Last week, the EPA, headed by anti-science Scott Pruitt, rejected their own scientific studies and conclusions in order to allow the pesticide chorpyrifos to stay on the market. Considering that chorpyrifos is linked to nervous system damage in children, you would almost imagine this would be a no-brainer for this brainless monster of a Republican administration.
Newly installed EPA administrator Scott Pruitt signed an order that would allow farmers to continue using chlorpyrifos, which is sprayed on more than a dozen crops, including tree nuts, soybeans, corn, wheat, apples and citrus.
The Obama administration had announced in 2015 that the agency would adopt a “zero tolerance” policy for residue of the chemical on food, a move that effectively would have ended its use.
Pruitt’s quote about this is as follows:
By reversing the previous administration’s steps to ban one of the most widely used pesticides in the world, we are returning to using sound science in decision-making — rather than predetermined results.
The only thing “predetermined” here is Scott Pruitt and anyone else “approved” by Trump and Senate Republicans’ lack of ethics. There is no confusion surrounding the science. This week, three environmental groups asked a federal appeals court to force the EPA to ban the pesticide.
The lawyers who petitioned the court for action today have already seen industry pressure on chlorpyrifos slow efforts to regulate it. The environmental groups have been asking EPA to ban the pesticide since at least 2000, and first sued the agency over chlorpyrifos back in 2007. Since then, the Dow presence at EPA has increased, according to Patti Goldman, an EarthJustice attorney who has been working to protect the public from the risks of chlorpyrifos for more than 20 years.
Yet the environmental groups think they may still be able to get chlorpyrifos banned – in part because Pruitt’s decision was so clearly at odds with years of research that shows the dangers of chlorpyrifos. “It’s outrageous that the new EPA administrator would reject the scientific findings of its own agency and defy the law and court orders to keep this nasty pesticide on the market,” says Goldman, who notes that the EPA is required to make sure pesticides meet safety standards.
Children. This is poison that hurts children.