salon:

At long, long long last, the Environmental Protection Agency is taking on neonicatinoids, the class of pesticides implicated in the mass die-offs of bees. The agency announced Thursday that it will be restricting the future manufacture and use of products containing the pesticides; in letters sent to companies that apply those products outdoors, it warned that it likely won’t be approving new permits for their use until it can determine that they won’t cause “unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.”

The agency took a first step toward protecting pollinators, but critics say much more still needs to be done