Subject: Take action to protect pollinators
From: Caleb Laieski <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 05:18:50 -0700

Dear President Obama, 

Thank you for calling national attention to the importance of pollinators and the urgent need to protect these dwindling species. As your administration recognized in its June 20, 2014 memorandum, honey bees and other pollinators play a critical role in our agricultural economy and are an integral part of healthy ecosystems. And they continue to suffer immeasurable losses.

Pollinators are facing many challenges, including pesticides, habitat loss, parasites and pathogens. In the past several years, dozens of peer-reviewed independent scientific studies have indicated that a certain class of systemic insecticides, called neonicotinoids, is playing a leading role in poor pollinator health and colony collapse. Neonicotinoids are now the most widely used insecticides in the world and their use has been repeatedly shown to have lethal and sub-lethal effects on bees, other pollinators and beneficial insects. In December 2013, the European Union implemented a two-year moratorium on three of the worst neonicotinoids in order to protect pollinators—we need to take similar, swift action in the United States.

This problem is urgent. Beekeepers are still suffering record-high losses, and many native bee species are also suffering declines. The Environmental Protection Agency plans to complete its review of neonicotinoids by 2018 – but this timeframe is completely unacceptable given the severity of the current situation. 

As the new inter-agency Pollinator Health Task Force finalizes strategies to best safeguard bee populations, we urge you to ensure pesticides, especially neonicotinoids, are taken into account and decisively addressed. They are a key part of the problem and need to be tackled head on. 

Thank you for your time and all you do,

Caleb Laieski