The recent decision by federal Magistrate Barry Kurren striking down Kauai’s GMO law, is a slap in the face to the victims of GMO seed/chemical corporations. And, there is no reason to believe that this same magistrate will have any more respect for the people of Hawaii County when he decides whether to invalidate the County of Hawaii GMO ordinance. Actually it was Federal District Judge John Michael Seabright who was selected to hear the County of Hawaii GMO ordinance case. Judge Seabright is a judge known for his integrity. But big surprise in the world of Hawaii politics, Judge Seabright opted out and allowed Magistrate Kurren to take the Hawaii case along with the Kauai case. Now if I were to bend over backwards, and give this magistrate the benefit of the doubt, I would say he simply made the political decision that agricultural policy decisions should be uniform and made solely at the state level – regardless of whether or not there is any state law to be preempted. In his Kauai County decision he more or less does a fair job of explaining why federal law does not preempt state law, but then completely reverses his logic to find that state law preempts county law. Bottom line: the Magistrate’s decision does not make sense other than superficially. In Hawaii there is overlapping state and county jurisdiction of the relevant subject matter, and therefore the Court should not find preemption unless the state already passed comprehensive agricultural biotechnology laws and or a county law directly interferes with a specific state law. Hawaiis state statutes are however void of any laws on agricultural biotechnology, much less any comprehensive legislative scheme in this area. Hence, no preemption. It should be that simple. Our state laws only tangentially deal with associated subjects of the interstate movement of plants, pests, and of noxious weeds. In fact last legislative term some state legislators attempted but failed to pass laws in this area of agricultural biotechnology. Likewise when State Senators asked the Attorney General to make a finding that the County of Hawaii ordinance was preempted by state law, he refused. In contrast to the GMO issue, the State of Hawaii does have a regulatory framework for pesticides, but that framework is minimal versus comprehensive, and does not contain reporting requirements that conflict with the proposed County of Hawaii reporting requirements. We must bear in mine that throughout the nation – and the world - there is increasing public interest in having local say-so in matters that affect the health and wellbeing of our local communities. There is mounting frustration with our legislators who do not have the spine to stand up to these multi-national greedy corporate agendas. This public interest however is challenged by the increasing corporate usurpation of state and local governments. Other examples: the monopoly of HELCO on Hawaii Island, and if we are not careful, the proposed corporate take over of our Hawaii County solid waste program a.k.a. the proposed mass burn incinerator project. Sadly, unless Magistrate Kurren’s decision is overturned on appeal, the result will be the destruction of all non-gmo corresponding crops, eradication of our bee population and of other beneficial insects and micro-organisms. For practical purposes these GMO chemical corporations seek to undermine our State Constitutional commitment to protect the diversity of agriculture and undermine our state and county public trust fiduciary duty to our land and water natural resources. So too, this Court will have opened the door to all the economic and health ills associated with increasingly toxic soils and toxic crops. And be assured these GMO chemical corporations have an aggressive back up plan involving a “buyout” of the state legislature in one way or another - mostly by using misinformed farmers to do their bidding along with top-notch lobbyists to control key state legislators. So get ready for state legislative proposals that will exempt these GMO companies and their local pawns from any possible regulation. BUT don’t despair – regardless of the outcome of these court cases – there is more than one way to skin a cat.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 03:44:05 +0000
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