Associated Press
Thursday
29 July 2004
www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-07-29-epa-pesticides_x.htm
Washington
- The Environmental Protection Agency will be free to approve pesticides
without consulting wildlife agencies to determine if the chemical might
harm plants and animals protected by the Endangered Species Act, according
to new Bush administration rules.
The
streamlining by the Interior and Commerce departments represents "a
more efficient approach to ensure protection of threatened and endangered
species," officials with the two agencies, EPA and the Agriculture
Department said in a joint statement Thursday.
It
also is intended to head off future lawsuits, the officials said.
Under
the Endangered Species Act, EPA has been required to consult with
Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service and Commerce's National Marine
Fisheries Service each time it licenses a new pesticide. But that hasn't
been happening for some time.
"Because
of the complexity of consultations to examine the effects of pest-control
products, there have been almost no consultations completed in the past
decade," the officials acknowledged in their statement.
Steve
Williams, the Fish and Wildlife director, said it was too complex to have
to consider every possible result among the interaction of hundreds of
active chemicals and 1,200 threatened and endangered species.
The
two services are responsible for enforcing the endangered species law. But
the new rules let EPA formally skip the consultations.
The
heads of the two wildlife services will presume EPA's review work is
adequate.
"The
two agencies completed a scientific review of EPA's risk assessment
process, and concluded it allows EPA to make accurate assessments of the
likely effects of pesticides on threatened and endangered species,"
said Bill Hogarth, who heads the fisheries service.
But
the two services still plan to review EPA's methods occasionally, just to
make sure. And EPA can still ask for outside consultations if it wants to.
In that case, the wildlife agencies would have final say on whether a
species might be harmed by a pesticide.
By
not requiring so many consultations, the officials said it was more likely
the ones that matter most would get done. The Endangered Species Act was
signed into law by President Nixon in 1973.
CropLife
America, a pesticide industry trade group, described the new rules as
"a sensible approach that strengthens protections to endangered
animal and plant species while maintaining access to tested and approved
pesticides" used in agriculture, pest control and wildlife
protection.
The
rulemaking is partly in response to a successful lawsuit against EPA in
Seattle by Washington Toxics Coalition, the Pacific Coast Federation of
Fishermen's Associations and other groups. They argued that EPA hadn't
consulted with the government's wildlife experts to gauge the risks
various pesticides pose to salmon in the Pacific Northwest.
A
federal judge in January temporarily banned the use of 38 pesticides near
salmon streams until EPA determines whether they would harm the fish. An
attempt by pesticide makers and farm groups to block the order, was
rejected by the appeals court.
Last
year, the Natural Resources Defense Council sued EPA in federal court in
Baltimore on similar grounds, arguing the agency hadn't properly consulted
the wildlife agencies while approving a popular weedkiller, atrazine. The
case is still pending.
Aaron
Colangelo, an NRDC staff attorney, said the new rule benefits the
pesticide industry at the expense of endangered species.
"The
fact that the consultations are so complicated counsels for better
protection, not lesser protection," he said. "The solution to
ignoring it for decades isn't to rewrite the rule so they can continue to
ignore the consultations. The solution is to start complying with the
Endangered Species Act."
