“So are you happy with the decision?” my sister asked as I fielded phone calls, emails and texts yesterday after a federal judge overturned Kauai’s GMO/pesticide regulatory bill on the grounds that it was pre-empted by state law.
No. How could I be happy about multinational chemical companies gaining more power? How could I rejoice in having the pre-emption issue so starkly defined and clarified? How could I be reveling in the realization that environmental and progressive politics have been set back 20 years by fools who thought their little mob action was more powerful than state law?
Those of us who were environmentally conscious and active before some of the “red shirts” were even born will never be happy with the ignorance, the drama, the ugliness and now the stunning precedent that has been set by this epic political failure.
So here we are, with nothing — nothing but a legal bill, a torn community and a potent political backlash, just as I and others predicted. Even the Environmental and Public Health Impact Study (EPHIS) is in danger of being tossed out, with attorneys trying to determine whether the judge’s order invalidating the entire ordinance precludes that study from moving forward.
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