In an unexpected turnaround, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced at the end of April a Proposed Interim Decision (PID) to discontinue all but one application of the insecticide acephate. Acephate is an organophosphate pesticide, a well-known neurotoxicant, widely banned globally, including in the European Union. Under the proposal, all uses would end except for the injection of trees that do not produce fruit or nuts. In its proposed action, EPA asks the manufacturer to offer the agency a voluntary settlement, a process that typically compromises the health of the public, workers, and the environment.
As Beyond Pesticides and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) wrote in a 2021 critique, EPA is an agency so captured by industry that it has lost sight of its health and environmental mission. EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) has registered more than 18,000 separate pesticide products—far more than any other country—and approximately 2 billion pounds (including wood preservatives) of pesticides are sold annually in the U.S. They are used annually over roughly 250 million acres of farmland, across millions of acres of urban and suburban lands, and inside millions of homes, schools, and other buildings. Yet, the letter recounts a litany of improper pesticide approval decisions. The cumulative effects of decades of this regulatory abuse are untold human deaths, disabilities, and illnesses. Mr. Feldman said, “We call on the Biden Administration to be a hero for health—the fastest thing it can do is immediately revoke the worst pesticides,” pointing to the 25 specific steps the coalition identifies that OPP can take to avoid or mitigate its mistakes in moving forward, all within its current authority. “Horror stories have piled up for too long and Americans no longer are safe from the very agency charged with protecting them.”