One casualty of the enviros' wars against the periodic table is the fumigant methyl bromide, which has been slated for a ban at the end of the year 2000. With farmers struggling under historic low food prices and consumer savings reduced to zero percent to offset the cost of federal tax increases, the loss of methyl bromide was going to be an especially serious event. It is used very extensively in agriculture.

A provision in the 1998 federal appropriations bill has moved the deadline for this ban out four years, to January 1, 2005. There is, as you might expect, not a shred of evidence that human-produced methyl bromide has a negative effect on the environment.