EPA acts

EPA issued a monarch butterfly data call-in notice in December 1999 to the biotech industry. A data call-in is a list of questions for which EPA seeks research results before considering a regulatory response. In this case, the questions the EPA asked for the data call-in were similar to the research priorities established by scientists at previous meetings. EPA set a deadline for answering these questions.

Public and private researchers summarized all of the available data from studies already under way that covered monarch butterfly distribution and behavior; corn pollen dispersal; milkweed distribution; and toxicity testing of Bt proteins and Bt corn pollen on the monarch.

EPA followed the data call-in by forming a Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP), a group of experts, to examine the scientific issues surrounding the pending amendments to the re-registration of Bt corn. The panel was asked to review the newly available monarch data from 1999 and 2000.