Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency,
moved late on Wednesday to reject the scientific conclusion of the agency’s own
chemical safety experts who under the Obama administration recommended that one
of the nation’s most widely used insecticides be permanently banned at farms
nationwide because of the harm it potentially causes children and farm workers.
The ruling by Mr. Pruitt, in one of his first formal actions as
the nation’s top environmental official, rejected a petition filed a decade ago
by two environmental groups that had asked that the agency ban all uses of
chlorpyrifos. The chemical was banned in 2000 for use in most household
settings, but still today is used at about 40,000 farms on about 50 different
types of crops, ranging from almonds to apples.
Late last year, and based in part on research conducted at
Columbia University, E.P.A. scientists concluded that exposure to the chemical
that has been in use since 1965 was potentially causing significant health
consequences. They included learning and memory declines, particularly among
farm workers and young children who may be exposed through drinking water and
other sources.
But Dow Chemical, which makes the product, along with farm
groups that use it, had argued that the science demonstrating that chlorpyrifos
caused such harm is inconclusive — especially when properly used to kill
crop-spoiling insects.
An E.P.A. scientific review panel made up of academic experts
last July also had raised questions about some of the conclusions the chemical
safety staff had reached. That led the staff to revise the way it had justified
its findings of harm, although the agency employees as of late last year still
concluded that the chemical should be banned.
Mr. Pruitt, in an announcement issued Wednesday night, said the
agency needed to study the science more.
“We need to provide regulatory certainty to the thousands of
American farms that rely on chlorpyrifos, while still protecting human health
and the environment,” Mr. Pruitt said in his statement. “By reversing the
previous administration’s steps to ban one of the most widely used pesticides
in the world, we are returning to using sound science in decision-making —
rather than predetermined results.”
The United States Department of Agriculture, which works close
with the nation’s farmers, supported Mr. Pruitt’s action.
“It means that this important pest management tool will remain
available to growers, helping to ensure an abundant and affordable food supply
for this nation,” Sheryl Kunickis, director of the
U.S.D.A. Office of Pest
Management Policy, said in a statement Wednesday.
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.
Source : NYTimes
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