Trump's E.P.A. Won’t Ban Chlorpyrifos,
Pesticide Tied to Children’s Health Problems
by Lisa Friedman | July 18th 2019 | https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/climate/epa-chlorpyrifos-pesticide-ban.html
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration took a major step to weaken the regulation of toxic chemicals on Thursday when the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would not ban a widely used pesticide that its own experts have linked to serious health problems in children.
The decision by Andrew R. Wheeler, the E.P.A. administrator, represents a victory for the chemical industry and for farmers who have lobbied to continue using the substance, chlorpyrifos, arguing it is necessary to protect crops.
It was the administration’s second major move this year to roll back or eliminate chemical safety rules. In April, the agency disregarded the advice of its own experts when officials issued a rule that restricted but did not ban asbestos, a known carcinogen. Agency scientists and lawyers had urged the E.P.A. to ban asbestos outright, as do most other industrialized nations.
In making the chlorpyrifos ruling, the E.P.A. said in a statement that the data supporting objections to the use of the pesticide was “not sufficiently valid, complete or reliable.” The agency added that it would continue to monitor the safety of chlorpyrifos through 2022.
The substance, sold under the commercial name Lorsban, has already been banned for household use but remains in widespread use by farmers for more than 50 fruit, nut, cereal and vegetable crops. In 2016, more than 640,000 acres were treated with chlorpyrifos in California alone.
Representatives of Corteva Agriscience, the maker of chlorpyrifos, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision.
The Obama administration announced in 2015 that it would ban chlorpyrifos after scientific studies produced by the E.P.A. showed the pesticide had the potential to damage brain development in children. That ban had not yet come into force when, in 2017, Scott Pruitt, then the administrator of the E.P.A., reversed that decision, setting off a wave of legal challenges.
Those lawsuits culminated in April when a federal appeals court ordered the E.P.A. to issue a final ruling on whether to ban chlorpyrifos by this month.
Patti Goldman, a lawyer for Earthjustice, an environmental group that brought a legal challenge against the E.P.A.’s 2017 decision on behalf of farmworker organizations and others, criticized the decision. She said groups would sue again and ask the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to expedite the case.
“By allowing chlorpyrifos to stay in our fruits and vegetables, Trump’s E.P.A. is breaking the law and neglecting the overwhelming scientific evidence that this pesticide harms children’s brains,” Ms. Goldman said in a statement.
Representatives of the chemical industry expressed satisfaction with the decision. “The availability of pesticides, like chlorpyrifos, is relied upon by farmers to control a variety of insect pests and by public health officials who work to control deadly and debilitating pests like mosquitoes,” Chris Novak, chief executive of CropLife America, said in a statement.
Hawaii banned chlorpyrifos in 2018. California and New York are considering similar actions. The European Commission is under pressure from consumers and environmental groups to ban the pesticide.
The Trump administration has issued several other decisions in recent months relaxing environmental regulations. This week, the E.P.A. acknowledged a new policy doing away with surprise inspections of chemical and power plants. The “no surprises” policy is aimed at fostering better working relationship between the agency and states, E.P.A. officials wrote.
Last week, the E.P.A. approved broad use of the pesticide sulfoxaflor, which is known to harm bees. And this year the agency announced curbs on a lethal chemical found in paint-stripping products that represented a weakening of a ban that the Obama administration proposed.
Senator Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, who introduced legislation to ban chlorpyrifos nationwide, said there was “no excuse” for keeping chlorpyrifos in use.
“The science on chlorpyrifos is clear and unambiguous,” he said. “It damages the developing brains of children and causes serious health problems in those who have been exposed to it.”
The E.P.A. decision is also one of the first concrete results of a separate Trump administration effort to restrict the use of scientific studies involving human subjects.
Under Mr. Pruitt, the agency proposed a rule saying it could not consider scientific research unless the raw data behind it was made public, saying the issue was a matter of transparency. Scientists argued that studies measuring human exposure to pesticides and other chemicals often rely on confidential health information and argued the E.P.A.’s real motivation was to restrict the ability to develop regulations.
In opting not to ban chlorpyrifos, the E.P.A. rejected a major study conducted by Columbia University on its effects on children in New York City. The E.P.A. said because it was unable to obtain the raw data and replicate that study, which linked the insecticide to developmental delays, it could not independently verify the conclusions.
Angela Logomasini, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market think tank that rejects the established science of climate change, expressed strong support for the decision. She called the E.P.A.’s Science Advisory Panel decision on which the original ban was based “junk science.”
Kevin Minoli, a former senior E.P.A. lawyer who is now a partner at the Washington law firm Alston & Bird, predicted the courts would ultimately ban chlorpyrifos. He called Thursday “the beginning of the end” for the chemical.
The E.P.A. may argue that the science showing chlorpyrifos is unsafe is unclear. But Mr. Minoli said under the Food Quality Protection Act, the E.P.A. must prove that there was a reasonable certainty that the pesticide would not cause harm.
“Whatever you think about the science, there’s at least a question about that,” Mr. Minoli said.
The Trump crime family and their virtue of selfishness soulless minions and predatory $$$$$$$ ghouls have decided that Americans dying due to polluted air is 'no big deal' if they can continue to burn coal and make millions for themselves. Their pure venal evil and greed is why anti-science RepubliKlans want to doom their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to a world with air so thick you can’t breathe, coastal cities deluged by coastal flooding and crop failures and disease throughout the world. All for money.
E.P.A. Plans to Get Thousands
of Pollution Deaths Off the
Books by Changing Its Math
by Lisa Friedman | May 20, 2019 | https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/climate/epa-air-pollution-deaths.html
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the way it calculates the health risks of air pollution, a shift that would make it easier to roll back a key climate change rule because it would result in far fewer predicted deaths from pollution, according to five people with knowledge of the agency’s plans.
The E.P.A. had originally forecast that eliminating the Obama-era rule, the Clean Power Plan, and replacing it with a new measure would have resulted in an additional 1,400 premature deaths per year. The new analytical model would significantly reduce that number and would most likely be used by the Trump administration to defend further rollbacks of air pollution rules if it is formally adopted.
The proposed shift is the latest example of the Trump administration downgrading the estimates of environmental harm from pollution in regulations. In this case, the proposed methodology would assume there is little or no health benefit to making the air any cleaner than what the law requires. Many experts said that approach was not scientifically sound and that, in the real world, there are no safe levels of the fine particulate pollution associated with the burning of fossil fuels.
Fine particulate matter — the tiny, deadly particles that can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream — is linked to heart attacks, strokes and respiratory disease.
The five people familiar with the plan, all current or former E.P.A. officials, said the new modeling method would appear in the agency’s analysis of the final version of the replacement regulation, known as the Affordable Clean Energy rule, which is expected to be made public in June.
Asked on Monday whether the new method would be included in the agency’s final analysis of the rule, William L. Wehrum, the E.P.A. air quality chief, said only that the final version would include multiple analytical approaches in an effort to be transparent. He said the agency had made no formal change to its methodology.
“It’s a very important issue, and it’s an issue where there has been a lot of debate over what the right approach is,” Mr. Wehrum said.
The E.P.A., when making major regulatory changes, is normally expected to demonstrate that society will see more benefits than costs from the change. Experts said that, while benefits would appear on paper in this case, the change actually disregards potential dangers to public health.
“Particulate matter is extremely harmful and it leads to a large number of premature deaths,” said Richard L. Revesz, an expert in environmental law at New York University. He called the expected change a “monumental departure” from the approach both Republican and Democratic E.P.A. leaders have used over the past several decades and predicted that it would lay the groundwork for weakening more environmental regulations.
“It could be an enormously significant impact,” Mr. Revesz said.
The Obama administration had sought to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Power Plan by pushing utilities to switch away from coal and instead use natural gas or renewable energy to generate electricity. The Obama plan would also have what is known as a co-benefit: levels of fine particulate matter would fall.
The Trump administration has moved to repeal the Obama-era plan and replace it with the Affordable Clean Energy rule, which would slightly improve the efficiency of coal plants. It would also allow older coal plants to remain in operation longer and result in an increase of particulate matter.
Particulate matter comes in various sizes. The greatest health risk comes from what is known as PM 2.5, the range of fine particles that are less than 2.5 microns in diameter. That is about one-thirtieth the width of a human hair.
The E.P.A. has set the safety threshold for PM 2.5 at a yearly average of 12 micrograms per cubic meter. While individual days vary, with some higher, an annual average at or below that level, known as the particulate matter standard, is considered safe. However, the agency still weighs health hazards that occur in the safe range when it analyzes new regulations.
Industry has long questioned that system. After all, fossil fuel advocates ask, why should the E.P.A. search for health dangers, and, ultimately, impose costs on industry, in situations where air is officially considered safe?
Mr. Wehrum, who worked as a lawyer and lobbyist for chemical manufacturers and fossil fuel businesses before moving to the E.P.A., echoed that position in two interviews. He noted that, in some regulations, the benefits of reduced particulate matter have been estimated to total in the range of $40 billion.
“How in the world can you get $30 or $40 billion of benefit to public health when most of that is attributable to reductions in areas that already meet a health-based standard,” he said. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
William L. Wehrum, the E.P.A. assistant administrator for air and radiation.CreditRon Sachs/CNP/MediaPunch
William L. Wehrum, the E.P.A. assistant administrator for air and radiation.
Mr. Wehrum acknowledged that the administration was considering a handful of analyses that would reduce the prediction of 1,400 premature deaths as a result of the measure.
He called the attention given to that initial forecast “unfortunate” and said the agency had included the figure in its analysis to show the varied results that can be achieved based on different assumptions.
Mr. Wehrum said the analyses the agency is conducting “illuminate the issue” of particulate matter and the question of what level is acceptable for the purposes of policymaking. He said new approaches would allow for public debate to move ahead and that any new methods would be subject to peer review if they became the agency’s primary tool for measuring health risks.
“This isn’t just something I’m cooking up here in my fifth-floor office in Washington,” Mr. Wehrum said.
Roger O. McClellan, who has served on E.P.A. advisory boards and as president of the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology, an industry-financed research center, said that the data for health risks below the particulate matter standard was weak and that he did not accept the argument that agencies must calculate risk “down to the first molecule of exposure.”
“These kinds of approaches — that every molecule, every ionization, carries with it an associated calculable health risk — are just misleading,” Mr. McClellan said.
To put the matter in perspective, most scientists say particulate matter standards are like speed limits. On many highways, a limit of 65 miles per hour is considered reasonable to protect public safety. But that doesn’t mean the risk of an accident disappears at 55 m.p.h., or even 25.
Jonathan M. Samet, a pulmonary disease specialist who is dean of the Colorado School of Public Health, said the most recent studies showed negative health effects well below the 12-microgram standard. “It’s not a hard stop where we can say ‘below that, air is safe.’ That would not be supported by the scientific evidence,” Dr. Samet said. “It would be very nice for public health if things worked that way, but they don’t seem to.”
Daniel S. Greenbaum, president of the Health Effects Institute, a nonprofit research organization that is funded by the E.P.A. and industry groups, acknowledged there was uncertainty around the effects of fine particulate matter exposure below the standard.
He said it was reasonable of the Trump administration to study the issue, but he questioned moving ahead with a new system before those studies are in. “To move away from the way this has been done without the benefit of this full scientific peer review is unfortunate,” he said.