House Republicans appear poised to direct EPA to better assess the risks a controversial form of pesticide may pose to pollinators and possibly encourage the agency to take regulatory action, calls that may strengthen a push from Democrats and environmentalists for EPA to suspend some neonicotinoids until their risks to pollinators are known. In a draft report on a proposed fiscal year 2014 spending bill, House appropriators say new research suggests neonicotinoids increase bees' susceptibility to parasites and pathogens. The draft report also tasks EPA with adopting a comprehensive assessment of neonicotinoids' risks to pollinators and with taking "appropriate regulatory action to protect bees from pesticides" if necessary. The language in the House appropriations committee's draft report could open a new front in the broad push for EPA to move more quickly to address the controversial pesticides' risks to bees. The effort includes environmentalists' and food safety groups' federal lawsuit seeking bans on two neonicotinoids, as well as a House bill that Democrats introduced last month that would require the agency to suspend within six months the "most bee-toxic neonicotinoids for use in seed treatment, soil application, or foliar treatment on bee attractive plants" until further study is complete.
The draft fiscal year 2014 spending bill report language also calls for a major overhaul of EPA's scientific data review process, including crafting a report on the agency's procedures for selecting peer reviewers and adopting a slew of National Academy of Sciences recommendations for improving EPA risk assessments.
The Republicans' draft report language urges EPA action on colony collapse disorder, part of a sharp decline in pollinators seen since 2006. The report says honey bees and other pollinators are vital to fruit and vegetable production in the United States, and directs EPA "to adopt a comprehensive assessment process that considers the risk of pesticides to honey bees, bumble bees, and solitary bees in all life stages."
The language addresses an issue environmentalists have pushed in recent months in meetings with congressmen and via a federal lawsuit filed in March in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California. Environmentalists argue pollinators' exposure to neonicotinoids is unavoidable because the pesticides are systemic, meaning chemicals are taken up into plants' pollen, nectar, leaves and stem. The products' manufacturers have sought to intervene in the federal lawsuit against EPA to defend their products. They say that when properly applied, neonicotinoids do not threaten pollinators.
EPA has acknowledged its current risk assessment methods inadequately account for neonicotinoids' systemic properties, and is addressing the issue in multiple ways by developing a new framework to better assess risks, and also by accelerating reviews of neonicotinoid registrations required under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). But EPA says those reviews will include new data generated by complex field studies, which require several growing seasons, and so the reviews could take between five and seven years.
While EPA agrees further research is needed to determine pollinators' exposure to pesticides and the effects of the chemicals on bee colonies, EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in May issued a report on pollinator health that found pesticides as only one of many factors in the dramatic decline in honey bee health (Risk Policy Report, May 7).
But the environmentalists and Democrats who argue EPA should move faster point to a European Commission plan to suspend uses of several neonicotinoid pesticides on plants that attract pollinators. Both the Democrats' House bill and the environmentalists' lawsuit call for EPA to take similar steps.
Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) introduced a bill directing EPA to suspend the most toxic uses of neonicotinoid pesticides within six months and also further study how the products may be safely applied. The Center for Food Safety (CFS), Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides and the Xerces Society support the bill.
Meanwhile, CFS led the coalition of advocates that filed the federal lawsuit in March seeking revocations of registrations of the neonicotinoids clothianidin and thiamethoxam, one year after petitioning the agency to ban clothianidin. EPA denied the clothianidin petition within a few months, saying environmentalists did not show the chemical caused imminent harm and had not considered its benefits, a factor the agency must consider when registering a product for use under its FIFRA authority.
Late last month, EPA sought to dismiss the lawsuit, which seeks the suspension of the two neonicotinoid registrations. In a July 30 motion to dismiss, EPA describes environmentalists prior petition to the agency as a piecemeal effort where advocates first sought suspension of clothianidin, then filed additional data and subsequently asked for suspension of thiamethoxam.
EPA says its partial response -- refusing to ban clothianidin -- addressed the petitioners' top priority first, and that the plaintiffs' lawsuit is untimely because the agency is still considering aspects of the environmentalists' petition.
"EPA's decision not to address the two supplemental filings in the Partial Response is not a final agency decision subject to review under the [Administrative Procedures Act,]" EPA says in its July 30 motion to dismiss. "Rather, it was a preliminary step in the Agency's consideration of the remainder of the Petition that does not, and cannot, form the basis of an independent cause of action against EPA." A hearing on the motion to dismiss is scheduled for Dec. 6.
While EPA officials have said the agency is still gathering additional data on neonicotinoid risks, the language in the House committee's draft report suggests Republicans want EPA to accelerate planned improvements in its process for assessing risks to pollinator health.
In 2012, EPA proposed a new tiered pollinator risk assessment framework, aspects of which have been both commended and criticized by a science advisory panel and a state regulator. The new framework seeks to account for a range of exposure routes and sources, types of pesticide application, and different bee ages and castes, and it will focus mainly on honeybees (Risk Policy Report, Jan. 29).
Neonicotinoid manufacturers have sought to intervene in the federal lawsuit to defend their products. In a July 22 proposed answer filed with the district court, the registrants deny that colony collapse disorder or any other decline in managed honey bee colonies has coincided with the introduction of clothianidin and thiamethoxam.
"There is no reliable scientific evidence supporting the assertion that clothianidin or thiamethoxam products, as actually applied for the uses approved by EPA, cause any of the alleged sublethal honey bee effects alleged" in the lawsuit.
Source: Inside EPA.com, 12 August 2013
http://insideepa.com/Inside-EPA-General/Inside-EPA-Public-Content/epa-f…
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