May, 25 2021, 12:31pm EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
George Kimbrell, Center for Food Safety, gkimbrell@centerforfoodsafety.org
Stephanie Parent, Center for Biological Diversity, sparent@biologicaldiversity.org
EPA Watchdog Report: Senior Staffers in Trump EPA Changed, Omitted Science During 2018 Review of Dicamba; Skipped Internal Peer-Review Process
Assessment was edited to exclude evidence of pesticide’s troubling drift risks.
WASHINGTON
A scathing report released yesterday by a federal oversight agency revealed that high-ranking officials in the Trump Environmental Protection Agency purposely excluded scientific evidence of dicamba's drift risks before reapproving its use in 2018.
The Office of the Inspector General found that the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs failed to include the required internal peer reviews of scientific documents and that "senior-level" staffers "changed" and "omitted" research-based evidence of the drift risks of the pesticide that has already damaged millions of acres of crops.
"Now that the EPA's highly politicized, anti-science approach to fast-tracking use of this harmful pesticide has been fully exposed, the agency should cancel dicamba's recent approval, not try to defend it in court," said Stephanie Parent, a senior environmental health attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The EPA knows that anything less is likely to result in yet another summer of damaged fields and lost profits for farmers choosing not to use dicamba."
In response to a lawsuit filed by the Center for Food Safety and Center for Biological Diversity challenging the 2018 approval, a federal court ruled last June that the EPA had violated the law when it failed to consider and account for the "enormous and unprecedented damage" caused by dicamba drift.
Yet just days before the November presidential election, the Trump EPA rushed to reapprove dicamba products for five years, and farmers and conservation groups were forced to again sue to challenge the approval. This is the third time the agency has registered these products, each time with additional restrictions that have failed to stem devastating drift.
"This report admits what we knew already: dicamba's approval was politically tainted. EPA unlawfully promoted the profits of pesticide companies instead of following the law and sound science, putting chemical companies over protecting farmers and the environment," said George Kimbrell, legal director of Center for Food Safety and counsel in the case. "The disappointing part is that EPA nonsensically continues to stand by the plainly political dicamba decision rushed through just days before the 2020 election, just 5 months after the court's striking down of the 2018 approval."
In the watchdog report released today, investigators said the EPA's actions on the dicamba registrations left the decision "legally vulnerable," spurring the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' decision to vacate the 2018 registrations for understating some risks and failing to acknowledge others entirely.
The report stated that while division-level management review of pesticide safety documents is part of the typical EPA procedure, senior leaders were "more involved in the 2018 dicamba decision than in other pesticide registration decisions." As a result, senior-level managers made "changes to or omissions from scientific documents."
For instance, the documents excluded some conclusions by staff scientists about dicamba's drift risks, according to the report. The investigators also found that some staff felt "constrained or muted" about sharing their concerns.
Background
Over the past four years the dicamba products sprayed "over the top" of soybean and cotton crops genetically engineered to resist the pesticide have caused drift damage to 5 million acres of soybeans as well as orchards, gardens, trees and other plants on a scale unprecedented in the history of U.S. agriculture.
Recent findings also suggest dicamba endangers human health. Earlier this year scientists at the National Institutes of Health found that use of dicamba can increase the risk of developing numerous cancers.
In separate actions, thousands of farmers have sued Monsanto and BASF for dicamba drift damages, which settled last year for $400 million. In a separate lawsuit, a jury awarded Missouri peach farmer Bill Bader $265 million for dicamba damage to his peach orchard.
Internal company memos released in the course of the Bader lawsuit revealed that even as Monsanto and BASF publicly denied that their products posed a major drift threat, they were internally projecting thousands of dicamba drift complaints over the first five years of use.
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
Progressives Say GOP Shutdown Chaos Is About Imposing 'Extreme, Cruel' Agenda
"It's the same thing they did with the debt ceiling: Weaponize the tools of the House majority to force a false choice. Their agenda or a national crisis," said the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Sep 29, 2023
With a "completely avoidable" U.S. government shutdown less than 48 hours away, the Congressional Progressive Caucus and individual House Democrats on Friday took aim at Republicans for holding "the American people hostage to force their agenda through" at the expense of working families and others.
"You wouldn't know it by watching them fail to govern, but House Republicans have a policy agenda. It's extreme, cruel, and unworkable, and they are committed to making that agenda law," the Progressive Caucus said on social media. "Here's the problem: They can't pass it. They can't even get all their members to vote for it."
That's because the Republican continuing resolution (CR) that was voted down 232-198 on Friday—which included big cuts to social safety net spending and anti-migrant measures—was not severe enough for members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus' liking.
"So House Republicans' only option is to hold the government and the American people hostage to force their agenda through," the Progressive Caucus continued. "It's the same thing they did with the debt ceiling: Weaponize the tools of the House majority to force a false choice. Their agenda or a national crisis."
According to the Progressive Caucus, that agenda includes:
- An 80% cut in public education funding to take 40,000 teachers from poor students and students with disabilities and kick 100,000 kids out of preschool;
- A 70% cut in funding for 5 million low-income families to heat their homes;
- Slashing food assistance for millions of low-income women and children;
- Cutting support services for nearly 1 million people facing a suicidal or mental health crisis and thousands with opioid use disorder;
- Eliminating one-third of all housing choice voucher funding for poor families, increasing the risk of eviction and homelessness;
- Increasing the wait time for Social Security disability benefits applicants by two months;
- Making fruits and vegetables more expensive for 5 million pregnant mothers; and
- Cutting nearly 50% of federal wildfire prevention funds.
"House Republicans are pushing all these cruel cuts AND a death panel for Social Security and Medicare. If they don't get it, they'll shut down the government," the Progressive Caucus added. "This is why progressives are fighting so hard. We will not sacrifice working people to continual Republican threats."
Progressive Caucus Deputy Chair Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said Friday that "this shutdown is not only tragic, but completely avoidable."
"An overwhelming bipartisan majority of lawmakers in the House support a clean bill to keep the government open. The Senate is prepared to pass it, the president is prepared to sign it," she continued. "But the most extreme faction of MAGA wing of the party—egged on by [former President] Donald Trump, who craves a distraction from his indictments and criminal charges—are demanding an endless list of cuts that have brought us to a government shutdown."
"We have to remember how we got here. The government has shutdown four times in the past 30 years. Each time it happened, an extreme faction of Republicans was in charge of the House of Representatives," Omar added. "We need a clean bill to keep the government open, before this causes real harm. It's time for Republicans to stop playing with people's lives and do their jobs."
Another Progressive Caucus member, Rep. Delia Ramirez, said Friday that "today's hurtful, extremist Republican CR demonstrates the Republicans' hypocrisy, ineffective leadership, and disregard for working families."
The congresswoman continued:
Day after day, we have been here, voting until the wee hours of the morning, and we have made absolutely no progress. After each vote, conservative extremists change their demands, and [House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif)] keeps giving them more and more without making progress.
"To what end? A 30% cut to government services? So that 10,901 women and children in the IL-03 can go hungry? So that 28,187 active and reserved service members will go without payment in Illinois? So that 5,000 residents in IL-03 may lose access to federal help and vouchers?
"These are not the goals of people who care about working families," Ramirez asserted. "On the contrary, it's a vicious attack on working families"
"If the Republicans were serious about averting a shutdown, they would bring a clean CR to the floor," she argued. "That's not what they want. They want to send our economy into crisis, protect Donald Trump, and harm our communities."
"Enough is enough!" Ramirez added. " I call on six courageous, principled Republicans to do their job, serve our constituents, and protect the economy."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Gross Denial of Reality': Biden Infuriates With Approval of More Offshore Drilling
"End Fossil Fuels is pretty clear," said one advocate. "Not 'hold slightly fewer lease sales,' not 'talk about climate action'—End. Fossil. Fuels."
Sep 29, 2023
Rejecting the corporate media's narrative that U.S. President Joe Biden's newly-released offshore drilling plan includes the "fewest-ever" drilling leases, dozens of climate action and marine conservation groups on Friday said the president had "missed an easy opportunity to do the right thing" and follow through on his campaign promise to end all lease sales for oil and gas extraction in the nation's waters.
The U.S. Interior Department announced Friday its five-year plan for the National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, including three new areas in the Gulf of Mexico where fossil fuel companies will be permitted to drill.
Biden promised "no new drilling, period" as a presidential candidate, and the plan was announced six months after climate advocates were incensed by the administration's approval of the Willow oil drilling project in Alaska.
The new leases will be added to more than 9,000 drilling leases that have already been sold, and is "incompatible with reaching President Biden’s goal of cutting emissions by 50-52% by 2030," said the Protect All Our Coasts Coalition, citing the findings of Biden's own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its Office of Atmospheric Protection earlier this year.
While the final plan scales back from the eleven sales that were originally proposed, said the coalition, "the plan is a step backwards from the climate goals the administration has set and for environmental justice communities across the Gulf South, who are already experiencing the disproportionate impact of fossil fuel extraction across the region."
The coalition includes the Port Arthur Community Action Network, which has called attention to the risks posed to public health in the Gulf region by continued fossil fuel extraction.
"Folks in Port Arthur, Texas die daily from cancer, respiratory, heart, and kidney disease from the very pollution that would come from more leases and drilling," said John Beard, the founder, president, and executive director of the group. "If Biden is to truly be the environmental president, he should stop any further leasing and all forms of the petrochemical build-out, call for a climate emergency, and jumpstart the transition to clean green, renewable energy, and lift the toxic pollution from overburdened communities."
Kendall Dix, national policy director of Taproot Earth, dismissed political think tanks that applauded the "historically few lease sales" on Friday.
"The earth does not recognize political 'victories,'" said Dix, pointing to an intrusion of saltwater in South Louisiana's drinking water in recent weeks, which has been exacerbated by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis.
"As the head of the United Nations and has said, continued fossils fuel development is incompatible with human survival," he added. "We need to transition to justly sourced renewable energy that's democratically managed and accountable to frontline communities as quickly as possible."
Along with groups in the Gulf region, national organizations on Friday condemned a plan that they said blatantly ignores the repeated warnings of international energy experts and the world's top climate scientists who say no new fossil fuel expansion is compatible with a pathway to limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C.
"Sacrificing millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas extraction when scientists are clear that we must end fossil fuel expansion immediately is a gross denial of reality by Joe Biden in the face of climate catastrophe," said Collin Rees, United States program manager at Oil Change International. "Doubling down on drilling is a direct violation of President Biden's prior commitments and continues a concerning trend."
Rees noted that 75,000 people marched in New York City last week to demand that Biden declare a climate emergency and end support for any new fossil fuel extraction projects.
"End Fossil Fuels is pretty clear," said Rees, referring to campaigners' rallying cry. "Not 'hold slightly fewer lease sales,' not 'talk about climate action'—End. Fossil. Fuels."
Despite Biden's campaign promises, Rees noted, the U.S. is currently "on track to expand fossil fuel production more than any other country by 2050."
"I feel disgusted and incredibly let down by Biden's offshore drilling plan. It piles more harm on already-struggling ecosystems, endangered species and the global climate," said Brady Bradshaw, senior oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, another member of the Protect All Our Coasts Coalition. "We need Biden to commit to a fossil fuel phaseout, but actions like this condemn us to oil spills, climate disasters, and decades of toxic harm to communities and wildlife."
The lease sales, said Sarah Winter Whelan of the Healthy Ocean Coalition, also represent a missed opportunity by the administration to treat the world's oceans "as a climate solution, not a source for further climate disaster."
Under the Inflation Reduction Act, negotiated by the White House last year, the government is required to offer at least 60 million acres of offshore gas and oil leases before developing new wind power projects of similar scope.
"A single new lease sale for offshore oil and gas exploration is one too many," said Whelan. "Communities around the country are already dealing with exacerbating impacts from climate disruption caused by our reliance on fossil fuels. Any increase in our dependence on fossil fuels just bakes in greater impacts to humanity."
Gulf communities, added Beard, "refuse to be sacrificed" for fossil fuel profits.
"We say enough is enough," he said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'The Next Climate Litmus Test': Sen. Merkley Joins Fight Against CP2 LNG Terminal
CP2, which the Biden administration is expected to either approve or reject in the coming months, would emit 20 times the climate pollution expected from the controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaska.
Sep 29, 2023
Democratic Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley has joined the growing movement to stop the Calcasieu Pass 2, or CP2, a liquefied natural gas export terminal planned for Louisiana's Gulf Coast.
Experts warn that CP2, which the Biden administration is expected to either approve or reject in the coming months, would emit 20 times the climate pollution expected from the controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaska.
"The Calcasieu Pass 2 LNG export terminal in Louisiana is the next climate litmus test," Merkley tweeted Thursday. "CP2 would poison communities and fly in the face of our climate goals."
Directly addressing President Biden, Merkley added: "Say no to CP2!"
Merkley's statement came less than a week after longtime climate activist Bill McKibben wrote an article in The New Yorker detailing how CP2—and the broader expansion of LNG exports it represents—threatens to undermine U.S. climate goals and force the 1.5°C temperature-rise target out of reach.
The U.S. is already the world's leading exporter of LNG, and CP2 is only the largest of at least 20 Gulf export terminals in the pipeline.
"If this buildout continues, and if you counted the emissions from this gas against America's totals, it would mean that American greenhouse gas emissions would not have budged since 2005," McKibben wrote on his Substack.
"Thank you Sen. Jeff Merkley for calling on POTUS to stop CP2 and protect Louisiana's coast, and our fishermen and shrimpers."
However, the Biden administration has a chance to stop the project. First, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) could reject CP2 at its October commission meeting, though McKibben noted in The New Yorker that this appears unlikely. In July, FERC opined that the project would not have a major impact on local resources, making no mention of its global climate impacts.
Then, the Department of Energy needs to grant CP2 a license to export gas through the terminal. Such a license can only be approved if an export is in "the public interest."
"After a northern hemisphere summer like the one we've just experienced, that should be an easy call," McKibben wrote on his Substack.
Merkley's statement indicates he agrees.
"Many many thanks for standing up here, Senator!' McKibben posted in response.
Climate advocacy group Oil Change International boosted Merkely's call.
"The proposed CP2 LNG export terminal is a climate and environmental justice disaster, many times over," the group wrote. "It's also a clear test for President Joe Biden."
CP2 also faces local opposition. Louisiana's Gulf Coast is on the frontlines of the climate crisis in myriad ways as it suffers sea level rise, more intense storms, and increased pollution that results from fossil fuel expansion.
The LNG buildout in particular destroys habitat for fish and shrimp, threatening the ecosystem and the livelihoods of fishers and shrimpers, according to a press release from local environmental justice group the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. The increase in shipping traffic brought by the terminals also makes fishing and shrimping more difficult.
"Thank you Sen. Jeff Merkley for calling on POTUS to stop CP2 and protect Louisiana's coast, and our fishermen and shrimpers," the group wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "This is the federal leadership we need. We'd love to have you come down and see firsthand how gas exports are decimating our beloved seafood industry."
The Louisiana Bucket Brigade also called on their own Senator, Republican Bill Cassidy, to step up.
"Are you going to protect your own constituents, the fishermen and shrimpers whose livelihoods will be decimated by CP2," the group asked, "or are you going to rely on Sen. Jeff Merkley from Oregon to do it for you?"
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular
Independent, nonprofit journalism needs your help.
Please Pitch In
Today!
Today!