California regulators on [August 14] took formal legal steps to ban a widely used pesticide that had been rescued from elimination by the Trump administration despite links to developmental disorders.
The move by the state Environmental Protection Agency is all but certain to draw legal challenges from Corteva Agriscience (formerly Dow AgroSciences), which has pushed back at attempts by environmentalists to ban the chemical, chlorpyrifos, on a federal level.
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It was unclear …. whether the federal EPA could challenge California, which often goes its own way on many environmental matters, including auto emissions and climate regulation. An official from that agency was not available for comment.
While most states follow the federal EPA’s lead on pesticides, California reserves the right to revoke registrations of the chemicals within its borders, said state EPA chief Jared Blumenfeld.
“Certainly, God knows, I cannot predict what this federal government will do,” Blumenfeld said.
“They have that same science; they have that same legal basis, and yet, based on what appears from the outside to just be politics, they’ve been foot-dragging — and in fact worse than that, not taking their regulatory role seriously,” Blumenfeld said.
Read full, original article: Trump defended a pesticide linked to developmental disorders. California will ban it