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Do you like these little beetles?
Our children's Brains? |
Past EPA Actions taken for the poison
Chlorpyrifos
This is an excerpt from the above article:
"To address health and environmental risks from chlorpyrifos exposure,
the following restrictions have been placed on pesticide products
containing chlorpyrifos:
- In June 2000, we eliminated all homeowner uses, except ant and
roach baits in child resistant packaging and fire ant mound treatments.
In addition, termiticide uses were phased out.
- In 2000, we required that all uses of chlorpyrifos products in the
U.S. be discontinued on tomatoes. Use on apples was restricted to
pre-bloom and dormant application. The grape tolerance (maximum residue
level) was lowered to reflect the labeled dormant application.
- In 2002, we limited the use of chlorpyrifos on citrus and tree nuts as well other crops.
- In 2012, we further limited the use of chlorpyrifos by
significantly lowering pesticide application rates and creating
“no-spray” buffer zones around public spaces, including recreational
areas and homes.
Over the past several years, we have conducted several risk assessments and taken regulatory action
in
response to a petition from the Pesticide Action Network of North
America and Natural Resources Defense Council. In March 2017, we denied
that petition, which asked us to revoke all pesticide tolerances
(maximum residue levels in food) for chlorpyrifos and cancel all
chlorpyrifos registrations. As a part of the ongoing registration
review, we will continue to review the science addressing
neurodevelopmental effects of chlorpyrifos.
Read the Federal Register notice announcing our response to the petition."
The following is a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:
"For Immediate Release, April 21, 2017
Contact: Brett Hartl, (202) 817-8121,
bhartl@biologicaldiversity.org
Public Records Sought on Dow’s Efforts to Pressure Trump Administration Over Pesticides, Endangered Species
WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity submitted
Freedom of Information Act requests this week seeking public records from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Commerce to illuminate reports about how Dow Chemical is pressuring the Trump administration to abandon efforts to protect endangered species from pesticides.
Last week Dow asked the Trump administration to scrap a nearly completed four-year effort to protect endangered species from Dow’s insecticide chlorpyrifos. In January the EPA announced that its scientists had determined the highly toxic pesticide is likely to harm
97 percent of the approximately 1,800 listed threatened and endangered animals and plants found in the United States. (Italic's are mine.)
“American taxpayers have a right to know exactly how Dow Chemical is profiting from the ever-deepening corporate swamp in our nation’s capital,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center. “It’s detestable that Dow and the Trump administration have so little respect for the health of our children and environment.”
Over the past six years, Dow has
donated $11 million to congressional campaigns and political action committees, and has spent an additional $75 million lobbying Congress. In January 2017 Dow was one of three companies that
donated $1 million to the Trump inauguration. President Trump named Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris as the head of the American Manufacturing Council in his administration. Liveris praised Trump by stating that Trump is making the United States “not a red-tape country, but a red-carpet country for America’s businesses.”
Trump, who referred to Liveris as “
my friend Andrew,” gave Liveris
his pen after signing the executive order mandating that agencies create so-called “regulatory reform task forces.” Several weeks ago, the EPA shocked public health advocates by abruptly scrapping a proposed ban on chlorpyrifos, which is known to cause brain damage in children.
“Dow spent millions on congressional campaigns, the president’s coronation and lobbying Congress and now it’s looking for its payback,” said Hartl. “The disgusting backroom efforts to sidestep the Endangered Species Act are the latest proof of just how hostile Trump’s closest industry buddies are toward common-sense protections for our environment.”
In December 2016 Liveris
criticized the EPA’s ground-level ozone pollution and renewable standards for utilities, while agreeing with a climate-change-denier that carbon dioxide is “an inert compound” and should not be regulated by the EPA.
During his tenure as the CEO of Dow, his company was assessed $6.5 million in fines by the EPA since 2010, including serious violations of the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Over the same time period, Dow AgroSciences — the division that manufactures pesticides — has been assessed four separate penalties for violating the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.2 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places."
