problems that will only grow in urgency as the outbreak does. “This virus is not going to go away. This will become a recurring hazard and a recurring challenge for consumers unless we figure out a way to sustainably deal with this virus,” Nuzzo said. “Otherwise, we’re going to continue to throw billions of dollars at this problem with no sustainable solution in sight.”

How to Help Butterflies That Are Disappearing

A new report finds that butterfly populations in the continental U.S. declined by one fifth between 2000 and 2020—but it’s not too late

How to Help Butterflies That Are DisappearingA new report finds that butterfly populations in the continental U.S. declined by one fifth between 2000 and 2020—but it’s not too lateBy Eliza Grames & The Conversation US West Coast lady butterflies range across the western U.S., but their numbers have dropped by 80 percent in two decades. Prisma by Dukas Presseagentur GmbH/Alamy Stock PhotoThe following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research.If the joy of seeing butterflies seems increasingly rare these days, it isn’t your imagination.From 2000 to 2020, the number of butterflies fell by 22% across the continental United States. That’s 1 in 5 butterflies lost. The findings are from an analysis just published in the journal Science by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Powell Center Status of Butterflies of the United States Working Group, which I am involved in.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.We found declines in just about every region of the continental U.S. and across almost all butterfly species.Overall, nearly one-third of the 342 butterfly species we were able to study declined by more than half. Twenty-two species fell by more than 90%. Only nine actually increased in numbers.Some species’ numbers are dropping faster than others. The West Coast lady, a fairly widespread species across the western U.S., dropped by 80% in 20 years. Given everything we know about its biology, it should be doing fine – it has a wide range and feeds on a variety of plants. Yet, its numbers are absolutely tanking across its range.Why care about butterflies?Butterflies are beautiful. They inspire people, from art to literature and poetry. They deserve to exist simply for the sake of existing. They are also important for ecosystem function.Butterflies are pollinators, picking up pollen on their legs and bodies as they feed on nectar from one flower and carrying it to the next. In their caterpillar stage, they also play an important role as herbivores, keeping plant growth in check.Butterflies can also serve as an indicator species that can warn of threats and trends in other insects. Because humans are fond of butterflies, it’s easy to get volunteers to participate in surveys to count them.The annual North American Butterfly Association Fourth of July Count is an example and one we used in the analysis. The same kind of nationwide monitoring by amateur naturalists doesn’t exist for less charismatic insects such as walking sticks.What’s causing butterflies to decline?Butterfly populations can decline for a number of reasons. Habitat loss, insecticides, rising temperatures and drying landscapes can all harm these fragile insects.A study published in 2024 found that a change in insecticide use was a major factor in driving butterfly declines in the Midwest over 17 years. The authors, many of whom were also part of the current study, noted that the drop coincided with a shift to using seeds with prophylactic insecticides, rather than only spraying crops after an infestation.The Southwest saw the greatest drops in butterfly abundance of any region. As that region heats up and dries out, the changing climate may be driving some of the butterfly decline there. Butterflies have a high surface-to-volume ratio – they don’t hold much moisture – so they can easily become desiccated in dry conditions. Drought can also harm the plants that butterflies rely on.Only the Pacific Northwest didn’t lose butterfly population on average. This trend was largely driven by an irruptive species, meaning one with extremely high abundance in some years – the California tortoiseshell. When this species was excluded from the analyses, trends in the Pacific Northwest were similar to other regions.When we looked at each species by its historical range, we found something else interesting.Many species suffered their highest losses at the southern ends of their ranges, while the northern losses generally weren’t as severe. While we could not link drivers to trends directly, the reason for this pattern might involve climate change, or greater exposure to agriculture with insecticides in southern areas, or it may be a combination of many stressors.There is hope for populations to recoverSome butterfly species can have multiple generations per year, and depending on the environmental conditions, the number of generations can vary between years.This gives me a bit of hope when it comes to butterfly conservation. Because they have such short generation times, even small conservation steps can make a big difference and we can see populations bounce back.The Karner blue is an example. It’s a small, endangered butterfly that depends on oak savannas and pine barren ecosystems. These habitats are uncommon and require management, especially prescribed burning, to maintain. With restoration efforts, one Karner blue population in the Albany Pine Bush Preserve in New York rebounded from a few hundred individuals in the early 1990s to thousands of butterflies.Similar management and restoration efforts could help other rare and declining butterflies to recover.The endangered Karner blue butterfly has struggled with habitat loss.Natural History Collection/Alamy Stock PhotoWhat you can do to help butterflies recoverThe magnitude and rate of biodiversity loss in the world right now can make one feel helpless. But while national and international efforts are needed to address the crisis, you can also take small actions that can have quick benefits, starting in your own backyard.Butterflies love wildflowers, and planting native wildflowers can benefit many butterfly species. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has guides recommending which native species are best to plant in which parts of the country. Letting grass grow can help, even if it’s just a strip of grass and wildflowers a couple of feet wide at the back of the yard.Supporting policies that benefit conservation can also help. In some states, insects aren’t considered wildlife, so state wildlife agencies have their hands tied when it comes to working on butterfly conservation. But those laws could be changed.The federal Endangered Species Act can also help. The law mandates that the government maintain habitat for listed species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in December 2024 recommended listing the monarch butterfly as a threatened species. With the new study, we now have population trends for more than half of all U.S. butterfly species, including many that likely should be considered for listing.With so many species needing help, it can be difficult to know where to start. But the new data can help concentrate conservation efforts on those species at the highest risk.I believe this study should be a wake-up call about the need to better protect butterflies and other insects – “the little things that run the world.”This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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