Dear NRDC Activist,

Alarming news: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is once again postponing its long-overdue assessment of the dangers posed by bee-killing "neonic" pesticides — likely delaying this all-important safety review until as late as 2026.

In the meantime, bees and other pollinators are dying at an alarming rate from a deluge of these toxic neonics, pushed by agrochemical giants like Bayer. Plus, a growing body of evidence links these neurotoxic chemicals to alarming human health risks — including birth defects of the heart and brain.

And we depend on bees and other pollinators for one out of every three bites of food we eat. Simply put, fewer bees = less food.

Bees can't wait: We need to ratchet up the pressure on the EPA to save bees from toxic pesticides and put pollinators and people ahead of industry profits.

This is a fight we must win, and we're in it for the long haul. Nothing less than the future of our pollinators, our health, and our food supply is at stake.

Adding insult to injury, as bee populations have plummeted, neonic sales have soared — highlighting the need for urgent action. A single neonic-treated crop seed can contain enough active ingredient to kill a quarter of a million bees — and today neonics are the most heavily used class of insecticides in the United States.

By law, the EPA should have taken steps to ensure that neonic use would not push imperiled species toward extinction before it approved these toxic chemicals for sale — but they didn't. It was courtroom action by NRDC and our partners that forced the EPA to take a hard look at the impact of neonics on endangered species.

And now, even after years of delay, the EPA would have us wait years longer for it to ponder what action to take. Enough is enough.

Send your message to EPA Administrator Michael Regan, urging him to direct his agency to heed the science, ban bee-killing uses of neonics, and save pollinators and the future of our food supply.

Thank you for fighting for the bees. I'm confident that if we stand together and make our voices heard, we can win this fight.

Dan Raichel
Director, Pollinators & Pesticides, NRDC