Chlorpyrifos No Longer Allowed in Food Products


WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will announce Wednesday that it has banned a common pesticide widely used on fruits and vegetables since 1965 from use in food products because it has been linked to neurological damage in children.

The Environmental Protection Agency said it will issue a regulation this week to curb the use of chlorpyrifos on food. Chlorpyrifos, one of the most widely used pesticides, is widely applied to corn, soybeans, apples, broccoli, asparagus and other crops.

The new rule, which will take effect six months later, is as follows: An order by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in April It directed the EPA to cease agricultural use of the chemical unless it could demonstrate its safety.

In an unusual move, the new chlorpyrifos policy will not be implemented through the standard regulatory process where EPA first issues a draft rule, then receives public comment before issuing a final rule. Instead, the rule will be published in final form with no draft or public comment period, in line with the court ruling that the science linking chlorpyrifos to brain damage is more than a decade old.

The announcement is the latest in a series of moves by the Biden administration to recreate, strengthen or restore more than 100 environmental regulations.

“Today the EPA is taking a belated step to protect public health,” said Michael S. Regan, the agency’s head. “Ending the use of chlorpyrifos in food will help ensure that children, farm workers and all people are protected from the potentially dangerous consequences of this pesticide.”

Environmental organizations, health advocates, and groups representing farm workers have long sought to halt the use of chlorpyrifos after research has shown that pesticide exposure is linked to low birth weights, lower IQs, and other developmental problems in children. Studies have traced some of these health effects from prenatal exposure to pesticides.

Last year, many of these groups petitioned the EPA to reverse the Trump-era decision not to ban the chemical’s use.

“It’s been so long, but kids will no longer eat food tainted with a pesticide that causes mental learning disabilities,” said Patti Goldman, attorney for EarthJustice, one of the organizations behind the federal position. “Chlorpyrifos will eventually come out of our fruits and vegetables.”

Many states, including California, Hawaii, New York, and Maryland, have banned or restricted the use of chlorpyrifos, and the attorneys general of those states, as well as Washington, Vermont, and Massachusetts, joined the petition.

The Obama administration began the process of canceling all pesticide use in 2015, but in 2020 the Trump administration ignored the suggestions EPA scientists and kept chlorpyrifos on the market. It set off wave of legal challenges.

Those challenges ended in April with a court order that gave the EPA until August 20 to show that chlorpyrifos is not harmful to children or to legally end its use in food products.

“This is very unusual,” said Michal Freedhoff, EPA’s deputy director for chemical safety and pollution prevention, of the court’s directive. “It describes the impatience and frustration of the courts, environmental groups and farm workers with the agency.”

“The court basically said, ‘Enough is enough’,” Mr. Freedhoff said. “Either tell us it’s safe and show your work and cancel all tolerances if you can’t.”

The decision is expected to draw criticism from the chemical industry and the farm lobby, who worked closely with the Trump administration prior to the decision to keep chlorpyrifos in use.

“The availability of pesticides like chlorpyrifos is relied upon by farmers to control a variety of insect pests and by public health officials working to control deadly and debilitating pests like mosquitoes,” said Chris Novak, CEO of CropLife America. Agrochemicals company during the Trump decision.

Chlorpyrifos will continue to be used for non-food uses such as golf courses, turf, utility poles and fence posts, as well as for cockroach bait and ant treatments.

Judge Jed S. Rakoff, of the Ninth Circuit, said in a scorching attack on the Trump administration’s EPA that, on behalf of the court, instead of banning or imposing restrictions on pesticide, the agency “tried to evade one after another with the tactic of delaying simple legal duties.”



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