{"id":30799,"date":"2022-03-25T00:01:59","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T05:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=30799"},"modified":"2023-10-31T09:53:19","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T13:53:19","slug":"environmentalists-outraged-at-probability-that-epa-will-allow-continued-use-of-deadly-pesticides-the-neonicotinoids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2022\/03\/environmentalists-outraged-at-probability-that-epa-will-allow-continued-use-of-deadly-pesticides-the-neonicotinoids\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmentalists Outraged at Probability that EPA Will Allow Continued Use of Deadly Pesticides, the Neonicotinoids"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

(Beyond Pesticides<\/em>, March 25, 2022) Recent coverage by The Guardian<\/em><\/a> of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s (EPA\u2019s) plan \u2014 to extend the registration of several demonstrably harmful neonicotinoid insecticides \u2014 compels Beyond Pesticides to identify, once again, the agency\u2019s failures to enact its core mission. That mission is<\/a> \u201cto protect human health and the environment,\u201d and to ensure that \u201cnational efforts to reduce environmental risks are based on the best available scientific information.\u201d EPA has undertaken a review of the registration<\/a> of several members of the neonicotinoid (neonic) family of pesticides and, despite the agency\u2019s own findings of evidence of serious threats to pollinators, aquatic invertebrates, and other wildlife, it issued interim decisions<\/a> on these neonics in January 2020 that disregard the science on the pesticides\u2019 impacts. EPA appears to be prepared to finalize these registrations late in 2022; this would, barring further action, extend the use of these harmful compounds for 15 years<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n

Neonics are used widely in the U.S., both on crops to kill sucking insects, and as seed treatments with the same goal for the developing plant. These insecticides are systemic compounds, meaning that once applied, they travel to all parts of a plant through the vascular system, and are then present in pollen, nectar, and guttation droplets. Non-target organisms \u2014 such as bees, butterflies, birds, bats, and other insects \u2014 feed and drink from those sources and are thus readily and indiscriminately poisoned. The compounds are highly mobile, seeping into groundwater and soils, where they persist, causing additional insect exposure to them, as well as soil and water contamination. Specific impacts of neonics have been covered extensively by Beyond Pesticides in recent years; some examples include reproductive harm to pollinators<\/a>, negative effects on aquatic wildlife populations<\/a>, and neonic lethality for bumblebees<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

The specific members of the neonicotinoid family of compounds up for EPA review (and likely re-registration) are imidacloprid<\/a>, thiamethoxam<\/a>, clothianidin<\/a>, dinotefuran<\/a>, and acetamiprid<\/a>. This class of chemicals targets acetylcholine (ACh) receptors in insects, and act as ACh agonists \u2014 triggering oxidative stress, reducing energy levels, and causing neurodegeneration, even at low levels of exposure. These impacts can impair cognition (including learning), behavior, vision, cellular energy supply, and sensory and motor functions, and can be lethal. This class of pesticides is broadly seen as a significant cause<\/a> of bee losses (in both managed and wild<\/a> populations), and broad pollinator decline and die-off.<\/p>\r\n

Meanwhile, as Beyond Pesticides wrote in February 2020<\/a> in response to EPA\u2019s January 2020 interim decisions<\/a>, \u201cWith widespread pollinator declines linked to neonicotinoid insecticides\u00a0since the mid-2000s<\/a>, a growing understanding of the role these systemic insecticides play\u00a0in the insect apocalypse<\/a>, and\u00a0similar declines in bird populations<\/a>, the agency, according to advocates, has embraced not protection, but the destruction of the shared environment. While U.S. regulators continue to embrace chemical-dependency,\u00a0Canada<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0European Union<\/a>\u00a0acted decisively to eliminate neonicotinoids.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

In May 2020 comments to EPA\u2019s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP), Beyond Pesticides added<\/a> that in addition to the concerns about neonic impacts on pollinators, insects, aquatic life, and other organisms, \u201cWith emerging human health concerns being documented, we reiterate our appeal for the agency to adhere to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act\u2019s (FIFRA) statutory mandate and withdraw the registration of these pesticides that clearly pose unreasonable adverse health and environmental effects.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

FIFRA is the federal statute that governs the registration, distribution, sale, and use of pesticides;\u00a0it stipulates requirements<\/a> for the registration of any pesticide. Among those is the requirement that \u201cusing the pesticide according to specifications \u2018will not generally cause unreasonable adverse effects on the environment,\u2019\u201d with such effects defined as \u201cany unreasonable risk to man or the environment, taking into account the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of the use of any pesticide.\u201d During the past couple of decades, with increasing industry influence on EPA (most dramatic, perhaps, during the Trump years), the agency\u2019s priorities have increasingly \u201cdrifted\u201d from the \u201cunreasonable risk to man [sic] or the environment\u201d portion of that FIFRA requirement, and toward consideration of the \u201ceconomic costs\u201d portion. Beyond Pesticides has covered this shift at EPA (and OPP in particular), which emanates from its reluctance to hinder corporate interests; learn more here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

EPA released draft Biological Evaluations (BEs)<\/a> for clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam in August 2021. (A BE is an EPA analysis of potential harmful impacts of a registered pesticide on any species federally listed, per the Endangered Species Act<\/a>, as endangered or threatened, or on their critical habitats.) That BE found that \u201ceach of these chemicals is likely to adversely affect certain listed species or their designated critical habitats.\u201d Beyond Pesticides wrote, of that BE<\/a>, that \u201ceach neonic was found to adversely affect over 1,000 endangered species out of 1,821 listed under the law. Specifically, the neonics were found to adversely affect nontarget endangered species: imidacloprid impacted 1,445 species, clothianidin, 1,225, and thiamethoxam, 1,396. Harmful effects were not limited to a specific subgroup \u2013 dozens of species were affected within all groups, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish, plants, and aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

A reminder that rounds out the inanity of the neonic pesticide picture: there is evidence that neonics do not necessarily achieve the results that manufacturers promise. Research on soybean production, for example, has shown that neonic-treated soybean seeds provide negligible yield and economic benefit<\/a> to the producer. John Tooker, an entomologist at Penn State University, offered this assessment<\/a>: \u201cThese insecticides are not helping the productivity of crops on fields \u2014 it seems an amazing effort to blanket all these acres with something that doesn\u2019t have a return on investment.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Indeed, the actual utility of pesticides to achieve their purported goals is an under-recognized failing of EPA\u2019s review of pesticide compounds for use; EPA ought to include a role for efficacy in the agency\u2019s evaluation of pesticides. Beyond Pesticides further notes<\/a> that EPA should recognize that the \u201cputative benefits listed in its benefit assessments do not outweigh the ecological harm and existential threat these compounds pose to pollinators,\u201d and that the additive harmful effects on aquatic life, wildlife, and human health should \u201cfurther diminish the ratio of benefits in comparison to the extensive threats.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

EPA\u2019s reluctance to take the necessary action \u2014 deregistration of these toxic and destructive compounds \u2014 shows up in many of its pesticide policies and decisions. In 2017, EPA proffered this punt<\/a> on the need to protect pollinators, recommending that: \u201cstates and tribes develop pollinator protection plans and best management practices.\u201d The agency\u2019s 2020 interim decisions on the neonics listed above include proposals for what it calls \u201cActions to Protect Pollinators<\/a>.\u201d Those are:<\/p>\r\n