21
Feb
Signs that U.S. Is Abandoning Action To Protect Biodiversity
(Beyond Pesticides, February 21, 2025) The prospects for rational environmental policies in the U.S., including commitments to biodiversity and public health protections, are in disarray as the Trump administration sweeps through the federal government without any evaluation of program importance or effectiveness. At the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the destruction is likely to derail or reverse reasonable decisions to ban or restrict numerous toxic chemicals and to bury concern for ecosystem-wide harms.
On biodiversity, President Trump has killed a major report, the National Nature Assessment, that had been due for completion on February 11. The assessment is part of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which produces the national climate assessment, but it was created by an executive order issued under President Biden rather than by Congress. More than 150 experts, including federal employees and volunteers from academia, nonprofits, and businesses, reviewed the state of the nation’s lands, water, and wildlife. The assessment is a U.S.-specific version of a recent global report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), covered here by Beyond Pesticides. The IPBES details the many steps that can be taken at every level of the problem to preserve the ecosystem services on which all human activity depends. The contents of the National Nature Assessment are not yet available, but its U.S. authors are determined to independently publish their report as soon as possible.
The picture in Europe is very different. Indeed, the European Commission states, “Human health depends on the quality of our environment. Therefore disruptive transformations of healthy and resilient ecosystems pose a threat to human health and wellbeing.†The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) continues to develop regulations that are much more protective of human health and biodiversity than the U.S. federal government. For example, EFSA is working on two updates to policies that seek to minimize such disruptions: a guidance document for member states on terrestrial ecotoxicology and a guidance document for assessing indirect effects on biodiversity in “agro-environmental conditions.â€
The terrestrial ecotoxicology revision extends consideration of pesticides’ effects on nontarget arthropods in addition to bees, in-soil organisms and nontarget plants. The guidance will also require attention to species sensitivity, consideration of all available data, and refinement of the risk reduction tools already available. The directive on indirect effects includes determining how biodiversity is shaped by trophic interactions, that is, predator-prey, herbivory or parasitic relationships that may transfer pesticides and their metabolites throughout the agricultural environment.Â
Biodiversity is declining catastrophically worldwide, so addressing the toxic processes adding to the decline is an urgent matter. There has been mixed news as to the social, economic and political will to do so internationally. Last October, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity held their 16th meeting (COP16) in Cali, Colombia. The Convention is a legally binding treaty entered into force in 1993. The United States is the only nation that has not signed it (not counting the Vatican). The Cali meeting ended “in disarray,†according to EuroNews because agreement could not be reached on how a pact finalized at COP15 to protect 30 percent of nature “will be achieved or funded.†(See Daily News of December 9, 2022, for an analysis of what was at stake as of COP15.) The World Resources Institute’s Crystal Davis told EuroNews that “wealthier countries’ pledges at COP16 fell far short of what is needed to meet their commitments. And almost no progress has been made on repurposing nature-harming subsidies.†Once again, some help came from Europe—Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, and the UK agreed to provide €200 million to implement biodiversity protection. The only involvement of a North American government was a pledge from the Canadian province of Quebec.
The U.S. thus remains outside international commitments to biodiversity at anywhere near the scale required to address the problem. The E.U. continues to plug away at the slow pace of diplomacy and internal politics by updating its ecotoxicology and biodiversity protocols. These sorts of methodological advances are unlikely to occur in U.S. environmental regulation, where testing and risk assessment protocols are mired in procedural resistance from the pesticide industry. At best, domestic progress is made by the two-steps-forward, one-step-back method.
The Trump administration has shown its (predictable) hand in an initial press release from new EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, where the emphasis is almost entirely on encouraging business investment and keeping investors from “having to face years-long, uncertain, and costly permitting processes that deter them,†and only secondarily “partnering with businesses to follow the necessary steps to safeguard our environment.â€
Despite the headwinds, Beyond Pesticides remains committed to holding environmental agencies to account for their policies that fail to protect humans and the biosphere. For example, we applauded EPA’s emergency ban last August of the herbicide Dacthal and urged EPA to apply its reasoning on Dacthal to its current regulatory review of atrazine. These are two pesticides that clearly affect both humans and ecosystems. Dacthal disrupts fetal thyroid development, has been linked to cancer, including childhood leukemia, and is toxic to bees, fish, and other aquatic organisms. Atrazine, an endocrine disruptor, is disastrous in the environment (toxic to fish and amphibians, and widespread in drinking water) and has been banned in the E.U. since 2004. Yet in Daily News of January 13, we showed that, regarding atrazine, EPA is choosing to “apply a wishy-washy, ineffective enforcement mechanism. In reevaluating the risk to aquatic systems, EPA has chosen to exclude four of the six experiments that it previously judged to show an effect on aquatic plant communities.â€
[NOTE:You can still make your voice heard on atrazine. The public comment period for action is still open. It appears that the comments will remain open through April 4, 2025, at 11:59 PM EDT at Regulations.gov. Beyond Pesticides’ Action Link also works.]
Beyond Pesticides has long been concerned with EPA’s management of the agency’s Congressionally-mandated Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP), which, if effective, would provide adequate reasoning to rescind registration for many of the pesticides that are both ecotoxic and harmful to humans, thus supporting the twin goals of biodiversity and public health. Last year we provided comments to EPA regarding its proposed modifications to the EDSP, which would limit the program’s scope to humans and only certain pesticide active ingredients, while also limiting the types of data to be included. The shortsightedness of considering humans only is stunning. If there is one thing we know about hormone systems, they are present in every organism from humans to social amoebae and bacteria (some bacteria naturally produce plant hormones, and genetically engineered E. coli have been used to make human insulin since 1982). Ignoring the millions of species of mammals, insects and other arthropods, reptiles, fish and microscopic animals that make up the biosphere is a colossal error. Moreover, it is logically incoherent–many of the assays used in the EDSP are conducted using non-humans such as amphibians, which shows that the science itself demonstrates commonality among species.
Beyond Pesticides also pointed out that proceeding with the modification plan would violate the Food Quality Protection Act/Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, all likewise Congressionally-mandated. The latter law also presumes there is inherent risk and the burden of registrants is to prove otherwise. These are points to bear in mind as the Trump administration attempts to circumvent the authority of Congress in shaping federal agencies.
Human health and ecosystems health cannot be separated. Pesticides that harm ecosystems harm humans. EPA’s various approaches to evaluating and registering pesticides, while administratively separated into, for example, human endocrine disruption and aquatic toxicology, very often involve the very same chemicals. Rarely is there acknowledgment that removing the chemicals would remove the risks in every siloed assay and therefore remove the overall problem.
Stay informed on organic and participate in the standard setting process of the National Organic Standards Board through Beyond Pesticides’ Keeping Organic Strong Campaign. Our food systems must recognize this and transition to organic—holistically beneficial, diversified, socially and culturally just, and climate-stabilizing. It is only by acknowledging the inseparable connections between ecosystems, food system sustainability, and human health will the oncoming existential crisis be averted. And these values will not be incorporated unless regulations and policies change. They can be changed.
All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.
Sources:
Outline for the revision of the terrestrial ecotoxicology guidance document and for the development of an approach on indirect effects
EFSA Technical Report Version 1.0
January 2025
https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.2903/sp.efsa.2025.EN-9216
EFSA Environmental risk assessment of pesticides
https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/topics/environmental-risk-assessment-pesticides
Trump Killed a Major Report on Nature. They’re Trying to Publish It Anyway.
Catrin Einhorn
New York Times, February 10, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/climate/nature-assessment-trump.html
Public Urged To Tell EPA That It Is Time To Stop Killing Biodiversity with the Weed Killer Atrazine
Beyond Pesticides, January 13, 2025
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2025/01/public-urged-to-tell-epa-that-it-is-time-to-stop-killing-biodiversity-with-the-weed-killer-atrazine/
It’s Time for EPA to Protect the Ecosystem and Move Against the Weed Killer Atrazine
Beyond Pesticides Action Call
https://secure.everyaction.com/-eTCDcOYdEqmmXWyJULsaA2?contactdata=&nvep=&hmac=&emci=9a6ee4c4-94cf-ef11-88d0-0022482a9d92&emdi=ea000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&ceid=
The ‘People’s COP’ for Biodiversity Saw Suspension in High-Level Negotiation but Strength from the Private and Public SectorsÂ
Maiko Nishi
Land Conservation Network, January 15, 2025
https://landconservationnetwork.org/the-peoples-cop-for-biodiversity-saw-suspension-in-high-level-negotiation-but-strength-from-the-private-and-public-sectors/
‘Nobody should be okay with this’: COP16 ends in confusion with no consensus on nature funding
Lottie Limb
EuroNews April 11, 2024
https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/11/04/nobody-should-be-okay-with-this-cop16-ends-in-confusion-with-no-consensus-on-nature-fundin
Report Links Biodiversity, Water, Food, and Health In Critique To Avert Escalating Crises
Beyond Pesticides, January 7, 2025
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2025/01/report-links-biodiversity-water-food-and-health-in-critique-to-avert-escalating-crises/
EPA’s Momentous Decision to Ban the Weed Killer Dacthal/DCPA: An Anomaly or a Precedent?
Beyond Pesticides, August 8, 2024
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2024/08/epas-momentous-decision-to-ban-a-pesticide-an-anomaly-or-a-precedent/
UN Again Calls for Action as Biodiversity Deterioration Worsens Worldwide
Beyond Pesticides, December 9, 2022
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2022/12/biodiversity/
