Opinion | How Has This Pesticide Not Been Banned? - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/opinion/chlorpyrifos-pesticide.html
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/12/17/opinion/17pesticide_web/17pesticide_web-facebookJumbo.jpg The pesticide known as chlorpyrifos is both clearly dangerous and in very wide use. It is known to pass easily from mother to fetus and has been linked to a wide range of serious medical problems, including impaired development, Parkinson’s disease and some forms of cancer. That’s not entirely surprising. The chemical was originally developed by Nazis during World War II for use as a nerve gas.
Here’s what is surprising: Tons of the pesticide are still being sprayed across millions of acres of United States farmland every year, nearly five years after the Environmental Protection Agency determined that it should be banned.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, however, vetoed that bill. Mr. Cuomo promises to institute a ban on the pesticide — and quickly, by July 2021 — but says that his administration will accomplish this goal through regulations, not legislation. That’s an unfortunate choice. Regulations tend to be far more vulnerable to legal challenge and other stalling tactics, including regulatory hearings that could take years even to schedule, than actual laws. It’s hard to see why the governor would forgo the latter option, especially when he had it sitting right in front of him.
The chemical industry and some farmers have lobbied intensively against a chlorpyrifos ban, insisting that there are no effective alternatives. That’s a specious argument.
In 2018, a panel of federal judges ordered the Trump administration to ban chlorpyrifos in accordance with the E.P.A.’s initial findings. But the administration appealed — a legal battle that is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. The administration also blocked the release of a federal report indicating that chlorpyrifos poses a direct threat to more than 1,000 species that are already at risk of extinction. (Corteva Agriscience, the pesticide’s manufacturer, donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inauguration committee.)
#Pesticides #Perturbateurs_endocriniens #Régulation #Bannissement #Coquelicots