A federal appeals court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday to move forward with a ban on the pesticide chlorpyrifos, after former EPA chief Scott Pruitt refused to do so before resigning in July.
“There was no justification for the EPA’s decision in its 2017 order to maintain a tolerance for chlorpyrifos in the face of scientific evidence that its residue on food causes neurodevelopmental damage to children,” wrote 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jed Rakoff in a 2-1 decision in the lawsuit League of United Latin American Citizens v. EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler.
The court said the EPA violated the law by not acting on scientific data that showed the harm posed by the pesticide. The Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, the federal law for overseeing pesticide use, requires that the agency ban a pesticide if it is determined that exposure to it from ingesting food is harmful.
Pruitt decided not to ban the pesticide in March of last year, which in turn reversed the previous administration’s proposal to do so.
“The time has come to put a stop to this patent evasion,” continued Rakoff, who was appointed by Bill Clinton. He was joined in the decision by Judge Jacqueline Nguyen, a Barack Obama appointee.
The lone dissenter in the decision, George H.W. Bush appointee Ferdinand Fernandez, argued that the appeals court did not have the jurisdiction to take up the case, and that a lower court should have taken it up first.
The EPA could use that argument if it decides to appeals the court’s decision.
“EPA is reviewing the decision,” EPA spokesperson Michael Abboud said in a statement. However, he pointed out that the data that formed the basis of the court’s assumptions, from the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health based at Columbia University, “remains inaccessible and has hindered the Agency’s ongoing process to fully evaluate the pesticide using the best available, transparent science.”
The Columbia Center’s scientific studies have been used to support a ban on the pesticide even though EPA’s scientific review panels have resulted in diverging views and the Obama administration’s Agriculture Department questioned the Center’s findings, the EPA noted.
“USDA has grave concerns that ambiguous response data from a single, inconclusive study are being combined with a mere guess as to dose levels, and the result is being used to underpin a regulatory decision,” the Agriculture Department said in a letter to the EPA in January 2017 before Trump was inaugurated.
The environmental community took the court decision as a major victory against the Trump administration.
“Today’s court decision is huge victory for public health, especially that of children,” said Melanie Benesh, an attorney for the group Environmental Working Group. “By requiring the EPA to finally ban chlorpyrifos, the Ninth Circuit is ensuring that the agency puts children’s health, strong science and the letter of the law above corporate interests.”
EPA has 60 days to comply with the court’s order.
