webodec3ARCHIVEPreview
Open in TheBrain

Earthjustice 2

==

oops see two words

==

heated 2 25

Earthjustice has filed “the first environmental lawsuit against the Trump administration.”The environmental law firm sued “to stop the Trump administration from opening up vast new areas to offshore oil and gas drilling,” the New York Times reports. “The suit is an opening shot in what is likely to be a series of cases aimed at thwarting the White House’s push for what it calls “energy dominance” by pivoting toward fossil fuels and away from cleaner energy sources like solar and wind.

Minnesota’s lawsuit seeking to hold Big Oil financially responsible for climate change is moving forward. A state judge denied a motion seeking to dismiss Minnesota’s 2020 lawsuit accusing Exxon, the American Petroleum Institute, and Koch Industries of running a “campaign of deception” to mislead consumers about climate change.

===

https://www.ecowatch.com/clean-water-act--2645821708.html

the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration Thursday in a case Earthjustice called "the clean water case of the century."

The case concerned a Maui, Hawaii wastewater treatment plant that pumped around four million gallons of sewage a day into groundwater, where some of it reached the Pacific Ocean, The New York Times reported. Maui County and the Trump administration argued that the plant did not need a Clean Water Act permit if the waste was passing through groundwater before entering protected waters, but the court rejected that narrow interpretation of the landmark environmental law six to three.

"We do not see how Congress could have intended to create such a large and obvious loophole in one of the key regulatory innovations of the Clean Water Act," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the majority opinion, as Earthjustice reported

[twt?]

Earthjustice brought the case on behalf of Maui environmental groups Hawaiʻi Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club-Maui Group, Surfrider Foundation and West Maui Preservation Association. Both the Hawaiʻi District Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against the county, but the Supreme Court case was high stakes.

"If the Supreme Court endorses the county's position, it would open a massive loophole for every polluter in the country to avoid regulation of their discharges by the law that protects the nation's waterways," arguing Earthjustice attorney David Henkin said in November 2019.

By backing up the county's case, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency was also reversing the agency's historic position, The Associated Press reported. This is in keeping with other Trump administration attempts to weaken water protections, such as its rollback of the Clean Water Rule rule granting protection to small streams and wetlands.

"This decision is a huge victory for clean water," Henkin said. "The Supreme Court has rejected the Trump administration's effort to blow a big hole in the Clean Water Act's protections for rivers, lakes and oceans."

Henkin said it was likely the lower court would now order the Maui plant to get a permit for its activities and ensure they do not damage the ocean. They have already been found to have harmed a coral reef.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Brett Kavanaugh joined Breyer in the majority opinion, while Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissented, though Alito wrote his own dissent, The New York Times reported.

"Based on the statutory text and structure, I would hold that a permit is required only when a point source discharges pollutants directly into navigable waters," Thomas wrote, according to The Associated Press.

In the majority ruling, the court did not go as far as the environmental advocates, who argued a permit was needed for any pollutants that "actually and foreseeably reach navigable surface waters," The New York Times reported.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled entirely in favor of the environmental groups, but Breyer said that standard was too all-encompassing and would include things like "pollutants carried to navigable waters on a bird's feathers."

Instead, he argued that discharges into groundwater had to be regulated if they were the "functional equivalent" of a direct discharge.

But Earthjustice still touted the decision as a win, and CNN Supreme Court analyst and University of Texas School of Law professor Steve Vladeck said it would boost water-protection efforts.

"Compared to the argument that it does not require permits for any groundwater pollution, which the county and the three dissenting justices all argued, this result will both empower the federal government to more aggressively regulate such pollution and allow private parties to sue when that regulation fails," Vladeck told CNN.

:{

}:

320

https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-chemicals-information-lawsuit-2645530774.html

When Congress updated the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 2016 for the first time in 40 years, public health and environmental advocates hoped it would be a game-changer for protecting Americans from dangerous chemicals, enabling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to finally ban harmful substances like asbestos.

But under President Donald Trump, the EPA has consistently failed to take advantage of the new law. It has declined to ban asbestos, and has even violated requirements that it keep the public informed about the approval of new chemicals, an investigation by Earthjustice and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) revealed. That's why Earthjustice is representing five environmental groups in a lawsuit filed Wednesday against the EPA.

"Congress reformed TSCA just a few years ago to protect people's health from new chemicals. It said, unequivocally, that the public has a right to know about these chemicals before they are put out on the market," Earthjustice attorney Tosh Sagar said in a press release. "Trump's EPA instead hides health and safety studies and other key information, just so that industry can have it easier. Ignoring TSCA's transparency requirements makes it more likely that dangerous chemicals are reaching our homes and workplaces."

The Earthjustice and EDF investigation, also published Wednesday, reviewed 204 out of around 1,100 chemical applications the EPA had received between August 2016 and April 2019. It also examined all the public notices that the agency issued for around 1,700 new applications through early 2020. It found that the EPA had routinely violated a stipulation of the new TSCA amendment that the public be informed of the approval process for new chemicals so that it could weigh in before the chemical was put on the market.

The agency concealed information in three key ways, the investigation found.

1. It did not inform the public of new applications in a timely manner: The EPA is supposed to notify the public within five days of receiving a new chemical application. However, the investigation found that the average notice was published 87 days after the application was received, even though the EPA has 90 days to approve a chemical. One in six notices were published after the chemical was already approved.

2. The EPA has withheld key safety information:The agency is supposed to publish all applications online, but instead forces the public to request them via a labyrinthine process. Further, it allows companies to redact or withhold health and safety studies as confidential business information (CBI) despite a legal requirement to publicize all health and safety information.

3. The EPA doesn't evaluate CBI claims: The agency is required by law to audit 25 percent of CBI claims to make sure companies are not abusing the designation to withhold important information. It is then supposed to publish its decision. But the EPA has not published any reviews of CBI claims, and has only completed reviews of claims in 27 applications, far below 25 percent of the 1,250 it has completed safety reviews for.

In one case, this secrecy involved a new type of PFAS, a class of chemical already contaminating U.S. drinking water. The EPA's career scientists found that the new substance could cause respiratory illnesses like asthma and alter DNA, leading to cancer. Nevertheless, it was approved in April 2019 and almost all of the documents provided by the company were never shared with the public.

"When it comes to toxic chemicals and Trump's EPA, this secrecy is the norm. It's not just illegal, it puts workers and families across the country at risk," the investigators wrote.

Earthjustice, acting on behalf of EDF, Environmental Health Strategy Center, Center for Environmental Health, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club, threatened to sue the EPA over the violations in September 2019. The agency promised to improve the application vetting process, but the coalition considered its changes inadequate.

"Unleashing chemicals into the market without proper vetting is like opening Pandora's box," the coalition said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. "EPA must stop hiding key information about the chemicals it is reviewing and put public health above the desires of the chemical industry."

The EPA did not comment on a story in The Hill about the lawsuit, saying it did not weigh in on ongoing litigation.

epa pfas public health chemicals

==

==

earth justice

**suing to stop the coming plastics surge**Louisiana regulators recently approved air permits to build what would be one of the largest plastics plants in the world, even though it would dump 800 tons of toxic pollution into a local community and contribute to the worldwide plastic pollution crisis. We’re representing people in St. James Parish, a region that’s already surrounded by industrial plants an

==

220 yay

m**ajor chemical company discontinues brain-damaging pesticide**

The largest producer of chlorpyrifos in the United States announced it will stop selling the nerve agent pesticide, which is linked to brain damage in children. Yet the Trump administration still refuses to ban it entirely, leaving many vulnerable.

==

ej org dynergy

https://www.ecowatch.com/coal-ash-river-illinois-2573918063.html

==

==

https://www.ecowatch.com/earthjustice-sues-federal-agencies-2505939690.html

Fate of National Monuments Remains Shrouded in Secrecy: Earthjustice Sues Federal Agencies for Withholding Information From Public

For months, the Interior Department, Bureau of Land Management and the White House Council on Environmental Quality have repeatedly failed to answer the public's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for information related to the Trump administration's ongoing review of national monuments—protected federal lands and waters that belong to the American people.

The review of the country's national monuments has been marked by a lack of transparency—Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke has yet to disclose how he incorporated input from Native American tribes and the 2.8 million Americans who urged protections for national monuments in the public comment period into his leaked draft recommendations to shrink monuments and gut their protections. On Thursday, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit on behalf of six organizations whose requests for information on national monuments have been met with radio silence.

"The Trump administration continues its onslaught against America's national monuments, hoping to cover up its misdeeds by blocking public access to information crucial to the protection of these iconic places," said Yvonne Yuting Chi, an attorney in Earthjustice's Rocky Mountains office. "National monuments preserve America's historical heritage, stunning wilderness, geologic wonders, and priceless cultural sites—and they're meant to be protected for future generations under the Antiquities Act. But the Trump administration wants to pretend that the laws of the land have changed. The American people have the right to know the fate of these magnificent places that belong to all of us, and we are taking these agencies to court to get answers."

"It's important that the public knows who had the White House and Interior Department's ear to push the president to dismantle Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments," said Stephen Bloch, legal director for the Salt Lake City-based Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. "We also expect this lawsuit will shed light on the information and factors the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Interior Department considered as part of Secretary Zinke's 'monuments review' and that led him to recommend eviscerating Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, a decision that would place irreplaceable cultural and public natural resources at risk of damage and destruction."

Earthjustice is representing the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Wilderness Society, Grand Canyon Trust, Sierra Club,and Great Old Broads for Wilderness in this lawsuit to compel the agencies to respond to seven FOIA requests, most of which have been overdue for months. The complaint alleges that the agencies have failed to meet their response deadlines under the FOIA and have repeatedly rejected or ignored these organizations' inquiries on their requests' status.

"If Interior Secretary Zinke's 'first step' before telling the president to ravage the Bears Ears National Monument was, as he claims, to 'gather the facts,'" said Aaron Paul, a staff attorney with the Grand Canyon Trust, "why are our months-old requests for those already-gathered facts still unanswered when federal law gives the secretary 20 days to respond? It's a shame that we have to turn to the courts to force the secretary to deliver the transparency that the Freedom of Information Act secures for the American public."

"The public deserves to know what Secretary Zinke is recommending for the future of our public lands," said Dan Ritzman, lands, water and wildlife director for Sierra Club's Our Wild America campaign. "The Trump administration's secrecy suggests Zinke is aware that stripping protections from our public lands and monuments is as unpopular as raising fees for the public to enjoy them."

Since 1967, the FOIA has provided the public the right to request access to records from any federal agency. It is a law that keeps the American people in the know about their government. When a member of the public lodges a request with a federal agency under the FOIA, the agency must promptly disclose any information requested unless the information falls under one of the nine exemptions protecting interests such as personal privacy, national security and law enforcement.

"We are dismayed that it takes litigating FOIA requests to learn the fate of public lands that belong to all Americans," said Caroline Munger, Board Chair for Great Old Broads for Wilderness. "This cloak and dagger approach by the current administration on revealing the fate of these national monuments shows a disdain for the law and the legacy of our protected wild lands. Monument proponents like Broads, tribal nations, and others have committed to a long legal battle, if necessary, to protect the Antiquities Act and monuments created under it."

===

https://www.ecowatch.com/earthjustice-roadless-rule-2490941377.html

Battle to Protect 50 Million Forest Acres May Finally Be Won After 16 Years

By Jessica A. Knoblauch

A decades-long fight over a landmark rule protecting wild forests nationwide took another successful–and possibly final–turn last week after a U.S. district court threw out a last-ditch attack by the state of Alaska against the Roadless Rule.

Adopted in the closing days of the Clinton administration, the Roadless Rule prohibits most logging and road construction in roadless areas of national forests. These lands, today equaling about 50 million acres or about the size of Nebraska, are some of the wildest places left in America.

Upon its passage, the rule was overwhelmingly popular with the American people, including those who like to hike, camp, fish and recreate among the trees in wild, unmarred areas. The Forest Service also liked the rule, since, at the time, the agency had a multibillion-dollar backlog on maintenance for more than 400,000 miles of existing roads, and it wasn't eager to add even more to its workload.

Yet, despite its popularity, state political leaders with ties to the logging and timber industries hated the new rule. Even before President Clinton left office, they began their attack. The Bush administration, which took office just eight days later, failed to come to the rule's defense.

"It created this vacuum," said Earthjustice attorney Tom Waldo, one of the legal architects of the organization's Roadless Rule strategy. "So Earthjustice stepped in."

...

:{

}:

==

court win ca

https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/5065/victory-court-of-appeal-rejects-californias-approval-of-bee-killing-pesticides

Ends State’s Practice of Rubber-Stamping New Uses for Neonicotinoids

San Francisco, CA — The First District California Court of Appeal issued an opinion Tuesday in a lawsuit challenging a California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) decision to approve additional uses for two bee-killing pesticides without disclosing the impact on honeybees.

Pesticide Action Network, Center for Food Safety, and Beyond Pesticides, represented by Earthjustice, filed the underlying lawsuit in 2014, seeking to halt DPR’s practice of approving ever more uses for neonicotinoid pesticides pending completion of the agency’s languishing scientific review of the evidence linking agricultural use of neonicotinoids to a global honeybee die-off. DPR began its scientific review in early 2009 after it received evidence that neonicotinoids are killing bees, but DPR has yet to complete its review or take meaningful action to protect bees. Instead, DPR has continued to allow increased use of neonicotinoids in California.

“DPR acknowledged almost 10 years ago that neonicotinoids are killing bees, yet the agency has approved more and more uses for these toxic pesticides every year since,” said Earthjustice attorney Greg Loarie, who represented the groups. “It’s time for DPR to do its job and protect honeybees and the multi-billion dollar agricultural economy that bees make possible in this State.”

...

==

4/17

Jenny Harbine, the lead attorney in Earth Justice's case [PDF] against the Administration, joins us to explain the new lawsuit, as well as the one the same group filed against the Obama Administration in 2014, which led to the moratorium in the first place.

"Trump made a lot of campaign promises to his cronies in the coal industry," she tells me. "But the President has a legal obligation, that courts have enforced for decades, to engage in rational decision-making, to make decisions that are based on science. And here it couldn't be clearer that the directive that came down from Trump [to lift the moratorium] last week, was based solely on politics, and not on science."

She explains how the policy not only "flies in the face of the reality we all face as a nation and a world on climate change," but also how Trump's various claims at attempting to help coal miners is as likely to ultimately harm them, by keeping the federal government from investing in investing and retraining workers for the now-unstoppable renewable energy future.

"Trump's short-sighted attempt to revive a dying coal industry through subsidized leasing" is little more than "an attempt, really, to line the pockets of coal industry executives" while causing "real harm to real people and communities that are depending on the federal government to look after our interests," Harbine explains, adding: "I fear that those workers will be left in the dust."

==

Judge to FDA: Agency Must Pull Aside Curtain on GE Salmon

Feb. 11, 2017 05:53PM EST

Subscribe to EcoWatch's

Top News of the day

Your Email

Subscribe

Earthjustice

By Jessica A. Knoblauch

A U.S. District Court judge took the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to task on Jan. 10 for withholding government documents related to the agency's approval of genetically engineered (GE) salmon. The judge's decision is a big win for public transparency, but it's also a small step toward finally doing a proper evaluation of the risks posed by GE animals—which could one day end up on our dinner plates.

In 2015, the FDA approved GE salmon made from the DNA of three different animals: Atlantic salmon, deep water ocean eelpout, and Pacific Chinook salmon. The GE version is intended to grow faster than conventional farmed salmon, reportedly getting to commercial size in half the time.

Even though this is the first time any government in the world has approved a GE animal for commercial sale and consumption, so far the FDA has taken a lackadaisical approach to evaluating the salmon's potential for harm to wild salmon and the environment. If the GE salmon were to escape, it could threaten wild salmon populations by outcompeting them for scarce resources and habitat, by mating with endangered salmon species, and by introducing new diseases.

The world's preeminent experts on GE fish and risk assessment, as well as biologists at U.S. wildlife agencies charged with protecting fish and wildlife, heavily criticized the FDA for failing to evaluate these impacts. But the FDA ignored their concerns, so in March 2016, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against the agency.

As part of the lawsuit, the FDA is required to compile a record of documents that illuminate the path the agency followed to reach its decision to approve the GE salmon—much like a student is required to show their work for a math problem in middle school. A complete record is essential in all cases. But it is especially important here because the FDA has so far refused to release most of the documents related to its decision, despite repeated requests for that information from Earthjustice's diverse set of clients under the Freedom of Information Act.

The public has a right to know how the agency came to this seemingly ill-informed decision, especially because the FDA's approach will likely serve as a precedent for the assessment of future GE food animals. Withholding that information is illegal because government agencies like the FDA are funded by taxpayer dollars, which means that any records they create, with only limited exceptions, can and should be available to the public and to citizens seeking to hold the government accountable in court.

Last month, a U.S. District Court judge agreed, concluding that: "the government is wrong to assert that these types of materials … should be excluded" from the record. The FDA is now required to fully complete the record with all relevant documents no later than July 2017. In addition to working to ensure the timely completion of that process, we will thoroughly review the full basis for the agency's decisions.

"There's no way to know what exactly is in these documents until we see them," says Earthjustice attorney Brettny Hardy. "But they will undoubtedly provide a far more complete picture of how we got here, including information that raises legitimate questions about the agency's decision."

Jessica Knoblauch is a former award-winning journalist who now serves at the helm of Earthjustice's editorial team, which tells stories through the organization's blog, quarterly magazine and website.

==

http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/29/oakland-bans-coal-exports/

The Oakland City Council took a strong stand against coal Monday night. Following a long and often emotional city council meeting—during which whistles and cheers were at times met with boos and yelling—the council passed an ordinance prohibiting the storage and handling of coal and petcoke at Oakland facilities and a resolution that would specifically apply the ordinance to the Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal (OBOT), which is being built on the old Oakland Army Base.:{ :(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px;z-index:100;display:block;max-width:750px;max-height:465px"):}:The Oakland City Council voted 7-0 to ban coal storage and handling in Oakland.

The meeting drew hundreds of impassioned Oakland residents, including representatives from the labor, faith, environmental and health communities, as well as the terminal developers. Those speaking against the terminal emphasized that West Oakland already suffers the effects of disproportionate air pollution. They argued that added particulate pollution tied to the coal export terminal could elevate the risk of health problems like asthma, cancer and lung and heart disease.

Several speakers also pointed to climate change and it’s impact both globally and in Oakland.

“There is strong evidence that if coal is not shipped from OBOT, it will not be shipped and combusted at all,” Linda Rudolph, director of the Climate Change and Public Health Project at the Public Health Institute, said, speaking to the city council prior to the vote.

“If coal is shipped from OBOT, the greenhouse gas emissions from burning that coal will be greater than that from all five bay area oil refineries. It will contribute significantly to climate change and climate change is the defining health challenge of this century. It’s a serious threat to the health of Oakland residents.”

Those speaking on behalf of the project said that measures could be taken to mitigate the impacts from coal and emphasized the jobs associated with the terminal project.

“[The terminal] will be the source of generational prosperity for many of the … un- and underemployed residents and most important, it will be safe,” said Jerry Bridges, president and CEO of Terminal Logistics Solutions, which will operate OBOT. (Labor representatives, however, spoke out strongly against the use of the terminal for coal shipments, rejecting the idea that the issue is one of jobs versus community health or justice and pointing out that the terminal will create jobs regardless of the specific commodities shipped through it).

The buildup to the vote has been considerable. Oakland residents and activists have been advocating against coal exports since the spring of 2015, when plans to use OBOT for coal were first revealed. On Friday, they received a sign that their efforts might pay off when Oakland City staff released a report finding that the use of the terminal for coal exports would negatively impact the health, safety and general welfare of Oakland residents and recommending that the City Council pass both the ordinance and the resolution applying it to OBOT.

Furthermore, staff concluded that the city had legal authority to ban the export of coal through Oakland. (The original agreement between CCIG and the City of Oakland did not specify which commodities would be shipped through the terminal and prohibited modifications based on new laws. However, it included a caveat allowing for any modification that might be necessary to protect local health and safety).

The staff report itself was based in large part on a city-commissioned study on the impacts of the terminal prepared by Environmental Science Associates, that underscored the public health, safety and environmental impacts of transporting, storing and handling coal at the proposed shipping terminal. These include increased exposure to particulate pollution in communities already overburdened by pollutants, health and safety risks related to the spontaneous combustion of coal and increased global CO2 emissions associated with the burning of exported coal in power plants overseas.

The environmental consultancy’s report reinforced findings from two additional studies, one commissioned by city council member Daniel Kalb, released just a day earlier and a second by the Public Health Panel on Coal in Oakland.

Kalb was optimistic going into the city council meeting. “I’m confident we will take action that will protect the public health and minimize safety risks,” he said, speaking with Earth Island Journal by phone before the meeting. “I think there is plenty of analysis to suggest it is a serious health risk to a lot of people, especially workers and there are substantial safety risks.”

The Oakland coal issue has spurred action far beyond city limits as well. In February, California State Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Oakland, introduced four bills targeting coal exports in California generally and the OBOT site specifically. The State Senate passed two of the bills in June—one that would prohibit the State Transportation Committee from funding coal storage or transportation projects in or adjacent to disadvantaged communities and another that would require additional environmental review of the proposed Oakland project. The two bills are now under consideration by the State Assembly.

Environmental groups have also been focusing on Utah, where pro-coal actors have worked to secure funding for the Oakland project as a means of ensuring export capacity for Utah coal. Specifically, the state has pledged $53 million in taxpayer funds toward a loan for the OBOT project in exchange for shipping rights at the terminal.

The funds were initially provided through a loan by the Utah Community Impact Fund, using money that was supposed to go towards mitigating impacts of mineral extraction in Utah. When that usage of funds was called into question, the Utah legislature approved a bill essentially swapping out those funds for other money to get around the rules.

Last week, Earthjustice, Sierra Club and Heal Utah, among other groups, sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior demanding an investigation of the loan on legal and ethical grounds.

“I think some people want to frame this as a story about liberal West Coasters who are worried about climate change in the abstract versus coal miners in Utah,” Ted Zukoski, an Earthjustice attorney who has been following the Utah developments, said. “This is about Utah and corporations they are working on behalf of, trying to offload the environmental damage to another community, cashing in while someone else suffers.”

Throughout the four-hour Monday night city council meeting, many anti-coal activists, as well as council members, made a point of emphasizing that they were not opposing the Oakland Army Base redevelopment project or OBOT more generally, but rather the use of the terminal to export coal.

Prior to the meeting, David Smith, an attorney representing the developer, California Capital Investment Group, told the East Bay Express that they would go to court to challenge a coal ban.

Gregory McConnell, representing CCIG, reiterated this sentiment at the council meeting. Speaking to the city council in reference to a letter the company sent the council earlier in the day, he said “the developer will have no choice but to pursue all legal remedies to protect their interests” if the council voted to ban coal. He suggested that the city could be liable for hundreds of millions of dollars for breaching the development agreement.

“So this is not going to end tonight even if the decision that you make tonight says that you ban coal,” McConnell said.

Environmental and community groups, however, praised the decision. “We stand with community groups and commend the City for taking a strong stance against coal and using its powers to protect its residents,” Irene Gutierrez, an attorney with Earthjustice, said in a statement.

“We are totally delighted everybody came through that was there tonight,” said Margaret Rossoff of No Coal in Oakland campaign, a grassroots organization campaigning to stop coal from being by rail through Oakland, right before joining a celebration with friends following the vote.

Both the ordinance and the resolution passed by 7 to 0 vote—one council member was excused from the meeting. The council will hold a second reading of the ordinance on July 19.

http://ecowatch.com/2015/09/14/epa-pesticide-overturned

A federal court has overturned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) approval of sulfoxaflor, a pesticide linked to the mass die-off of honeybees that pollinate a third of the world’s food supply.

The three-judge panel said the EPA green-lit sulfoxaflor even though initial studies showed the product was highly toxic to pollinators such as bees. The chemical compound belongs to a class of insecticides, known as neonicotinoids, that scientific studies have implicated in bee deaths.

“Because the EPA’s decision to unconditionally register sulfoxaflor was based on flawed and limited data, we conclude that the unconditional approval was not supported by substantial evidence,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit panel wrote in its opinion.

In her opinion, Judge Mary M. Schroeder wrote that the EPA had initially decided to conditionally approve the chemical but ordered more studies done to better understand the effects the systemic insecticide would have on bees.

“A few months later, however, the EPA unconditionally registered the insecticides with certain mitigation measures and a lowering of the maximum application rate,” Schroeder wrote. “It did so without obtaining any further studies.”

The product, sold in the U.S. as Transform or Closer, must be pulled from store shelves by Oct. 18.

Gregory Loarie, lead counsel for environmental group Earthjustice, which represented beekeepers and beekeeping groups in the case, said the ruling could lead to reviews of other EPA-approved pesticides.

“The EPA rarely, if ever, has reliable information regarding the impact that insecticides have onhoneybee colonies writ large, as opposed to individual, adult worker bees,” Loarie said in an email. “With the findings in this case, EPA should move quickly to re-examine other registrations for possible flawed and limited data.”

Sulfoxaflor, created by Indianapolis-based Dow AgroSciences, is a systemic insecticide. When it’s sprayed on soybean, cotton, citrus, fruit and vegetable crops, it kills bugs on contact and is also absorbed into the plant’s flowers, stems and roots. When insects ingest any part of the plant, they die too.

Paul Towers, spokesperson for advocacy group Pesticide Action Network, said that because sulfoxaflor was only approved in 2013, it hasn’t been widely used. “The prospect of greater use loomed, especially as other neonicotinoids are under increased scrutiny and pressure for phase-out,” Towers said.

That phase-out already has started in Europe; EU member nations banned three neonicotinoids in 2013 for two years after the chemicals were linked to the dramatic decline in bee populations there.

“This is the classic pesticide industry shell game,” Towers said. “As more science underscores the harms of a pesticide, they shift to newer, less studied products. And it takes regulators years to catch up.”

==

==

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Earthjustice

Earthjustice was founded in 1971 as the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. In 1997, the group changed its name to Earthjustice to better reflect its purpose of acting as legal advocate for the environment.

Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm "dedicated to protecting magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment."[1] The group focuses on enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions, and communities.

Contents

  [hide] 

Targeted coal plant proposals

Trustees

Accessed December 2013: [2]

Earthjustice Board 2007/2008

Accessed September 2008: [3]

Group details

Locations: Headquarters in Oakland, CA; regional offices around the U.S.

Group website: Earthjustice

Contact: info [at] earthjustice.org

Resources

References

  1. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ "About Us", Earthjustice website, accessed February 2008.
  2. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Earth Justice Trustees, organizational web page, accessed December 21, 2013.
  3. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Directors, Earthjustice, accessed September 17, 2008.

Related SourceWatch Articles

External links

Categories: 

==

Court Victory Forces Foot-Dragging EPA to Act on Toxic Coal Ash

In response to a court victory by Earthjustice, representing 11 environmental and public health groups and a Native American...

==

==

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Earthjustice

Earthjustice was founded in 1971 as the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. In 1997, the group changed its name to Earthjustice to better reflect its purpose of acting as legal advocate for the environment.

Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm "dedicated to protecting magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment."[1] The group focuses on enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions, and communities.

Contents

  [hide] 

Targeted coal plant proposals

Trustees

Accessed December 2013: [2]

Earthjustice Board 2007/2008

Accessed September 2008: [3]

Group details

Locations: Headquarters in Oakland, CA; regional offices around the U.S.

Group website: Earthjustice

Contact: info [at] earthjustice.org

Resources

References

  1. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ "About Us", Earthjustice website, accessed February 2008.
  2. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Earth Justice Trustees, organizational web page, accessed December 21, 2013.
  3. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Directors, Earthjustice, accessed September 17, 2008.

Related SourceWatch Articles

External links

Categories: 

==

Court Victory Forces Foot-Dragging EPA to Act on Toxic Coal Ash

In response to a court victory by Earthjustice, representing 11 environmental and public health groups and a Native American...

==

==

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Earthjustice

Earthjustice was founded in 1971 as the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. In 1997, the group changed its name to Earthjustice to better reflect its purpose of acting as legal advocate for the environment.

Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm "dedicated to protecting magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment."[1] The group focuses on enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions, and communities.

Contents

  [hide] 

Targeted coal plant proposals

Trustees

Accessed December 2013: [2]

Earthjustice Board 2007/2008

Accessed September 2008: [3]

Group details

Locations: Headquarters in Oakland, CA; regional offices around the U.S.

Group website: Earthjustice

Contact: info [at] earthjustice.org

Resources

References

  1. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ "About Us", Earthjustice website, accessed February 2008.
  2. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Earth Justice Trustees, organizational web page, accessed December 21, 2013.
  3. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Directors, Earthjustice, accessed September 17, 2008.

Related SourceWatch Articles

External links

Categories: 

==

Court Victory Forces Foot-Dragging EPA to Act on Toxic Coal Ash

In response to a court victory by Earthjustice, representing 11 environmental and public health groups and a Native American...

==

Attachments