June, 16 2011, 01:01pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Heather Pilatic, Pesticide Action Network, (415) 694-8596
Jeff Miller, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 669-7357
Alliance Calls for Stronger Measures to Protect Human Health, Wildlife From Dangerous Pesticides
WASHINGTON
More than 130 groups in 35 states, representing public health, food-security, sustainable-farming, farmworker and conservation interests called on the Environmental Protection Agency today to use all the tools at its disposal to protect public health and imperiled wildlife from harmful pesticides. The letter to the EPA, citing significant flaws in the pesticide registration process, comes as Congress considers legislation to weaken environmental protections and allow increased pesticide pollution.
"Pesticides pose a clear and preventable danger to our health and the environment. It's time for the EPA to ensure pesticides no longer jeopardize human health, wildlife, the water we drink or the air we breathe," said Jeff Miller, a conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. "Congress must do its part by stopping legislation sponsored by chemical corporations and their allies to strip important laws that safeguard future generations, farmworkers and wildlife from pesticide harms."
The groups cite undue pesticide industry influence over EPA's pesticide decisions under the Federal Insecticide Fungicide Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)--as well as documented pesticide impacts such as endocrine disruption, cancers and reproductive disorders for humans and wildlife--in requesting increased protections from harmful pesticide use. Specifically, the groups urge EPA to use the "rigorous scientific review process and strong legal protections" of the federal Endangered Species Act.
"The pesticide industry has subverted the intended protections of U.S. pesticide law under FIFRA. That law is broken. If enforced, the Endangered Species Act offers strong protections for our most endangered wildlife, with human health benefits because it requires a more rigorous scientific review process less susceptible to industry influence," said Heather Pilatic, co-director of Pesticide Action Network North America. "Current independent science indicates that the low-level mixtures of pesticides to which we are all exposed contribute to children's rising rates of neurodevelopmental disease and certain cancers, and impact the biodiversity that keeps our planet resilient."
Pesticide use in the United States is regulated primarily under FIFRA, a 1947 labeling law that was last significantly updated 40 years ago and has been subject to major pesticide industry and farm-lobby influence. The Endangered Species Act is a stronger statute that requires formal consultation with federal wildlife agencies to assess pesticide impacts and develop measures to avoid harm to endangered species. The EPA has completed very few of these consultations. The Clean Water Act also regulates pesticide pollution by requiring federal permits for discharges of contaminants that enter waterways, including pesticides. A bill currently under consideration in the Senate, however, would exempt pesticides from the Clean Water Act.
In January, the Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network North America filed the most comprehensive legal action ever brought under the Endangered Species Act to protect imperiled wildlife from pesticides. The suit seeks to compel the EPA to evaluate the impacts of hundreds of the most dangerous pesticides known to be harmful to more than 200 endangered and threatened species. The process would yield common-sense restrictions on some of the most harmful pesticides and safeguard human health (including for farmworkers and their families), drinking water and wildlife. Tellingly, Crop Life America, the pesticide industry's main trade group, has stated that defeating this lawsuit is one of its top three lobbying priorities.
"Lobbying by pesticide interests to exempt pesticides from our strongest environmental laws will have cascading effects for generations," said Pilatic. "Hundreds of groups have come together to call for more -- not less -- protection from pesticides."
Background
More than a billion pounds of pesticides are used annually in the United States, and the EPA has registered more than 18,000 different pesticides for use. Scientific studies show widespread and pervasive pesticide contamination in groundwater, drinking water and wildlife habitats throughout the country. Farmers, farmworkers and their families, and rural communities face higher rates of Parkinson's disease, many cancers, autoimmune disorders, neurodevelopmental problems and a host of other pesticide-linked diseases.
Through pesticide drift and runoff, pesticides can travel far from the areas where they are applied and into sensitive wildlife habitats. Some contaminated waterways are regularly subjected to toxic pulses of combinations of pesticides deadly to fish and other life. Pesticides are a particular threat to endangered species, biological diversity and pollinating insects and bats.
For decades the EPA has consistently failed to engage in required consultations to properly evaluate whether pesticides it registers are harmful to imperiled species. In 2004 the Center published Silent Spring Revisited: Pesticide Use and Endangered Species, detailing the EPA's dismal record in protecting endangered species from pesticides. Lawsuits by conservation groups have forced the EPA to assess pesticide impacts on some endangered species, primarily in California, and resulted in temporary restrictions on pesticide use in sensitive habitats. In complying with court-ordered evaluations, the EPA has concurred that nearly every pesticide at issue is "likely to adversely affect" the at-risk species.
An example of the EPA failure to protect people and the environment is the controversial re-registration of the dangerous herbicide atrazine, a widespread pollutant of groundwater and drinking water that has been banned in the European Union. Atrazine chemically castrates male frogs at extremely low concentrations. Recent research also links atrazine to birth defects and endocrine disruption in humans, as well as significant harm to wildlife.
See an interactive map of endangered species threatened by pesticide use
Find out more about the Center's Pesticides Reduction campaign
Read information from PANNA on the environmental impacts of persistent poisons
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
(520) 623-5252LATEST NEWS
Watchdogs' Database Details Right-Wing Efforts to Sway US Supreme Court
"Supreme corruption demands supreme transparency," said one campaigner behind the new effort.
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A trio of progressive watchdog groups on Thursday unveiled a new database detailing the "troubling connections" between the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing justices, the conservative organizations that have intervened in cases before the court, and the wealthy donors funding them.
Take Back the Court, Revolving Door Project, and True North Research published the database at SupremeTransparency.org, which "shines a spotlight on the complex web connecting justices to powerbrokers and the organizations that those powerbrokers fund, lead, and are otherwise linked to."
The watchdogs found that nearly 1 in 7 amicus briefs filed during the 2023-24 Supreme Court term were lodged by at least one powerbroker-affiliated organization. This affects 32 different cases before the court.
"The current U.S. Supreme Court has gone rogue."
For example, in Moore v. United States—in which the Supreme Court could preemptively ban or limit wealth taxes—half of all amicus briefs were filed by groups affiliated with right-wing powerbrokers.
In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, groups funded by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch want to scupper the Chevron deference, a 40-year precedent under which judges defer to the legal interpretations of federal agencies if Congress has not passed any laws on an issue. Powerbroker-affiliated organizations have filed more than one-third of the amicus briefs seeking to overturn the Chevron doctrine.
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According to SupremeTransparency.org:
The current U.S. Supreme Court has gone rogue. The right-wing justices that make up the court's supermajority frequently toy with precedent and the rule of law to issue opinions that not only defy the will of a majority of Americans, but also rewrite constitutional principles, overturn widely respected legal precedents, and gut longstanding rules that protect the public interest.
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Apr 18, 2024
The climate crisis will shrink the average global income 19% in the next 26 years compared to what it would have been without global heating caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, a study published in Nature Wednesday has found.
The researchers, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), said that economic shrinkage was largely locked in by mid-century by existing climate change, but that actions taken to reduce emissions now could determine whether income losses hold steady at around 20% or triple through the second half of the century.
"These near-term damages are a result of our past emissions," study lead author and PIK scientist Leonie Wenz said in a statement. "We will need more adaptation efforts if we want to avoid at least some of them. And we have to cut down our emissions drastically and immediately—if not, economic losses will become even bigger in the second half of the century, amounting to up to 60% on global average by 2100."
"I am used to my work not having a nice societal outcome, but I was surprised by how big the damages were."
Put in dollar terms, the climate crisis will take a yearly $38 trillion chunk out of the global economy in damages by 2050, the study authors found.
"That seems like… a lot," writer and climate advocate Bill McKibben wrote in response to the findings. "The entire world economy at the moment is about $100 trillion a year; the federal budget is about $6 trillion a year."
This means that the costs of inaction have already exceeded the costs of limiting global heating to 2°C by six times, the study authors said. However, limiting warming to 2°C can still significantly reduce economic losses through 2100.
"This clearly shows that protecting our climate is much cheaper than not doing so, and that is without even considering noneconomic impacts such as loss of life or biodiversity," Wenz said.
The damages predicted by the study were more than twice those of similar analyses because the researchers looked beyond national temperature data to also incorporate the impacts of extreme weather and rainfall on more than 1,600 subnational regions over a 40-year period, The Guardian explained.
"Strong income reductions are projected for the majority of regions, including North America and Europe, with South Asia and Africa being most strongly affected," PIK scientist and first author Maximilian Kotz said in a statement. "These are caused by the impact of climate change on various aspects that are relevant for economic growth such as agricultural yields, labor productivity, or infrastructure."
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Unlike previous studies, the research predicted economic losses for most wealthier countries in the Global North, with the U.S. and German economies shrinking by 11% by mid-century, France's by 13%, and the U.K.'s by 7%. However, the countries set to suffer the most are countries closer to the equator that have lower incomes already and have historically done much less to contribute to the climate crisis. Iraq, for example, could see incomes drop by 30%, Botswana 25%, and Brazil 21%.
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Wenz told The Guardian that the results were "devastating."
"I am used to my work not having a nice societal outcome, but I was surprised by how big the damages were. The inequality dimension was really shocking," Wenz said.
Levermann said the paper presented society with a clear choice:
It is on us to decide: Structural change towards a renewable energy system is needed for our security and will save us money. Staying on the path we are currently on, will lead to catastrophic consequences. The temperature of the planet can only be stabilized if we stop burning oil, gas, and coal.
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"Progressives are proud to have been part of the most significant Democratic legislative accomplishments of this century. We have made real progress for everyday Americans—but there's much more work to be done," Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in a statement.
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Progressive lawmakers have already introduced bills for many items on the agenda, including a Green New Deal for Public Schools, expanding the Supreme Court, comprehensive voting rights protection, and legalizing marijuana.
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Jayapal toldNBC News that the CPC is focusing its blueprint exclusively on domestic goals—especially ones it feels can be achieved.
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The CPC agenda is backed by a wide range of labor, climate, environmental, civil rights, consumer, faith-based, and other organizations.
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Mary Small, chief strategy officer at Indivisible, said: "House progressives were the engine at the heart of our legislative accomplishments in 2021 and 2022. They've continued that momentum to be true governing partners to the Biden administration as those laws and programs are implemented."
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That moment is far from guaranteed, with not only the White House hanging in the balance as Biden will all but certainly face former Republican President Donald Trump in November's election but also the Senate Democratic Caucus clinging to a single-seat advantage over the GOP. Republicans currently hold the House of Representatives by a five-seat margin.
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