EPA and Pesticides
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin says his agency’s made big progress in reducing the backlog of pesticide registration reviews, while some remain controversial.
Zeldin tells Agri-Pulse EPA’s pesticide review backlog has been reduced by more than 40% …
ZELDIN … “The pesticide review backlog when I came in was 14-thousand-500. The good news is that the backlog is now down to 85 hundred.”
Zeldin says while EPA’s budget was cut, staff and IT were added at the Office of Chemical Safety …
ZELDIN … “The investment in IT, as well as increasing bandwidth with personnel, it was key to reducing the backlog.”
EPA has rewritten rules for use of dicamba and is working on glyphosate, but Zeldin says he won’t predetermine outcomes …
ZELDIN … “That’s not how it works. We have dedicated scientists who’ve been there 20, 30 years. They’re going to do their review, and then I’m going to communicate their findings with the public, and I don’t want to tell them at this stage of the review, politically, this is what I want your findings to show.”
The House will soon debate a farm bill that shields chemical companies from lawsuits by those harmed by pesticides and limits state and local governments’ power to regulate safety warnings.
