Federal uncertainty or inconsistency? Releasing the new agricultural-environmental biotechnology into the fields

This article reviews the regulation of the new agricultural-environmental b iotechnology and recent changes in the regulatory framework in the United S tates. Regulations put in place in the mid-1980s were established due to co ncern over potential risks posed by products not yet released into the envi ronment. Now that over a thousand small-scale field trials have been carrie d out and various new agricultural-environmental biotechnology products hav e been in farmers' fields for the past several years, questions are being r aised about the current regulatory system by both proponents, who want grea ter deregulation due to the relative absence of ecological harm, and oppone nts, who warn against potential environmental catastrophe due to greater va riety and amount of new agricultural-environmental products being released. Therefore, we focus on triggers for regulation, which appear to hinge on t he "naturalness" of a product, and trends in field release of these product s.