SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
For Immediate Release
March, 04 2021, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Erin Fitzgerald, efitzgerald@earthjustice.org
Over 100 Organizations Urge Biden to Ban Chlorpyrifos
Advocates say the proven brain-harming pesticide has no place on food (or anywhere else)
WASHINGTON
Today, over 100 farmworker, public health, and environmental organizations led by Earthjustice submitted a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) urging the Biden administration to ban chlorpyrifos. In December, Trump's EPA proposed that 11 food uses of the neurotoxic pesticide continue, prolonging harmful exposure to children, farmworkers, and endangered species.
On his first day in office, President Biden signed an executive order directing EPA to review the Trump administration decision to deny a 2007 petition to ban chlorpyrifos on food. But advocates say the harms of this pesticide have been documented for decades, therefore chlorpyrifos must be banned from food uses immediately. Chlorpyrifos is used on many different types of crops besides food, so farm workers will continue to face additional exposure. We are asking the EPA to act quickly and cancel all non-food uses, as well.
Chlorpyrifos, which belongs to a class of nerve-agent pesticides called organophosphates, is acutely toxic and associated with neurodevelopmental harms in children, according to multiple studies. Chlorpyrifos is a widely used pesticide. It is sprayed on numerous crops, including apples, cherries, peaches, citrus and wheat. Prenatal exposures to chlorpyrifos are linked to lower birth weight, reduced IQ, loss of working memory, attention disorders, and delayed motor development. It is also unsafe for workers even with the most protective equipment.
The following statement is from Daniel Savery, Earthjustice's senior legislative representative for the Healthy Communities program:
"After a thorough analysis of scientific evidence showing harmful impacts, EPA first proposed a ban on chlorpyrifos in 2015. Six years later, we are still fighting for the pesticide to be cancelled. It is time for the Biden administration to demonstrate its commitment to science, children, and farmworkers and finish the job. Under Trump, one of Scott Pruitt's first actions as EPA administrator was to deny a petition to ban chlorpyrifos. When Michael Regan is confirmed, one of his first actions should be to grant the petition and ban this toxic pesticide immediately."
The EPA is currently accepting public comments as part of their review of the registration of chlorpyrifos, which is required every 15 years by law. Earthjustice submitted technical comments to the EPA on behalf of a dozen farmworker, public health, and environmental organizations. The comment period for the proposal ends March 7th.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
800-584-6460LATEST NEWS
'This Is Not Self-Defense': UN Experts Condemn Israel's Criminal Assault on Lebanon
"We are witnessing the continuing utmost contempt for the international legal order," said a group of two dozen United Nations special rapporteurs.
Apr 16, 2026
A group of two dozen United Nations experts issued a scathing joint statement on Wednesday condemning Israel's ongoing assault on Lebanon as "a blatant violation of the UN Charter, a deliberate destruction of prospects for peace, and an affront to multilateralism and the UN-based international order."
"We are witnessing the continuing utmost contempt for the international legal order, for diplomacy, and above all for the lives of civilians and the environment in Lebanon," the experts said. "Israel has chosen the very moment a ceasefire was announced—one that its Pakistani mediator stated included Lebanon—to unleash the largest coordinated wave of strikes on the country since 1980."
Despite signals in recent days that the Israeli and Lebanese governments are engaged in their highest level of diplomatic talks in decade, Israel's military continues to ferociously bomb southern Lebanon, devastating entire towns—including homes and schools—and killing civilians. On Wednesday, according to Lebanese officials, Israeli forces killed three paramedics in a "triple-tap" airstrike on the town of Mayfadoun.
“This is not self-defense," said the UN experts, including special rapporteur on the right to education Farida Shaheed, special rapporteur on the right to food Ben Saul, and special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese.
“The issuance of blanket evacuation orders, combined with the destruction of urban and village housing that displaced persons would have returned to, is consistent with the pattern of domicide that was initiated during the genocide in Gaza,” the experts continued. "Forced displacement of a civilian population constitutes crimes against humanity and is a war crime under international law."
More than a million people, over a fifth of Lebanon's population, have been displaced since Israel ramped up its assault on the country in early March, claiming to target the political and militant group Hezbollah.
UNICEF USA said Thursday that at least 600 children have been killed or wounded by Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March 2, and more than 390,000 have been forced from their homes. Overall, Israel's assault on Lebanon has killed more than 2,000 people since early march.
"Nowhere is safe for children in Lebanon," the organization said.
In their statement on Wednesday, the UN experts demanded that Israel "immediately cease all military operations in Lebanon" and urged the United States—Israel's leading ally and arms supplier—to "use its influence" to ensure Israel stops the bombing.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Israeli Journalist With Deep Ties to IDF Admits West Bank Violence 'Looks Like... Ethnic Cleansing'
West Bank settler attacks on Palestinians are "rather sophisticated, organized, and funded systematic actions," with the goal of "cleansing" the entire region, said journalist Ron Ben-Yishai.
Apr 16, 2026
An Israeli war correspondent who has been described as having deep ties to the Israel Defense Forces said that intensifying settler violence in the occupied West Bank appears to be "ethnic cleansing."
In an column published by Ynet titled "This looks like blue and white ethnic cleansing," journalist Ron Ben-Yishai wrote that, during a recent tour of the West Bank, he observed "a disturbing reality" of Israeli teenagers "who go on 'intimidation tours'" in Palestinian villages, attacking Palestinians while members of the Israeli military frequently either stand by or actively join in the attacks.
"In some cases, these are reservists who also identify ideologically with the rioters, and therefore stand by and do not prevent them from going wild—and sometimes even help them," explained Ben-Yishai. "Even in the regular IDF units stationed in the territories, there have been quite a few cases in which commanders and fighters have deviated from the norms and the IDF's code of ethics for religious-nationalist reasons."
In conversations with Israeli settlers, Ben-Yishai often found that they believed they were entitled by God to take all land where Palestinians reside.
"The confident reliance on God's command as the answer to all moral and practical questions and concerns," he wrote, "gave me a disturbing feeling that this was a type of Jewish terrorism motivated by religious and nationalist motives."
Ben-Yishai also described ways in which Israeli settlers surround Palestinian communities "in order to prevent them from moving freely and strangle them economically."
Taken as a whole, Ben-Yishai concluded that the Israel settler attacks on Palestinians are a "rather sophisticated, organized, and funded systematic actions—with the long-term strategic goal being to 'cleanse' most of" the West Bank and Gaza of Palestinian presence.
In a social media post, geopolitical analyst Shaiel Ben-Ephraim explained how significant it was for someone like Ben-Yishai, whom he said has "the deepest ties to the IDF of any reporter," to describe West Bank settlers' actions as ethnic cleansing.
"Observers have been saying for years that what is happening in the West Bank is ethnic cleansing," he wrote. "But now voices from the heart of the Israeli consensus are admitting it as well."
Keep ReadingShow Less
In Third Boat Strike This Week, US Kills 3 People in 'Entirely Make-Believe' Armed Conflict Against Cartels
Customs and Border Protection data offers little evidence that the killing of at least 177 people in recent months has stopped drugs from reaching the US.
Apr 16, 2026
As Republicans and several Democrats in the US Senate gave the go-ahead for the US to send more bombs and military equipment to Israel for its attacks on Gaza and Lebanon on Wednesday, the Trump administration was continuing what it claims is an effort to rid Latin American countries of drug traffickers—killing three people aboard a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean in the US military's third boat bombing in three days.
The US Southern Command posted a video on social media of the bombing, which it said targeted a boat that was "transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations."
As with the 50 previous attacks on boats in the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, the military did not publicize any evidence that the boat was carrying drugs or that its passengers were "narco-terrorists."
A small number of the at least 177 victims of the Trump administration's boat bombings have been identified. The Associated Press reported in November that Robert Sánchez, who was killed in the Caribbean, was a 42-year-old fisherman who made $100 per month and had started helping cocaine traffickers navigate the sea due to economic pressures. Juan Carlos Fuentes was an out-of-work bus driver who also worked as a "drug runner" to make ends meet.
The families of at least two victims have filed legal complaints over the killings of their family members, saying they were fishermen.
Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America has compared the boat bombings, assuming they have targeted people involved in the drug trade at all, to "straight-up massacring 16-year-old drug dealers on US street corners.”
On Wednesday, Isacson noted that while Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have defended the boat bombings as attacks that will protect Americans from the flow of drugs like cocaine and fentanyl into the US—with the president informing Congress that the White House views the country as being in an "armed conflict" with drug cartels—data from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows little evidence that the strikes are stopping drugs from reaching the US.
"CBP's seizures of fentanyl at the US-Mexico border had been declining, often sharply, since mid-2023. But since early 2025, the declines stopped," said Isacson. "Halfway into fiscal 2026, seizures are almost exactly half of 2025's full-year total: a flat trendline."
Following Wednesday's bombing, at least 14 people have been killed in boat strikes in five days.
Brian Finucane of the International Crisis Group emphasized Wednesday night that "despite the administration’s rhetoric and bogus legal theories, the supposed armed conflict with 'narco-terrorists' appears to be entirely make-believe."
Under international law, drug trafficking is treated as a crime, with US law enforcement agencies in the past intercepting boats suspected of smuggling drugs and arresting those on board. A coalition of rights organizations sued the Trump administration in December, demanding documentation of the White House's legal justification for the boat bombings and arguing that for any organization to be considered part of "armed conflict" with the US, it must be an "organized armed group" that is engaged in "protracted armed violence" with the country.
"Murder," said Finucane, "is the general term for premeditated killing outside of armed conflict."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular