XPost: sac.politics, alt.politics.democrats, alt.society.mental-health   
   XPost: alt.politics.homosexuality   
   From: guilty-of-murder@dow.com   
      
   Advocacy organizations seeking to ban a pesticide linked to   
   developmental disorders in children asked the courts Wednesday   
   to intervene and order the Environmental Protection Agency to   
   ban the pesticide from food within 30 days and from all uses   
   within 60 days if it cannot prove it is safe.   
      
   The head of the E.P.A., Scott Pruitt, last week denied the   
   petition to outlaw chlorpyrifos, a pesticide often used on   
   apples, oranges and other crops, even though the agency’s own   
   safety experts concluded that the chemical should be outlawed.   
   Mr. Pruitt did not present any new evidence that it is safe, and   
   said the agency could not be forced to complete a review of   
   chlorpyrifos until 2022, when there is a deadline for re-   
   evaluating it.   
      
   The E.P.A. had been under a court order to respond by the end of   
   March to a 10-year-old petition to ban the chemical, originally   
   filed in 2007 by the Natural Resources Defense Council and   
   Pesticide Action Network.   
      
   The most recent E.P.A. analysis concluded that children were   
   being exposed to up to 140 times the safe levels of the   
   pesticide through food alone. An earlier report said drinking   
   water can also be contaminated.   
      
   “The science is clear that this chemical is dangerous,” said   
   Erik Olson, senior attorney and director of the health program   
   at N.R.D.C. “We are asking the court to step in to keep our   
   children safe.”   
      
   An E.P.A. report issued last November concluded the risks   
   justified a complete ban on chlorpyrifos, citing studies on   
   pregnant women and children done at Columbia University that   
   found evidence of neurodevelopmental effects in children whose   
   mothers were exposed to chlorpyrifos in pregnancy. Dow Chemical,   
   which makes the product, has argued that the science is   
   inconclusive. A review panel of scientists also raised questions   
   about the methodology the agency had used, leading to revisions   
   but not altering the recommendation for a ban.   
      
   Earthjustice, a public interest law group that represents   
   N.R.D.C. and P.A.N., filed the motion to enforce the previous   
   court order in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth   
   Circuit   
   in San Francisco. The E.P.A. declined to comment, a spokesman   
   said.   
      
   Chlorpyrifos is one of the most widely used pesticides in the   
   world and, in terms of pounds of active ingredient, the most   
   widely used conventional insecticide in the United States. It is   
   typically sprayed on apples, oranges, strawberries, broccoli,   
   almonds, walnuts, cherries, peaches, pears, corn and wheat.   
      
   The chemical was once the main active ingredient in household   
   products like Raid, but indoor use of chlorpyrifos was phased   
   out starting in 2000 because of potential health concerns.   
   Indoor use is now permitted only in child-resistant ant and   
   roach baits.   
      
   It can still also be used on golf courses and in greenhouses and   
   for public mosquito control.   
      
   Under the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, which changed the   
   way pesticides used on foods are regulated, the E.P.A. is   
   required to make sure a pesticide can be used with “a reasonable   
   certainty of no harm.” The act mandated the agency take the   
   unique vulnerabilities of infants and children into   
   consideration as well.   
      
   Several members of Congress have also expressed dismay at Mr.   
   Pruitt’s decision. In a letter to Mr. Pruitt, Senator Thomas R.   
   Carper, Democrat of Delaware and a ranking member of the   
   Committee on Environment and Public Works, said he was   
   “troubled” by the E.P.A.’s reversal on chlorpyrifos, absent “any   
   new scientific analysis to support this decision.”   
      
   Representatives Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, Gene Green of   
   Texas, Diana DeGette of Colorado and Paul D. Tonko of New York,   
   all Democrats, signed a letter saying they were concerned that   
   the Trump administration is not implementing the Food Quality   
   Protection Act. They urged Representative Greg Walden,   
   Republican of Oregon and the chairman of the Energy and Commerce   
   Committee, to start an investigation.   
      
   They noted that the E.P.A. also recently expanded the use of   
   another controversial chemical used in agriculture, glyphosate,   
   the main ingredient in Roundup weed killer, and raised concerns   
   about the possibility of political meddling, specifically asking   
   whether “trade associations representing the Trump Organization   
   golf courses or lobbyists who represent the Trump Organization”   
   pressed the E.P.A. to drop the proposed chlorpyrifos ban.   
      
   https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/well/advocacy-groups-ask-for-   
   ban-on-common-pesticide.html?_r=0   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)