In a major victory for grower groups, a federal appeals court vacated EPA regulations banning the use of chlorpyrifos, which should allow the insecticide to continue to be used in agriculture.
Instead of canceling all uses of the chemical on food crops, as EPA did in 2021 in response to an order from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the agency could have instituted a partial ban, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis said in Thursday’s opinion.
“The court found EPA disregarded its own scientists’ findings by ending numerous uses of chlorpyrifos they determined were safe,” a coalition of grower groups that had sued the agency said in a news release. The decision “restores agricultural uses of the tool.”
Crops affected include Michigan tart cherries, soybeans and sugarbeets, as well as alfalfa, apple, asparagus, citrus, cotton, peach, strawberry, and spring and winter wheat.
“Without chlorpyrifos last year, our growers experienced much higher costs fighting pests,” said Nate Hultgren, president of the American Sugarbeet Growers Association. “They had to use multiple pesticides applied multiple times with inadequate effectiveness.”
Daryl Cates, a soybean farmer from Illinois who is president of the American Soybean Association, called the ruling “a win for agriculture and science-based regulation. … This ruling will restore safe, effective uses of a tool needed by many growers to protect crops from damaging pests and help preserve an affordable food supply.”
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“A partial ban was a real alternative for the EPA,” the appeals court said. “It could have cancelled some registrations and retained others that satisfied the statutory safety margin.”
The court sent the matter back to EPA.
The 9th Circuit ordered the agency in April 2021 to revoke or modify tolerances for the organophosphate insecticide, exposure to which has been linked to neurotoxic impacts in humans, particularly infants and children.
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