FWS - Chloropyrifos Harms/Kills 97% Of 1,800 Endangered Species; EPA - Reverses Chloropyrifos Ban

[hatrack]

EDIT

lready, earlier in the year, the EPA had announced that in working with scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and National Marine Fisheries services it had found that chlorpyrifos killed or harmed 97 percent of the nation’s 1,800 protected plants and animals.



The evidence of risk was overwhelming, indicating with high certainty that the pesticide was killing and/or harming hundreds of protected species, including bighorn sheep, caribou, Florida panthers, grizzly bears, frogs, toads, salamanders, butterflies, bees and dozens of fish and bird species. Then Donald Trump took office. Within days newly appointed EPA chief Scott Pruitt announced he was reversing the planned ban on chlorpyrifos.

But what about the damning research on the pesticide’s widespread harm to protected species? How do you just make it disappear? If you’re Dow, and you just donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund, no worries. You simply ask the Pruitt-led pro-industry EPA to ignore the legally required biological evaluations that revealed the widespread off-target killing tendencies of one of your most popular products.

And as 2017 barrels to a close, by all signs the EPA is working hard to do just that. Earlier this month the agency asked a judge to postpone by two years court-ordered deadlines for completing the damning biological opinions — evaluations that the EPA had initially claimed would be finalized more than six months ago.

And now, the pesticide giant that over the past six years has donated $11 million to congressional campaigns and political action committees, and spent an additional $75 million lobbying Congress, is looking to cash in its congressional chip as well. A draft bill pushed by Dow that’s now floating around the halls of Congress would forbid the EPA from even assessing the harms pesticides pose to endangered species unless the maker of the pesticide requests those assessments.

EDIT

http://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/362209-lets-just-pretend-pesticides-dont-harm-wildlife

[sinkingfeeling]

1. That bill is another sign our democracy is truly dead.

[ladjf]

2. It seems to me that the Republicans are beyond being just "greedy".

They appear to be a "death cult", intent on destroying life on Earth as fast as possible.

Why they would want to cause such much death is beyond me.

[sue4e3]

3. I think a lot of them are afraid

they have been forced to question long held beliefs and face very scary things and instead seeing it , as it is a process, They have shut down . They have went into denial and see anything that may make them look at it, as the enemy and in doing so have made every living biome we have an enemy and put it under attack. If only they could understand that their life beliefs can stand with being a steward of the planet.

[ladjf]

4. A wonderfully insightful analysis of typical conservative thinking.

I can clearly see that your post was based on a lot of thinking on your part about how the brain works. Please continue to share your healthy logic with us here on the DU board.

[sue4e3]

5. Thank You for saying that

I am a Christian and an environmentalist and I find myself an outsider quite a bit. Not in a needy way , just always wondering where everyone's minds are, but Thank You again