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For Immediate Release
February, 10 2014, 01:24pm EDT
Contact:
Stacy Malkan, stacydmalkan@gmail.com, (510) 542-9224;
Eric Dyson, edyson@foe.org, (202) 222-0730,
Paul Towers, Pesticide Action Network, ptowers@panna.org, (916) 216-1082
More Than a Half Million People Demand Home Depot and Lowe's Stop Selling Bee-Killing Pesticides
Thousands participate in bee swarm actions across the country in the week of Valentine's Day
WASHINGTON
This week, over 27,000 people coast-to-coast are swarming Lowe's and Home Depot stores to support the bees that pollinate our flowers for Valentine's Day. In a coalition effort called the Bee Week of Action, Friends of the Earth and allies are delivering more than half a million petition signatures and Valentines asking these retailers to "show bees some love" by taking pesticides shown to harm and kill bees -- and garden plants treated with these pesticides -- off their shelves.
Friends of the Earth U.S. is partnering with Beelieve, Beyond Pesticides, Beyond Toxics, Center for Food Safety, CREDO Mobilize, Friends of the Earth Canada, Northwest Center for Pesticide Alternatives, Organic Consumers Association, Pesticide Action Network, SumOfUs and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation to turn out activists across the country, including in larger actions in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, the San Francisco Bay Area, the Boston area, and Eugene, Ore.
This national week of action is a part of the "BeeAction.org" campaign that is calling on retailers to stop selling neonicotinoids -- the most widely used class of pesticides in the world -- due to a growing body of science indicating that the pesticides are a key factor in recent global bee deaths.
Bees and other pollinators, essential for the two-thirds of the food crops humans eat everyday, are dwindling worldwide. Last year, U.S. beekeepers reported losing 40-100 percent of their hives, and they are likely facing another winter of historic bee die-offs.
A groundbreaking pilot study released last summer found that many bee-friendly garden plants sold at Home Depot and Lowe's contained neonicotinoid pesticides with no warning to consumers.
"Home Depot and Lowe's need to show bees some love and stop poisoning them with bee-killing pesticides. We're calling on these stores to help solve the bee crisis by immediately removing neonicotinoid pesticides and home garden plants that are treated with these harmful chemicals from their shelves," said Lisa Archer, director of the food and technology program at Friends of the Earth U.S.
The European Union's two-year ban on the most widely used neonics went into effect in December. In January, the European Food Safety Authority cited evidence that two neonicotinoids, acetamiprid and imadacloprid, "may affect the developing human nervous system" of children, and they recommended further restricting their use. The UK's top garden retailers, including Homebase, B&Q and Wickes, have voluntarily stopped selling neonicotinoids.
More than half a million Americans have signed petitions demanding that Lowe's and Home Depot immediately stop selling off-the-shelf neonicotinoid insecticides for home garden use. Friends of the Earth U.S. and allies have also asked Home Depot and Lowe's to stop selling plants pre-treated with the pesticides, make third-party certified organic starts and plants available, and educate customers on their policies to protect bees and other pollinators.
"We must take immediate action to address the bee crisis. Europe has banned bee-harming pesticides, retailers in the UK are refusing to sell them, and it's time for Home Depot and Lowe's to come to the table and make a serious commitment to stop selling products that are killing bees before the spring planting season begins," said Archer. "In the meantime, gardeners should start their plants from untreated seeds or choose organic plants for their gardens."
In response to revelations that home garden plants sold in their stores contain neonicotinoids, Home Depot said they would look into the matter and be in touch with environmental groups. They have yet to respond to requests for a meeting. Lowe's has not made any public statements or responded to meeting requests.
The EPA has delayed action on neonicotinoid pesticides until 2018, despite growing evidence that neonics are a key factor in bee declines, and more than a million public comments urging swift protection for bees. In 2013, U.S. Representatives John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) introduced the "Saving American's Pollinators Act," which seeks to suspend the use of neonics on bee-attractive plants until EPA reviews all of the available data, including field studies.
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
(202) 783-7400LATEST NEWS
'Historic Mistake': Brazil Opens Up Amazon to New Oil Drilling Ahead of Global Climate Summit
"For us all to have a future, the oil industry can have no future," said one campaigner.
Oct 20, 2025
As climate leaders and policymakers arrive in Belém, Brazil next month, for the global climate summit that officials have pledged will stand apart from previous conferences due to its emphasis on "implementation," the country's government-run Petrobras firm will be drilling for oil just over 200 miles away in the Amazon, after the company was granted a license Monday.
Petrobras said it plans to begin drilling immediately in a project that will last about five months at the mouth of the Amazon River—the Foz de Amazonas region.
Despite President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's reputation as an international climate leader, he has claimed that oil revenue will help fund Brazil's transition to renewable energy, but Ilan Zugman, Latin America and Caribbean director at the grassroots climate action group 350.org, said Monday that in granting the license, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) was "doubling down on a model that has already failed."
Petrobras is planning to drill an oil well at an offshore site, Block 59, that is 310 miles from the mouth of the Amazon.
IBAMA previously denied Petrobras the license, saying the company had not provided adequate plans for how it would protect wildlife in the case of an oil spill.
"The history of oil in Brazil shows this clearly: huge profits for a few, and inequality, destruction, and violence for local populations."
In September, the agency approved a pre-operational environmental assessment and said a new "fauna simulation" would take place after the license was issued, allowed Petrobras to prove after obtaining permission for drilling that it would protect wildlife.
The Amazon region is home to about 10% of the planet's wildlife, and climate advocates have raised alarm that the river's currents would swiftly bring the damage from an oil spill straight to the habitats of many animals and plants.
Brazilian NGO the Climate Observatory said the approval of the license "sabotages" the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), which World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Celeste Sauro said recently "aspires to be a turning point, a moment when the world shifts from ambition to implementation."
Last year was the first year to exceed 1.5°C above average preindustrial temperatures, and the previous 10 years have been the warmest on record. Scientists and the International Energy Agency have warned that no new oil or other fossil fuel projects have a place on a pathway to reaching net-zero global carbon emissions by 2050.
“The decision is disastrous from an environmental, climate, and sociobiodiversity perspective," said the Climate Observatory.
The group told The Guardian that civil society organizations would be taking the Brazilian government to court over the license, saying its approval was rife with "illegalities and technical flaws."
Despite IBAMA's approval, an opinion signed by 29 staff members at the agency in February said they recommended denying the license due to the risk of “massive biodiversity loss in a highly sensitive marine ecosystem."
Zugman called the decision a "historic mistake."
"The history of oil in Brazil shows this clearly: huge profits for a few, and inequality, destruction, and violence for local populations," said Zugman. "Brazil must take real climate leadership and break the cycle of extraction that has led us to the current climate crisis. We urgently need a just energy transition plan, based on renewables, that respects Indigenous, quilombola, and riverside peoples and guarantees them a leading role in decisions about climate and energy—including at COP30."
Earlier this year, Indigenous leaders representing dozens of Amazon ethnicities and tribes signed a declaration demanding that officials at COP30 "nullify oil blocks that have not had the consent of Indigenous people," "halt investment in new oil infrastructure," and create phase-out plans for oil and gas operations.
Nick Young, co-head of story and communications at Greenpeace International, called IBAMA's decision "disastrous."
"A spill here would be catastrophic and uniquely hard to contain in the Amazon plume," said Young. "And in addition to the risk of oil spills, the science clearly shows that we cannot afford to burn even existing oil reserves, let alone new ones."
"For us all to have a future, the oil industry can have no future," he added. "It makes zero sense to allow them to find new oil to throw on the fire."
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Trump-Appointed Judges Give Him Green Light to Send Troops Into Portland
In a dissent, Judge Susan Graber accused her 9th Circuit colleagues of eroding "core constitutional principles."
Oct 20, 2025
Two federal judges are giving President Donald Trump the green light to send National Guard troops into Portland, Oregon on Monday.
The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit granted the US Department of Justice's (DOJ) request to put a hold on US District Judge Karin Immergut's earlier order blocking deployment of the National Guard to Oregon's largest city.
The two judges who ruled in the DOJ's favor were appointed by Trump, while the lone dissenter in the case, Judge Susan Graber, was appointed by former President Bill Clinton.
The court's majority ruled that the protests outside the Portland Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility were sufficiently disruptive to justify deploying the National Guard, despite the fact that demonstrations outside the facility in recent weeks had not disrupted operations.
Judge Ryan Nelson, one of the Trump appointees, went so far as to issue a concurring opinion stating that the president's right to deploy the National Guard, even over the objections of state and local officials, cannot be reviewed by the judiciary.
In a scathing dissent, Graber noted that "the record contains no evidence whatsoever that, on September 27... ICE was unable either to protect its Portland facility or to execute the immigration laws it is charged with enforcing." This is relevant, she said, because the law states that the president may only deploy the National Guard "to repel a foreign invasion, quell a rebellion, or overcome an inability to execute the laws."
Graber then accused her colleagues of eroding "core constitutional principles, including sovereign states’ control over their states’ militias and the people’s First Amendment rights to assemble and to object to the government’s policies and actions."
Graber's argument echoed a ruling made earlier this month by Immergut, who was also appointed to the bench by Trump and who said his declarations that violent protests at the Portland ICE facility prevented the enforcement of the law were "untethered to facts."
In addition to Portland, Trump is also seeking to send National Guard troops to Chicago over the objections of both Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. The administration has appealed that case to the US Supreme Court.
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Nearly Half of Dems in Competitive Primary Districts Say They 'Could Never' Support a Candidate Backed by AIPAC
"The political rules of the last almost half-century are changing before our eyes," said Jewish Currents editor Peter Beinart.
Oct 20, 2025
As voters sour on Israel after over two years of genocide in Gaza, an internal poll suggests that backing from the pro-Israel lobby may be a liability for Democrats seeking to win their primaries.
The Democratic polling firm Upswing Strategies canvassed 850 Democratic voters in congressional districts across Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. The survey asked voters for some of the most competitive Democratic primaries in the 2026 election cycle a number of questions about their sympathies in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
It also zeroed in on their feelings about pro-Israel lobbying groups, including the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which supported 152 Democrats who received more than $28 million in total during the 2024 election and had a role in toppling several House progressives, including then-Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY).
The poll found that nearly half of voters in these competitive districts (48%) agreed with the statement that they "could never support" a candidate for Congress that was funded by AIPAC or the pro-Israel lobby more generally. Over a quarter of voters, 28%, said they strongly felt they could never support a candidate backed by AIPAC.
Just 40% said they "could see" themselves supporting a candidate backed by AIPAC, "especially if I agreed with them on most other issues," but just 10% expressed that belief strongly, while the other 30% said they only agreed with it somewhat.
The poll was posted to social media by Matthew Eadie, a reporter for the Illinois news outlet Evanston Now, on Saturday. He said that since it was conducted in early September, its results have been "circulating among Democrats in over a half-dozen competitive primaries in mostly Illinois."
With Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin's seat coming open in 2026, several current Illinois congresspeople have signaled their intent to run, leaving their own House seats up for grabs. Among them are some AIPAC favorites, including Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), who received over $63,000 from pro-Israel groups during the 2023-24 election cycle and nearly $269,000 since his first campaign in 2016; and Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.), who received over $17,000 last cycle and nearly $109,000 since her first campaign in 2012.
Pro-Israel groups will also likely seek to hold off yet another primary challenge to Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) from the progressive community organizer Kina Collins, who has run against him during the last three cycles. During the 2024 election, an AIPAC affiliate, the United Democracy Project, spent approximately half a million dollars running ads attacking Collins, who had described Israel's actions against Palestinians, including its blockade of food and water supplies, as "war crimes."
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), a progressive who has referred to Israel's actions as a "genocide" and sponsored a bill to halt military aid to the nation, was targeted with more than $157,000 worth of digital ads and mailers in 2022 by the AIPAC ally Democratic Majority for Israel. However, in 2024, while blitzing other races, the groups held off on targeting Ramirez, whose support was deemed to be too strong.
Other districts in the survey included that of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who has weathered multiple challenges from AIPAC, which likewise held off in 2024 due to her popularity.
On the flip side, it also included the district of one of Israel's strongest soldiers, the self-described "centrist" Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Pa.), whom AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups armed with more than $5.4 million in 2024 to take down the progressive Jewish incumbent Rep. Andy Levin, whom AIPAC's former president called "the most corrosive member of Congress to the US-Israel relationship.”
While the poll's results were not broken down by congressional district, they do show that in a political era defined by the Gaza genocide, the Israel lobby's influence within the party may be on the wane. Last week, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a centrist challenger to the progressive Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), seemed to exemplify this when he pledged to return the money he'd received from AIPAC, saying, “I’m a friend of Israel, but not of its current government, and AIPAC’s mission is to back that government."
This wane is partially due to the collapse of support for Israel among Democrats over the past two years. Affirming what past polls have shown, the Upswing poll found that Democratic voters overwhelmingly have a wildly positive view of not only Palestine, but international organizations that have shown support to Palestinians like the United Nations and Doctors Without Borders, while having overwhelmingly negative views of Israel and especially its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
And while it was less salient to voters than holding President Donald Trump accountable and lowering the cost of living, 53% of voters in the poll said "putting pressure on the Israeli government to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza" was a 10 out of 10 issue on the scale of importance for Democrats to focus on, while 72% said it was at least an 8 out of 10.
Peter Beinart, the editor-at-large of the progressive magazine Jewish Currents, said, "It's astonishing how quickly the politics are moving."
Democratic politicians, he continued, now "don't fear AIPAC. They fear being associated with AIPAC. The political rules of the last almost half-century are changing before our eyes."
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