Excerpt: "Scotts will pay record criminal and civilian penalties for a litany of pesticide violations, including 'illegally applying insecticides to its wild bird food products that are toxic to birds.'"
Lawn and garden products company Scotts Miracle-Gro will pay $12.5 million in fines for poisoning bird feed and violating pesticide laws. (photo: doncraft.com)
Miracle-Grow Poisons Bird Feed, Violates Pesticide Laws
10 September 12
awn and garden products company Scotts Miracle-Gro will pay $12.5 million in fines for poisoning bird feed and violating pesticide laws, officials said Friday.
Scotts will pay record criminal and civilian penalties for a litany of pesticide violations, including "illegally applying insecticides to its wild bird food products that are toxic to birds," the Justice Department said in a statement.
The company pleaded guilty in February to that violation as well as falsifying pesticide registration documents, distributing pesticides with misleading and unapproved labels and distributing unregistered pesticides.
A Columbus, Ohio, federal court on Friday sentenced Scotts to pay a $4 million fine and perform community service for 11 criminal violations of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).
In a separate agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which resolves additional civil pesticide violations, Scotts agreed to pay more than $6 million in penalties and spend $2 million on environmental projects.
Both the criminal and civil settlements are the largest under FIFRA to date, the Justice Department said.
"As the world's largest marketer of residential-use pesticides, Scotts has a special obligation to make certain that it observes the laws governing the sale and use of its products," said Ignacia Moreno, assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice.
As part of the criminal settlement, Scotts will contribute $500,000 to organizations that protect bird habitat.
In the plea agreement, Scotts admitted that it applied pesticides to its bird food products against EPA rules to protect them from insects during storage.
Scotts sold the illegally treated bird food for six months after employees warned management of the dangers of the pesticides, the department said.
"By the time it voluntarily recalled these products in March 2008, Scotts had sold more than 70 million units of bird food illegally treated with pesticide that is toxic to birds," it said.
Scotts, based in Marysville, Ohio, also imported pesticides into the United States without required documentation. More than 100 Scotts products were found in violation of FIFRA.
"It's important for all of our stakeholders to know that we have learned a lot from these events and that new people and processes have been put in place to prevent them from happening again," Jim Hagedorn, Scotts chairman and chief executive, said in a separate statement.
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NEVER VOTE REPUBLICAN !!
our future is at stake
That is precisely why the bill is so dangerous and misguided. The only assurance we have that Obama won't abuse this new power is his signing statement. We are supposed to be a nation of laws, not of men. The NDAA turns that completely on its head.
I'm disappointed to see you, in your zeal to support Obama and the Democrats, both minimize and misrepresent what is in this bill. That's not to say that Republicans aren't worse. But it is to plead for a bit of realism from your side.
Shame on Obama, shame on the democrats who voted for this nefarious legislation, shame on any democrats who say it's all right to do so long as they themselves are not targeted! It goes against everything the founding fathers stood for. It represents the end of habeas corpus; it means the end of the rule of law.
and the main duty of congress is to protect the constitution - this is offensive
What's wrong with trying them? Give them their day in court. Let a jury decide if they've done something wrong. If they're found guilty, then they go to jail.
Basically, you're supporting putting people in jail who might break the law.
You miss the point. Who is going to decide if someone has become a terrorist?
Our constitution guarantees that everyone would get a fair trial and this bill flies in the face of that guarantee.
You may have confidence that Obama might not use this power (even though I do not share that confidence given his actions against an American citizen named Al Awaki), but do you really want someone like a President Santorum or a President Gingrich wielding such power? Santorum might declare all gay people to be terrorists and Gingrich might declare all illegal aliens to be terrorists.
Wake up and protect your rights.
Lee Nason
New Bedford,Massach usetts
Bout right? Teentsie question; now that I'm all cozy and 'protected', who's protecting me from those protecting me?
Google, while we still can, the Enabling Act.
Every usurpation of power will always be for our safety, our security, 'for our own good'.
I personally would like this government to get it's gdamn nose out my 'own good'. It has no idea what good is, and most especially, mine.
Youe post says "Americans are exempted from this Bill, unless they become terrorists." Are you naieve of what?? Our freedom and due process is at stake with Republicans AND Democrats and it was Obama who signed this totally unconstitutiona l bill!!!
I am extremely saddened to see this comment coming from you.
I sincerely hope that you have simply missed the point that this bill gives the President the authority to determine just who a terrorist is, whether they are actual terrorists by anyone else's definition or not. This is way too much power to put into the hands of anyone, much less one of the lunatics running for President on the Republican ticket!
Just suppose we were unlucky enough to see one of these Republicans elected President and they decided that Barbara K is a terrorist because of the incendiary comments she has been making on ReaderSupported News. They then have Barbara K arrested by the military and whisked away from her home and deposited in Guantanamo, never to be heard from again. She has no legal rights, no access to an attorney, and no way what-so-ever to defend herself or access any assistance in her plight. Are you really in agreement with this? Do you consider yourself a terrorist? I feel quite sure there are many people in detention now who would never have considered themselves terrorists and this is before enactment of this atrocious law!
The catch-all phrase "...or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States" is just the kind of fig leaf that could be used against, say, the Occupy movement.
Some of us remember Joseph McCarthy, Richard Nixon, and J. Edgar Hoover. They would have jumped on that phrase and got busy locking up Occupiers last October.
Who are the new Hoovers, Nixons, and McCarthys? Nobody knows for sure. I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet on the current lot, but it won't take much.
This means, even if Obama actually never does, future presidents can simply say anyone in opposition to them is potentially "supporting terrorism" and they get locked away forever without trial. We would never know what actually was the reason behind the imprisonment.
While I may not support Ron Paul about everything, let's all pray he at least makes it to the stage against to debate Obama, whether as a republican or independent, as many issues like this one will never even be mentioned otherwise. He doesn't have to beat Obama, but a healthy conversation in the spotlight would be a great star.
Sure, occasionally, I hear Ron Paul say something that makes me wonder what planet he was raised on. But so help me, I would vote for Ron Paul if he believed the earth is flat so long as he convinced me that he had an abiding commitment to the Bill of Rights, and that he repented any derogatory remark he may ever have made about Martin Luther King.
If the remark was merely about Martin Luther King Day, I might be less demanding. My feeling about the day is that it has turned into a Forgetting-Abou t-Martin-Luther -King Day, has turned into a day for celebrating the man as a substitute for hearing his message.)
Paul is personally pro-life but has stated numerous times that he would not make any federal law concerning abortion or the right to choose.
But where do you get gay rights or civil rights? Paul is completely 100% in favor for the rights of all citizens to be identical regardless of gender, race, age, sexual preference, ethnicity, religion, etc., etc. including the right to marry whom one pleases and the right to be fairly treated by our judicial system which punishes minorities far more often and far more severely than majority citizens.
His closest allies in Congress on gay rights issues included Barney Frank!
Your facts are messed up.
Lee Nason
New Bedford, Massachusetts
You are so smart. what aren't you getting from his newsletters?
@spellbinder...NO...I've looked at all ron paul's positions....
his only ones that make a wee bit of sense are limiting some projection of power in terms of extant bases around the world, his wish to end the drug war and his favoring of due process and privacy protections.
The rest is extremely conservative AYN RAND style "ME FIRST" cultism. Pure Social Darwinism that favors only those who do well in the Dog Eat Dog capitalist model. He would throw those not geared towards commerce under the Bus. Those victims are what I call Casualties of Capitalism and they are everywhere...th ough they are typically too dumbed down to know it. Ron Paul is a cult member and cult leader....follo wing a cult as bereft of merit as scientology and the moon church. It's the Cult of Ayn Rand. Why do you think he named his son RAND? It's because of Ayn Rand's influence on him, and because he's a gold bug so...KrugerRAND . Ayn Randism is a Brutal and Merciless, Uncaring Cult.There is nothing wrong with the Government being Big, having Regulatory Teeth and employing People. One reason republicans want to gut gov't is that many gov't workers are in Unions. Republicans hate the labor Movement. Paul is a gold bug.Gold has no inherent value beyond it's use in jewelry and industry. Paul's notion to cut the fed budget 1 trillion in the first year would cause a GLACIAL Depression
Aside from your unfounded allegations, Ron Paul did not name his son Rand. He named him Randy and Ron Paul's wife (who is not political) shortened it for convenience sake to Rand.
Furthermore, Paul is definitely not particularly admiring of Ayn Rand in a number of important areas: Rand was an atheist and Paul is a firm Christian; Rand loved pollution and Paul is an advocate of stiffer anti-pollution regulations than the EPA; Rand was a gung-ho foreign interventionist and Paul is an advocate for a non-interventio nist foreign policy; Rand suggested her followers read detective novels and look at abstract modern art and Paul suggests his followers read economics and history and look at whatever pleases them.
Lee Nason
New Bedford, Massachusetts
Obama lost my vote with this act. I only hope he and the idiot Congress have not lost us our country.
Indefinite detention IS terrorism.
The primary target of The War on Terror is YOU & ME. And when the inevitable fit hits the shan in this misguided jihad, there'll be the requisite oop's and sorry-about-tha t's. You & I, and our liberty, will be considered collateral damage in the Necessary War That Must Go On.
This is just another bill of goods like the latest iPhone or a new set of tires. The only difference is it's sold to us in the political marketplace, and this one will carry the brand names Freedom and National Security.
So show me the way to the cash register. I'll whip out my debit card and buy another six-pack of Freedom and I'll go home, turn on the TV, watch the news and get drunk.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/103847.html
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/10608-ron-paul-introduces-bill-to-repeal-ndaas-indefinite-detention
Despite his shortcomings in the areas of protecting the environment and dealing with civil rights, Ron Paul's campaign is a clarion call for our society to rethink many now deeply ingrained attitudes about privacy, national security, and military interventionism .