All News Releases By Date

 

AMENDED PESTICIDE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT FILED

Release Date: 03/20/2001
Contact Information:

On Monday, March 19 EPA submitted an amended consent decree to the federal District Court in California to resolve lawsuits filed regarding scientific and regulatory decisions affecting certain pesticides. The revised agreement was reached between EPA and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) after lengthy negotiations among EPA, NRDC, and Interveners in the case, who include representatives from the pesticide industry and the farming community. After EPA’s counsel advised Administrator Christie Whitman that the Agency had limited flexibility to change or withdraw from the consent decree, Whitman outlined steps in a directive to the pesticide program to make its regulatory processes more participatory and transparent.

“The changes we negotiated in the settlement agreement will guarantee new opportunities for public participation and additional external review of critical pesticide decisions,” said Whitman. “We have set specific milestones for the review of certain pesticides, and EPA will meet deadlines required by the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) to reassess existing pesticides using current health and safety standards.” Whitman added, “We will do so using a rigorous scientific review process that will allow extensive opportunity for public involvement and comment, to ensure that all perspectives are heard.”

Administrator Whitman directed the pesticide program to seek input from all interested parties, including the Committee to Advise on Reassessment and Transition (CARAT), on ways to optimize public involvement in FQPA implementation. Whitman announced that during this process the committee will be co-chaired by the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and by the Deputy Administrator of EPA. The directive also requires that EPA solicit advice from its Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) on a critical element of conducting cumulative risk assessments. Cumulative risk assessment is the evaluation of the risks of exposure to multiple pesticides which are chemically similar and share a common mechanism of toxicity.

Specifically, the revised agreement continues to include the following components:

• Establishes dates to conduct cumulative risk assessments for organophosphate pesticides,
• Establishes dates to issue Reregistration Eligibility Decisions (REDs) or revised risk assessment for 11 specific pesticides,
• Establishes dates for certain regulatory decisions (if necessary) for 3 pesticides,
• Establishes dates to determine if certain classes of pesticides share a common mechanism of toxicity,
• Continue efforts to establish a scientifically validated screening and testing program for potential endocrine disrupting chemicals.

Under the FQPA, EPA is required to reassess 66 percent of existing tolerances by August 3, 2002 to ensure they meet today’s health and safety standards. The Agency is on schedule to meet this deadline. EPA remains committed to a thorough, transparent and open process to ensure that pesticide decisions made under FQPA are protective of public health, while ensuring also that our Nation’s farmers have safe and effective pest control tools to produce an abundant and healthy food supply.

A summary detailing modifications to the consent decree follows. For further information, copies of the revised agreement and Administrator Whitman’s directive to the pesticide program are available at www.epa.gov/pesticides .

R-41 ###


After consultation with the Department of Agriculture and representatives of the farming and pesticide manufacturing community, a number of modifications have been made to the Consent Decree negotiated with NRDC :

• Specific language has been inserted providing that, in developing relative potency factors (RPF) for use in a cumulative risk assessment for the organophosphates, EPA will make its RPF analyses available to the public by July 31, 2001; EPA will make the underlying toxicity studies available to the public to the extent possible under FIFRA (multinational pesticide producers can only get access to the studies to the extent that the submitters of the studies acquiesce); and EPA will agree to work with companies that wish to generate additional toxicity studies in order to clarify how the studies could best be performed.

• Specific language has been inserted providing for a public comment period after issuance of a draft cumulative risk assessment for the organophosphates.

• The Agency has clarified in the Consent Decree that it intends to consider label changes and other changes to the terms and conditions of a pesticide’s registration when conducting a risk assessment for a pesticide.

• EPA has clarified in the Consent Decree that it intends to provide opportunities for public participation in its tolerance reassessment and pesticide reregistration activities, and that it intends to discuss the timing and nature of such opportunities with its Committee to Advise on Reassessment and Transition (CARAT).

• EPA has also clarified in the Consent Decree that it intends to consider new data in the development of risk assessments and reregistration eligibility determinations if the new data are submitted sufficiently before the scheduled date of issuance of the assessment or determination to allow for thorough review and consideration of the new information.
• Four months have been added to the scheduled date for the Interim Reregistration Eligibility Determination for phosmet in order to allow the Agency to better coordinate its analyses of pesticide benefits with USDA.

• Specific language has been added to the Decree providing that, when determining whether chemical compounds share a common mechanism of toxicity, EPA will follow its existing policies or explain, in writing, any deviations from such policies.

• Specific language has been added to the Decree providing that after it makes a determination as to whether chemicals in four specified classes of pesticides share common mechanisms of toxicity, EPA will accept public comment on the determinations and will consider the comments in any subsequent risk assessments involving the chemicals. [EPA could also issue revised determinations based upon the comments].