E.P.A. Chief, Rejecting Agency’s Science, Chooses Not to Ban Insecticide
Our children's health over corporate profits not....."The science on chlorpyrifos is crystal clear: when children are exposed, their brain development is compromised. And children in rural, agricultural areas are particularly at risk, since they’re exposed to this pesticide when it drifts from nearby fields. EPA’s scientists have also found that farmworkers are exposed to unsafe amounts on the job."
E.P.A. Chief, Rejecting Agency’s Science, Chooses Not to Ban Insecticide
By ERIC LIPTONMARCH 29, 2017
Dow Agrosciences, the division that sells the product, also praised the ruling, calling it in a statement “the right decision for farmers who, in about 100 countries, rely on the effectiveness of chlorpyrifos to protect more than 50 crops.”
But Jim Jones, who ran the chemical safety unit at the E.P.A. for five years, and spent more than 20 years working there until he left the agency in January when President Trump took office, said he was disappointed by Mr. Pruitt’s action.
“They are ignoring the science that is pretty solid,” Mr. Jones said, adding that he believed the ruling would put farm workers and exposed children at unnecessary risk.
The ruling is, in some ways, more consequential than the higher profile move by Mr. Trump on Tuesday to order the start of rolling back Obama administration rules related to coal-burning power plants and climate change.
In rejecting the pesticide ban, Mr. Pruitt took what is known as a “final agency action” on the question of the safety and use of chlorpyrifos, suggesting that the matter would not likely be revisited until 2022, the next time the E.P.A. is formally required to re-evaluate the safety of the pesticide.
Mr. Pruitt’s move was immediately condemned by environmental groups, which said it showed that the Trump administration cared more about catering to the demands of major corporate players, like Dow Chemical, than the health and safety of families nationwide.
“We have a law that requires the E.P.A. to ban pesticides that it cannot determine are safe, and the E.P.A. has repeatedly said this pesticide is not safe,” said Patti Goldman, managing attorney at Earthjustice, a San Francisco-based environmental group that serves as the legal team for the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pesticide Action Network of North America, which filed the petition in 2007 to ban the product.
The agency had been under court order to issue a ruling on the petition by Friday. The environmental groups intend to return to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to ask judges to order the agency to “take action to protect children from this pesticide” Ms. Goldman said on Wednesday.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/u...orpyrifos.html