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United States Government

EPA Takes Emergency Action To Stop Use of Dangerous Pesticide (thehill.com) 136

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: For the first time in 40 years, the Environmental Protection Agency has taken emergency action to stop the use of a pesticide (source may be paywalled; alternative source) linked to serious health risks for unborn babies. Tuesday's emergency order applies to dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate, also known as DCPA, a weedkiller used on crops such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and onions. When pregnant farmworkers and others are exposed to the pesticide, their babies can experience changes to fetal thyroid hormone levels, which are linked to low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ and impaired motor skills later in life.

"DCPA is so dangerous that it needs to be removed from the market immediately," Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said in a statement. "It's EPA's job to protect people from exposure to dangerous chemicals. In this case, pregnant women who may never even know they were exposed could give birth to babies that experience irreversible lifelong health problems." The European Union banned DCPA in 2009. But the EPA has been slower to act, frustrating some environmental and public health advocates.

In an interview, Freedhoff said that EPA scientists have tried for years to get more information on health risks from the sole manufacturer of the pesticide, AMVAC Chemical. But she said the company refused to turn over the data, including a study on the effects of DCPA on thyroid development and function, until November 2023. "We did make some good-faith efforts to work with the company," Freedhoff said. "But in the end, we didn't think any of the measures proposed by the company would be implementable, enforceable or effective."
"DCPA has been used in the United States since the late 1950s," notes the report. "After the pesticide is applied, it can linger in the soil, contaminating crops later grown in those fields, including broccoli, cilantro, green onions, kale and mustard greens."

"The emergency order Tuesday temporarily suspends all registrations of the pesticide under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act. The agency plans to permanently suspend these registrations within the next 90 days."
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EPA Takes Emergency Action To Stop Use of Dangerous Pesticide

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    They'd rather have unintelligent and weak farm workers, easier to control them that way.
    • You are forgetting what George H. W. Bush [wikipedia.org] said about broccoli:

      I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid. And my mother made me eat it. Now I'm president of the United States. And I'm not gonna eat any more broccoli!

      He would be very happy to know that a weed killer used on broccoli is phased out.
  • Seems like this is more in OSHA's wheelhouse than the EPA.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Bruh.

      I thought that striking down Chevron was supposed to stop government agencies doing things like this. That's what your friends in DC said.

      Is it possible they don't understand how the US legal system works, despite claiming to be part of it?

      • No, it means that Congressionally-created agencies can't play the "I said so, just trust me" card when sued over their actions. OSHA was specifically created for worhplace safety. Policing the exposure of employees to unsafe chemicals is certainly covered by their charter.

        • Re:OSHA? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @06:01AM (#64687184) Homepage

          Chevron Deference wasn't so much about fairness vs. unfairness as it was about efficiency and predictability. Throwing every single possible regulation up to the court system is sheer chaos.

          Under Chevron, congress sets the bounds under which an agency can act ("You can make choices about X, you can't make choices about Y..."), and courts only evaluate whether the agency is acting within the bounds set by congress. Congress can change those bounds at any point with new legislation if they don't like the agency's behavior.

          Without Chevron, congress still sets the bounds, but every action the agency makes can be challenged in the courts. When it comes to something like the EPA, you can basically expect polluters en masse to challenge pretty much everything they do. Most suits will probably fail, but some will land on wingnut judges and result in overturned regulations. Meanwhile, the caseload on the court system skyrockets, and it's hard to predict what regulations will be like (to decide what to invest in) when everything has a lawsuit going over it.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

            Under Chevron, congress sets the bounds under which an agency can act ("You can make choices about X, you can't make choices about Y..."), and courts only evaluate whether the agency is acting within the bounds set by congress. Congress can change those bounds at any point with new legislation if they don't like the agency's behavior.

            The problem is when Congress says, "You can make choices about X" and does not explicitly exclude Y, then the agency comes along and declares that "Y" is, in fact, part of "X" and therefore they have the power to regulate Y as well as X despite the congress never delegating them that authority. Chevron was never supposed to grant them the ability to do that.

            • Re:OSHA? (Score:4, Insightful)

              by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @09:08AM (#64687456)

              The buck stops with Congress. With a stroke of the pen they can correct what is and isn't delegated. Their silence on matters so far has been deafening, despite what the common man thinks should or shouldn't be regulated. Their indifference shows agreement as the final arbiters of what is and isn't in scope.

              • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

                I don't disagree that Congress' lack of action is a huge problem (in this area and many others) but given that Chevron deference is a creation of the courts in the first place, it's certainly within their purview to say "you're overstepping the deference we've given you" and no amount of handwringing will change that.

                The federal bureaucracy overstepping its constitutional limits is just as big a problem as Congress not doing its job, and the courts would be insane to defer to it in matters of interpreting l

                • I don't disagree that Congress' lack of action is a huge problem

                  I didn't say it is a problem. I said their lack of action is part of the system in place for decision making. If the wife comes to me tonight and says "we're eating fish for dinner" and I say nothing, it means implicit agreement that we're eating fish for dinner. If I don't like fish, I'd need to speak up.

                  The constitution places the burden on congress. Congress hasn't passed any law limiting the extent to which a federal agency can operate and thus it is implied that congress agrees with what those agencies

                  • by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

                    Making laws is their job

                    And interpreting those laws is the job of the courts, and Congress cannot delegate power to the executive that it itself does not have.

        • by nomadic ( 141991 )

          Losing Chevron means scientific decision-making gets shunted over to federal judges.

    • Re:OSHA? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @12:06AM (#64686888)

      Seems like this is more in OSHA's wheelhouse than the EPA.

      Yeah! If Congress wanted the EPA to ban DCOA because it causes low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ and impaired motor skills later in life then they would have written a bill explicitly telling the EPA to ban DCOA because it causes low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ and impaired motor skills later in life.

      Good thing Chevron is gone so that the Judges who really understand how to properly evaluate scientific studies can put a stop to this!

      • No, it's just that if the EPA intends to act, it might lose in court for overreach, especially if it can't be shown that DCOA is a threat to anyone EXCEPT those working with it directly. DCOA has been in use for ~70 years, and to date it doesn't seem to have been shown to harm consumers who eat vegetables that have been treated with it during the growing process. And if they were, the FDA would be the first ones to step into that situation.

        If it were shown that DCOA contamination affected the environment

        • Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. We simply haven't measured the harm caused by this pesticide sufficiently/definitively. In many cases, that's deliberate; many universities & research centres are at least partly dependent on funding from corporations & they tend not to bite the hand that feeds them.
      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        Seems like this is more in OSHA's wheelhouse than the EPA.

        Yeah! If Congress wanted the EPA to ban DCOA because it causes low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ and impaired motor skills later in life then they would have written a bill explicitly telling the EPA to ban DCOA because it causes low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased IQ and impaired motor skills later in life.

        Good thing Chevron is gone so that the Judges who really understand how to properly evaluate scientific studies can put a stop to this!

        Again, I find myself wondering whether you are trolling or just dumb enough to actually believe that Congress and the courts should be clogged up having to decide things like this rather than experts working for federal agencies. There is already a poster child for why scrapping Chevron was a bad idea and it was provided by a member of the august body that scrapped Chevron: https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com] ... One of these all knowing expert Trump appointed SCOTUS judges confused nitrous oxide an inhalatio

        • by pjt33 ( 739471 )

          It's obvious sarcasm, which isn't the same thing as trolling.

        • Again, I find myself wondering whether you are trolling or just dumb enough to actually believe that Congress and the courts should be clogged up having to decide things like this rather than experts working for federal agencies. There is already a poster child for why scrapping Chevron was a bad idea and it was provided by a member of the august body that scrapped Chevron: https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com] ... One of these all knowing expert Trump appointed SCOTUS judges confused nitrous oxide an inhalation anesthetic. with nitrogen oxide an air pollutant and this is just a sample of things to come. Nether congress critters nor judges are technological and scientific experts in everything, which is what they'd have to be if they are going to do what specialist agencies and their accredited experts previously did via Chevron.

          You bring up a really good point. The concept that only an elected congresscritter should have the right to create policy ignores that this is not 1750 any more.

          The world is too complicated now, and elected officials and their surrogates in the courts simply don't have the cred to make those decisions.

          To use my own case, very few have my skillset. And just as few have any technical clue. But they observe that I come in and fix things, so they pay attention to what I tell them. And there is almost no c

        • Again, I find myself wondering whether you are trolling or just dumb enough to actually believe that Congress and the courts should be clogged up having to decide things like this rather than experts working for federal agencies.

          I possibly could have been more explicit but I figured the ridiculously specific listing in the first paragraph would have given away the satire.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • And yet the summary indicates that only harm to workers can be documented from the use of DCOA.

        • by pjt33 ( 739471 )

          When pregnant farmworkers and others are exposed to the pesticide, their babies can experience changes

          (my emphases) seems to indicate that it harms more than just "farmworkers".

        • by nomadic ( 141991 )

          They're people to. The relevant law prohibits registration of a pesticide that causes undue harm to people. There's no "pesticide applicators don't count" provision.

  • by Kelxin ( 3417093 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @12:10AM (#64686896)
    That a bunch of fucking idiots would take this political.
    • Re:How did I know (Score:4, Insightful)

      by _merlin ( 160982 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @12:20AM (#64686900) Homepage Journal

      Republican courts have been trying to remove the EPAs power to regulate chemicals. If they have their way, it will require Congress to pass legislation for things like this. That inevitably will make it political.

      • Republican courts have been trying to remove the EPAs power to regulate chemicals. If they have their way, it will require Congress to pass legislation for things like this. That inevitably will make it political.

        And the reason? Because the political process is so fundamentally broken that they know if it's forced to go through congress, there will be absolutely *NO* controls put on business when it comes to environmental concerns. Fuck these useless assholes. Our government officials, all of them, should be ashamed of themselves. The Republicans should be ashamed for being outright conspiracy theorist shit-heels. The Democrats should be ashamed for tolerating it, preaching reach across the aisle shit when it happen

    • by Anonymous Coward

      That a bunch of fucking idiots would take this political.

      Because a bunch of fucking political idiots want to kill the EPA. If DCPA is good enough to their food chain, everyone should enjoy it.

    • " That a bunch of fucking idiots would take this political. "

      Because this is Slashdot of course.

      Within fifteen minutes of any given post going live, the same people typically:

      Blame one of the two political parties in the US
      Turn it into a discussion about firearms ( even when the topic has nothing to do with them )
      Somehow get Nazis involved
      Commence to calling each other stupid for having an opinion that differs from their own

      This place is a mere shadow of what it once was and it just barely above the noise f

      • I think for slashdot to make any kind of recovery, first anonymous coward posting needs to go away. Second, anyone with multiple accounts signing in from the same IP address needs to get banned. Third, make it ACTUALLY news for nerds again and stop posting every bullshit story that CNN, BBC, or any other news outlet posts just to copy them.
  • Why don't you click the link and select "open in incognito browser" and see?

    There is no "MAY" in tech. It's binary. Either it IS paywalled or it is NOT paywalled. Just because slashdot has the laziest editors doesn't mean they can't take that huge leap of CLICKING on it and seeing it's paywalled or NOT.

    This one is NOT.

    Seriously? Fucking do your jobs or go home. Slashdot was such a great UGC resource, but the new editors just make it into crap.
    Oh sorry.

    Slashdot MAY be crap. Alternate link: https://ww [usatoday.com]

    • Nope. "May" is correct in that some sites are "geofenced" meaning that, depending on where you are, you may get a very different experience when visiting the same site, e.g. some or all articles paywalled.
    • There is no "MAY" in tech. It's binary. Either it IS paywalled or it is NOT paywalled. Just because slashdot has the laziest editors doesn't mean they can't take that huge leap of CLICKING on it and seeing it's paywalled or NOT.

      If you actually knew shit about shit you'd know that a webserver can serve content differently depending on who's loading it and where they are coming from. Could you please go away and let the technical people have a discussion without noobs like you?

  • More than that (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Phthalates of all sorts are disrupting hormones in-utero which causes problems with sex determination including sterility in men. If we continue at this rate it won't be long until new children simply won't be born.

    Scientists are afraid to talk about it because for some people this may call in to question their entire identity.

  • Wouldn't it be a good idea to create a law that mandates companies from turning over their health data to the EPA?

    • by Samare ( 2779329 )

      -> that mandates companies to turn over their health data

    • America doesn't do the precautionary principle. Instead, harmed individuals must prove they were harmed after-the-fact and who harmed them. TSCA was completely a free pass for 10k's of chemicals to protect profits rather than protect the public.
    • Sorry, but the health of corporations is of greater importance than the individual.

  • by Fons_de_spons ( 1311177 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @08:15AM (#64687350)
    Banned in the EU for same reasons in 2009. You may want to stock up on glyphosate.
    • Banned in the EU for same reasons in 2009. You may want to stock up on glyphosate.

      Glyphosphate, now there's a magick bullet. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]

      Unfortunately, while rock bottom stupid people were busy blaming vaccines, the proximity of pregnant women to fields where glyphosate chemicals were being used had an impressive relationship with autism in their offspring. The reports weasel a bit, but the statistics

  • This has been a thing since the 60s. Why are they only just now doing something about it? What, did someone stop playing ball?

  • ... that the EPA doesn't insist on rigorous testing of such chemicals on unborn babies prior to their release into the market.

  • by Cyrano de Maniac ( 60961 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @11:22AM (#64687800)

    Yay! Finally justified to eschew broccoli and Brussel sprouts! Cabbage and onions might be a tad tougher to go without.

  • by lusid1 ( 759898 ) on Wednesday August 07, 2024 @03:38PM (#64688634)

    Feeling vindicated now.

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