[Pollinator] Federal Court Rules on Chlorpyrifos

[Miles Dakin]

>From The Washington Post
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/04/29/federal-court-rules-epa-must-ban-pesticide-linked-harm-children-or-prove-it-is-safe/>
:

*"Federal court rules EPA must ban pesticide linked to harm in children —
or prove it is safe*

By Brady Dennis
April 29, 2021 at 1:12 p.m. PDT

A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled that the Environmental Protection
Agency must ban a widely used pesticide linked to neurological damage in
children from being sprayed on food crops, unless the agency can
demonstrate safe uses for the chemical.

The 2-to-1 decision by judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th
Circuit follows the Trump administration’s decision to keep chlorpyrifos on
the market despite appeals by environmental and public health groups.

The pesticide has been used for a half-century on an array of fruits and
vegetables. Over time, though, evidence has associated exposure with health
issues such as headaches and blurred vision and longer-term risks such as
lower birth weight and neurological damage to children, and pressure has
grown for a complete ban.

Thursday’s court decision gives the federal government 60 days to revoke
all food-related uses of chlorpyrifos or to detail evidence that it is safe
in certain circumstances. “The EPA must act based upon the evidence and
must immediately revoke or modify chlorpyrifos tolerances,” the opinion
noted.

The judges in the majority also expressed frustration that the agency had
gone 14 years — since a 2007 petition to pull the pesticide from the market
— without putting the issue to rest: “During that time, the EPA’s egregious
delay exposed a generation of American children to unsafe levels of
chlorpyrifos.”

Environmental groups that have long pushed for a ban expressed relief at
the outcome. “The court ruled in favor of science, which has clearly shown
that chlorpyrifos is too dangerous to be used to grow our food,” Jennifer
Sass, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in
a statement.

An EPA statement said officials were reviewing the ruling. “EPA is
committed to ensuring the safety of pesticides and other chemicals,” it
noted. “The agency is committed to helping support and protect farmworkers
and their families while ensuring pesticides are used safely among the
nation’s agriculture.”

The Trump administration chose not to further restrict chlorpyrifos in
mid-2019, saying that “critical questions remained regarding the
significance of the data” around whether the pesticide causes neurological
damage in young children.

Then early last year, the primary manufacturer of chlorpyrifos announced
plans to halt its production, a decision it said was driven by financial
considerations rather than safety concerns. Corteva Agriscience’s
announcement came the same day that California made it illegal to sell
chlorpyrifos — one of a number of states, including Hawaii and New York,
that have moved to block the pesticide from the market.

As evidence has grown about the chemical’s potential health risks, the
government has scaled back its use.

Beginning in 2000, companies making chlorpyrifos entered into an agreement
with the EPA to phase out its residential use with a few exceptions, such
as in ant and roach baits sold in child-resistant packaging. Two years
later, the agency made additional label changes aimed at protecting
farmworkers, as well as fish, other wildlife and water sources near where
chlorpyrifos was sprayed.

But all that stopped short of fully banning chlorpyrifos in agriculture —
an outcome that advocates argued was overdue.

In 2015, the Obama administration moved to revoke all uses of chlorpyrifos
after EPA scientists determined that existing evidence did not meet the
agency’s threshold of a “reasonable certainty of no harm,” given exposure
levels in Americans’ food supply and drinking water. EPA staffers cited
studies of families exposed to it in apartment buildings and agricultural
communities that found lower birth weight and reduced IQ, among other
effects.

Before the ban was finalized, Donald Trump became president and reversed
course. In March 2017, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rejected the agency’s
own analysis, saying the agency would reassess the science underpinning
that decision — the Obama administration had based its action on
epidemiological studies — and make a final determination later.

That action, welcomed by the pesticide industry and Agriculture Department
officials who had questioned the EPA’s findings, led to a prolonged court
fight."



--

Miles Dakin

Bee Friendly Farming Coordinator

Pollinator Partnership

475 Sansome St., 17th Floor

San Francisco, CA 94111
e: miles at pollinator.org
w: www.pollinator.org
p: 707.321.7165

[image: cid:image002.jpg at 01D1AB75.BF85B7F0]
<https://www.facebook.com/ThePollinatorPartnership>[image:
cid:image003.jpg at 01D1AB75.BF85B7F0] <https://twitter.com/Pollinators> [image:
N:\Media\Photos, Graphics, Videos\Graphics\socialmedia\lg_icon_kit\Flat
Minimalistic Circles\64x64 PNG\instagram.jpg]
<https://www.instagram.com/pollinatorpartnership/>[image:
cid:image005.jpg at 01D1AB75.BF85B7F0]
<https://www.youtube.com/user/PollinatorPartners>

[image: cid:image006.jpg at 01D1AB75.BF85B7F0]
<https://www.pollinator.org/> [image:
bee_friendly_Farmer_logo_CMYK[1]] <https://www.pollinator.org/bff>

[image: N:\Programs & Projects\MONARCHS\MWAA Logo\P2_MWAAmerica_Logo.jpg]
<https://www.pollinator.org/monarch/mwaa>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20210429/0f3cefb7/attachment.htm>