EPA Pesticide Registration and ESA Compliance

The United States Court of Appeals rejected most of the environmentalist NGOs’ claims in the case Center for Biological Diversity v. EPA. The court provided the following summary of its lengthy decision (footnotes omitted”):

“The panel affirmed in part, and reversed in part, the district court’s dismissal of plaintiffs’ claims arising from their citizen suit alleging that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency violated the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) when it registered certain pesticide active ingredients and pesticide products without undertaking consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (collectively “the Service”).

Trending: Track and Trace

CRE filed comments on EPA’s draft Ecological Risk Assessment for atrazine (“ERA”).  CRE’s comments included the following conclusion and recommended EPA actions:

There are no field data–no real-world data–supporting the ERA’s modeled effects. EPA should revise its ERA to be consistent with this fact.

If EPA still believes that some change in the current ecological assessment and regulation of atrazine may be necessary, then EPA should first take the following actions:

1) Validate the ERA models in accordance with the principles discussed above;

2) Develop field data supporting any changes proposed by EPA;

On December 14, 2016, the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness commented at EPA’s Science Advisory Panel reviewing EPA’s assessment of the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate. CRE’s comments agree with EPA’s conclusion that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans at doses relevant to human health risk assessment. Any contrary EPA conclusion would violate the Information Quality Act. Click here to read CRE’s oral comments at the SAP meeting.

EPA has announced issuance by all ten EPA Regions of the final 2016 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System pesticide general permit–the ‘‘2016 PGP.’’ The 2016 PGP, which has an effective date of October 31, 2016, replaces the existing permit (‘‘2011 PGP’’) that expires at midnight on October 31, 2016, and authorizes certain point source discharges from the application of pesticides to waters of the United States in accordance with the terms and conditions described therein. EPA is issuing this permit for five (5) years in all areas of the country where EPA is the NPDES permitting authority.

Mr. Bruce Levinson, Senior Vice President—Regulatory Intervention, of CRE will testify at the upcoming FDA meeting on the composition of tobacco leaf. Interested stakeholders should submit relevant information here. [contact@thecre.com]

Nov. 16 Update: CRE Tells FDA about the Tip-of-the-Iceberg: Two-Billion Illegally-Made Cigarettes

In its presentation to FDA today, CRE informed that massive quantities of cigarettes are being illegally-manufactured in Canada with US-grown tobacco and then re-exported to the US and beyond.  A recent international law enforcement operation found that two million kilos of tobacco were trafficked into Canada from North Carolina where it was grown, enough tobacco for two-billion cigarettes. The two-billion cigarettes represents only the tip of the illegal cigarette manufacturing iceberg as dozens of illicit factories are still operating in Ontario and Quebec.