OPPOSITION BUILDS TO EPA RESTRICTIONS
Published online: Jul 29, 2009
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CropLife America (CLA) and RISE (Responsible Industry for a Sound Environment) will file comments objecting on multiple grounds to a recent proposed stipulated injunction to settle a lawsuit brought against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) alleging the agency's violation of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). If accepted by the court the proposed settlement, which CLA and RISE, intervenors in the original suit, do not endorse, would impose interim restrictions on the use of crop protection and specialty pesticide products in and adjacent to endangered species habitat in the San Francisco Bay Area. These restrictions would be imposed prior to EPA effects determinations, even though no evidence of harm has been found from the use of these products to any of the species at issue.
"We fully support EPA fulfilling its statutory obligations under ESA," said Jay Vroom, CEO and president of CropLife America. "However, we disagree with preemptively imposing product use restrictions on valuable and necessary crop protection products and specialty pesticides with no evidence of actual harm to any of the species in question."