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In a rare show of regulatory muscle, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Notice of Intent on [March 1], announcing that it planned to cancel the sale of products that included a pesticide called flubendiamide. . . .
The EPA’s move to ban the products . . . could signal a change in the way it regulates pesticides, particularly with issuing “conditional registrations,” a loophole that allows pesticides that have not undergone otherwise required safety testing to enter the market. . . .
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. . . .It all began back in 2008, when the EPA issued a conditional registration for flubendiamide . . . under the condition that the companies must produce toxicity data on the impact of its use over the next few years, to fill in gaps in the original risk assessment. The EPA gave Bayer a generous five years to conduct scientific studies to prove that flubendiamide is safe for aquatic invertebrates, or the pesticide would have to go. Bayer agreed that it would voluntarily cancel the products if these stipulations weren’t met.
Seven years later . . . studies conducted by the EPA found that flubendiamide was having adverse effects on aquatic invertebrates. In January, the EPA gave Bayer. . . a notice that, as they had agreed, Bayer must withdraw its flubendiamide pesticides. But last month, Bayer flat-out refused. In a statement, the company said that it “instead will seek a review of the product’s registration in an administrative law hearing,” asserting that the product was safe. . . .
Read full, original post: Why the EPA’s recent pesticide battle could be a big deal
