Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Background—Pesticide Reliance and its Effects
- The Basics of Pesticide Law
- Targeted Reforms
- Policy Solutions and Lessons from Other Countries
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Introduction
In 1962, Rachel Carson lit a fire underneath an environmental movement with her book, Silent Spring,1 which exposed the ecological devastation caused by pesticides. Her sobering description of a pesticide-ridden future in a chapter titled “A Fable for Tomorrow” led to an unprecedented shift in environmental policy that lasts to this day. Not only was the pesticide Carson targeted, DDT (“dichloro-diphenyl- trichloroethane”), banned for most uses in 1972,2 but many credit Silent Spring for sparking the more precautionary environmental legislation of the 1970s.3
However, the vigilance inspired by Silent Spring has dwindled in the sixty years since. How can it be that DDT sparked such outrage and relatively swift legislative action, yet there are now pesticides on the market that are 10,000 times as toxic with little successful pushback?4 Perhaps this is because DDT significantly bioaccumulated in symbolic species like the bald eagle, while modern pesticides generally harm smaller birds and pollinators with reverberative effects up the food chain that appear more indirect.5
But humankind should not so readily ignore the loss of pollinator species. At the very least, this Note does not presuppose that pollinators are less important than bald eagles or other species whose declines helped galvanize the environmental movement in the 1970s. After all, scientists estimate that one out of every three bites of food exists thanks to pollinator species.6
1 RACHEL L. CARSON, SILENT SPRING (1962).
2 37 Fed. Reg. 13369 (July 7, 1972).
3 Legacy of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, AM. CHEM. SOC’Y, https://www.acs.org/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/rachel- carson-silent-spring.html (last visited Mar. 10, 2025).
4 See Dave Goulson, An overview of the environmental risks posed by neonicotinoid insecticides, 50 J. OF APPLIED ECOLOGY 977 (2013).
5 Matt McGrath, Widespread Impacts of Neonicotinoids ‘Impossible to Deny’, BBC NEWS (June 24, 2014), https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27980344.
6 The Importance of Pollinators, U.S. DEP’T OF AGRIC., https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/general-information/initiatives-and- highlighted-programs/peoples-garden/importance-pollinators (last visited Mar. 10, 2025).
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For those who are allergic to bees, scared of bats, or unconvinced by the vital role pollinators play in preserving ecological health, this Note will address numerous other issues presented by pesticides. For example, there is “strong evidence” that the most commonly used pesticide, glyphosate, is characteristically carcinogenic to humans. 7 It is found in over eighty percent of human urine samples.8 What’s more, some of the most toxic pesticides ever invented—too dangerous for registration in the United States—are still produced for export to primarily developing nations. Ironically, food treated with these same pesticides are imported back into U.S. markets in what has been dubbed “the circle of poison.”9 Are you comfortable living with these little-known realities? Hopefully not.
This Note ultimately argues that these dangers, among many others, are enabled by a critically deficient and scientifically ungrounded federal regulatory framework. First, this Note explores the extent of U.S. reliance on pesticides, as well as the environmental, human-health, and economic implications of pesticide use. Second, this Note details the federal laws and regulations governing pesticides and the specific ways in which they are dangerously inadequate. Finally, this Note discusses how other jurisdictions, primarily foreign nations but sometimes local or state governments in the United States, regulate pesticides in a much safer manner. Fixing these deficiencies and learning from other nations must inform the next wave of policy solutions.
7 INT’L AGENCY FOR RSCH. ON CANCER, Some Organophosphate Insecticides and Herbicides IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, 112 IARC MONOGRAPHS 398 (2017).
8 Ospina et al., Exposure to Glyphosate in the United States: Data from the 2013-2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 170 ENV’T INT’L (2022).
9 DAVID WEIR & MARK SCHAPIRO, CIRCLE OF POISON: PESTICIDES AND PEOPLE IN A HUNGRY WORLD, INST. FOR FOOD DEV. AND POL’Y (1981).
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Background—Pesticide Reliance and its Effects
Modern agriculture relies heavily upon the use of pesticides while endeavoring to maximize yields, but these pesticides escape into the ambient environment and present a host of issues. This section explores the extent of U.S. reliance on pesticides and discusses the environmental, human-health, and economic outcomes attributed to pesticide use.
Pesticides: Pervasive Pollutants
“Pesticide” is an umbrella term for any substance intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, or mitigating any insect, rodent, weed, fungus, or other so-called “pest.”10 In a legal sense, this is a strikingly broad definition that allows any form of terrestrial or aquatic plant or animal life to be considered a pest—so long as the administrator of the EPA deems the species injurious to health or the environment.11 But this is also an inherently ironic definition; applying a pesticide—in itself injurious to health and the environment—to eliminate pests is not necessarily better and would depend on weighing the extents of harm.
Considering the breadth of this definition the United States’ staggering reliance on pesticides is unsurprising. More than one billion pounds of pesticides are applied within the United States each year, comprising twenty-three percent of worldwide pesticide usage by weight.12 This is disproportionately high considering the U.S. population comprises just 4.22 percent of the world population.13 U.S. pesticide reliance is also disproportionate relative to its agricultural exports, given that the United States comprises only ten percent of the world’s agricultural exports.14
10 7 U.S.C. § 136(u); 7 U.S.C. § 136(t).
12 DONALD ATWOOD & CLAIRE PAISLEY-JONES, ENV’T PROT. AGENCY, PESTICIDES INDUSTRY SALES & USAGE 9 (2017).
13 Population of the United States (2025 and historical), WORLDOMETER, https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us- population/ (last visited Mar. 10, 2025).
14 FOOD AND AGRIC. ORG. OF THE UNITED NATIONS, TRADE OF
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Further, though U.S. pesticide use has trended downward over the last few decades, this is largely explained by pesticides becoming more toxic per unit weight.15 Indeed, scientists have estimated that the acute toxicity of U.S. agricultural lands between 1992 and 2014 increased forty-eightfold for oral-insect exposure and fourfold for contact-insect exposure.16 Put differently, bees, butterflies, and other pollinators are exposed to an environment that is many times more toxic than just a few decades ago. The problem is getting worse.
Environmental Implications of Pesticide Use
Pollinators are most threatened by insecticides, a type of pesticide intended to kill insects that may reduce crop yields. But these insecticides, true to their name, kill or harm beneficial insects as well.17 Many classes of insecticides, such as neonicotinoids, function by disrupting the neurological system of insects.18 In lethal doses, this exposure leads to uncontrollable spasming, then paralysis, then death by starvation, dehydration, or predation—whichever comes first while the insect cannot perform essential life functions.19 Even in nonlethal doses, the neurological effects of insecticide exposure can disrupt the stamina, navigation, and memory of insects. Of course, these traits are all critical for butterflies or bees that cover long distances while searching for nectar.20
Agricultural Commodities 2005-2022 4 (2023).
15 FERNANDEZ-CORNEJO ET AL., U.S. DEP’T OF AGRIC., PESTICIDE USE PEAKED IN 1981, THEN TRENDED DOWNWARD, DRIVEN BY TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS AND OTHER FACTORS (2014).
16 DIBARTOLOMEIS ET AL., AN ASSESSMENT OF ACUTE INSECTICIDE TOXICITY LOADING (AITL) OF CHEMICAL PESTICIDES USED ON AGRICULTURAL LAND IN THE UNITED STATES (2019).
17 Know Your Pesticides, UNIV. OF WYOMING, https://wyoextension.org/knowyourpesticides/insecticides/ (last visited Mar. 10, 2025).
18 Courtney Lindwall, Neonicotinoids 101: The Effects on Humans and Bees, NRDC (June 11, 2025), https://www.nrdc.org/stories/neonicotinoids-101-effects-humans-and- bees.
20 Jillian Medford, The Astonishing Range of Bees: How Far They Travel and Their Impact on Ecosystems, THE KEEPER’S COLLECTIVE
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On a more systemic level, pollinators are against the ropes. For example, the Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) estimated that the western migratory population of North American monarch butterflies has a ninety-nine percent chance of going extinct in the next sixty years. Hardly faring better, the eastern migratory population has between a fifty-six and seventy-four percent chance of extinction in the same time span.21 These grim odds were announced as part of the FWS’s proposal to list the monarch butterfly as a threatened (but not endangered) species and designate 4,395 acres of critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”). 22 This listing decision came after more than a decade of petitioning by environmental groups23 and overturns a 2020 decision from the FWS that listing was warranted but precluded so that the FWS could focus on “higher priority listing actions.”24 Eastern and western monarch populations have declined by eighty and ninety-five percent, respectively, since the 1980s. 25 By studying the eastern monarch, scientists argue that insecticides are most strongly associated with declines in butterfly abundance.26
Further, insecticides can harm more than insects. Ninety- six percent of North American bird species rely on insects for at least some portion of their diets.27 Neonicotinoids alone are
(May 13, 2024), https://thekeeperscollective.com/blogs/news/the- astonishing-range-of-bees-how-far-they-travel-and-its-impact-on- ecosystems.
21 Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Threatened Species Status With Section 4(d) Rule for Monarch Butterfly and Designation of Critical Habitat,
89 Fed. Reg. 100662, 100679 (Dec. 12, 2024).
23 Saving the Monarch Butterfly, CTR. FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY, https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/invertebrates/monarc
h_butterfly/ (last visited Apr. 3, 2025).
24 Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; 12-Month Finding for the Monarch Butterfly, 85 Fed. Reg. 81813, 81815 (Dec. 17,
2020).
25 Press Release, Monarch Butterfly Proposed for Endangered Species Act Protection, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv. (Dec. 10, 2024).
26 VAN DEYNZE ET AL., INSECTICIDES, MORE THAN HERBICIDES, LAND USE, AND CLIMATE, ARE ASSOCIATED WITH DECLINES IN BUTTERFLY SPECIES RICHNESS AND ABUNDANCE IN THE AMERICAN MIDWEST (2024).
27 What’s Good for Insects Is Good for the Birds, AM. BIRD
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linked to an annual decline of four and three percent in grassland and insectivorous bird populations, respectively. 28 Exposure occurs through consumption of insects as well as insecticide-treated crop seeds.29 Such exposure impairs a variety of critical biological processes, particularly reproductive systems.30 Given all of this, it is no wonder that American bird populations have declined by twenty-nine percent in the last few decades.31
However, insecticides are not the sole cause of insect pollinator and bird declines within the umbrella of pesticides. Herbicides, used to kill undesirable vegetation mostly to maximize crop production, comprise roughly fifty percent of U.S. pesticide use.32 Like insecticides, the effects of herbicides are not limited to just the target pests. For example, herbicides kill desirable nectar-source plants and contribute to declining populations of pollinator species, reverberating up the food chain to impact birds of prey, mammals, and humans.33
This interconnectedness of ecosystems, causing environmental consequences of pesticides to percolate beyond the intended effects, is exactly what early conservationists like Aldo Leopold warned about. Leopold famously said:
The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism…If the biota in the
CONSERVANCY (May 8, 2024) https://abcbirds.org/whats-good-for- insects-is-good-for-the-birds/.
28 Li et al., Neonicotinoids and Decline in Bird Biodiversity in the United States, 3 NATURE SUSTAINABILITY 1027 (2020).
30 Margaret L. Eng et al., A Neonicotinoid Insecticide Reduces Fueling and Delays Migration in Songbirds, 365 SCIENCE 1177 (2019); Surya Prakash Pandey & Banalata Mohanty, The Neonicotinoid Pesticide Imidacloprid and the Dithiocarbamate Fungicide Mancozeb Disrupt the Pituitary–Thyroid Axis of a Wildlife Bird, 122 CHEMOSPHERE 227 (2014); Li, supra note 29; Margaret L. Eng et al., Imidacloprid and Chlorpyrifos Insecticides Impair Migratory Ability in a Seed-Eating Songbird, 15176 NATURE.COM 7 (2017).
32 Herbicides, U.S. ENV’T PROT. AGENCY,
https://www.epa.gov/caddis/herbicides (last updated Feb. 7, 2025); PESTICIDES INDUSTRY SALES AND USAGE, supra note 12, at 9.
33 See Id.
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course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.34
These ecosystem-wide consequences are especially concerning in light of the staggering ubiquity of pesticides in the environment. In 2020, the United States Geological Survey reported that nearly ninety percent of rivers and streams had five or more pesticides contaminating them.35 Neonicotinoids are found in seventy-five percent of global honey samples, which is of course indicative of insecticide exposure to bees.36 Imidacloprid, just one compound of neonicotinoid, has been found in thirty-six percent of birds.37 More broadly, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) has determined that glyphosate alone is harming 1,676 species that are protected under the ESA.38 This is 99.9 percent of the 1,678 species occurring in the United States that are protected under the ESA.39 As Leopold might put it, pesticides are progressively rusting and breaking many cogs and wheels of the land organism.
This pervasiveness of pesticides in the environment is partially due to the ease with which pesticides escape beyond the target area. Pesticides readily “drift” in the air to other areas during spraying or leach into waterways through stormwater
34 ALDO LEOPOLD, A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC 190 (OXFORD UNIV. PRESS 1949).
35 S. Alex Covert et al., Pesticide Mixtures Show Potential Toxicity to Aquatic Life in U.S. Streams, Water Years 2013–2017, 745 SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 141285 (2020).
36 E. A. D. Mitchell et al., A Worldwide Survey of Neonicotinoids in Honey, 358 SCIENCE 109 (2017).
37 Meredith J. Anderson et al., Imidacloprid Exposure is Detectable in Over One Third of Wild Bird Samples From Diverse Texas Ecoregions, 876 SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 162723 (2023).
38 EPA: Two Most Widely Used Pesticides Likely Harm Majority of Endangered Species CTR. FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY (Nov. 15, 2021),
https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/epa-two-most- widely-used-pesticides-likely-harm-majority-of-endangered-species- 2021-11-15/.
39 ESA Basics: 50 Years Conserving Endangered Species, U.S. FISH & WILDLIFE SERV.,
https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/endangered-species- act-basics-february-2023.pdf (last visited Apr. 3, 2025).
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runoff, groundwater discharges, and irrigation return flows.40 And different types of pesticides trickle up food chains to various extents. Rodenticides, for example, are particularly dangerous to larger mammals and birds of prey that feed on rodents; studies have found that sixty-eight percent of red-tailed hawks test positive for at least one rodenticide.41 Rodenticides often work as anticoagulants, preventing blood from clotting and causing rodents to bleed to death. Similar effects are seen in predators of poisoned rodents, leading to harrowing accounts of people finding hawks lying dead in pools of their own blood that could not coagulate.42
Short of death, rodenticides can cause predators to be sluggish, weak, and disoriented. These effects were demonstrated by Flaco the Eurasian Eagle-Owl, famous for escaping from the New York City Zoo and surviving in the city for about a year. However, Flaco was found to have lethal levels of rodenticide from four compounds in his system after dying in a building collision—a type of accident that would become more likely with increased weakness and disorientation from rodenticide poisoning.43 Further, scientists have linked rodenticides to more dysfunctional immune systems in bobcats that weaken targeted responses to diseases like mange.44 Indeed, this link may explain why P-22 the Mountain Lion tested positive for multiple rodenticides and was inflicted with severe mange throughout his life, though his ultimate cause of death was a vehicle collision from a highway cutting through
41 Cynthia Hopf-Dennis et al., Prevalence of Anticoagulant Rodenticide Exposure in Red-Tailed Hawks (Buteo Jamaicensis) and Utility of Clotting Time Assays to Detect Coagulopathy, 31 ECOTOXICOLOGY 919 (2022).
42 Cathy Bell, Raptors And Rat Poison, CORNELLLAB: ALL ABOUT BIRDS (July 15, 2015), https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/raptors- and-rat-poison/.
43 Poisoning by Rodenticide Played a Part in Flaco the Owl’s Death, AM. BIRD CONSERVANCY (Mar. 26, 2024),
https://abcbirds.org/news/flaco-rodenticide/.
44 Researchers Investigate Link Between Rodenticides and Mange in Bobcats, NAT’L PARK SERV. (Oct. 2017)
https://www.nps.gov/articles/researchers-investigate-rodenticides- and-mange-in-bobcats.htm.
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mountain lion habitat.45 P-22’s mange-inflicted headshot46 remains a powerful picture in the conservation efforts of mountain lions, partially exemplified by the plans to create a statue of P-22 in his former home of Griffith Park.47
Taken together, pesticides present a host of environmental issues, which is intuitive given their widespread use and documented toxicity at every level of the food chain. Humankind historically has had poor foresight when it comes to pesticides, evidenced by the inventor of DDT receiving a Nobel Prize for his efforts.48 Time and time again, the United States has registered pesticides only to later learn their capacity for environmental destruction. Indeed, naturalist Edwin Way Teale’s famous quote— “[a] spray as indiscriminate as DDT can upset the economy of nature as much as a revolution upsets social economy—” could work equally well for pesticides like neonicotinoids.49 As this Note will argue throughout, the reactive nature of regulating pesticides is a symptom of a broken regulatory system.
Human-Health Implications of Pesticide Use
Of course, humans rely on the ecosystems that pesticides pervade. As Rachel Carson warned, “man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”50 This tension is exemplified by the robust but still-mounting
45 Li Cohen, Famed Mountain Lion P-22 had 2 Severe Infections Before his Death Never Before Documented in California Pumas, CBS NEWS (June 15, 2023), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california- mountain-lion-p-22-had-severe-infections-chronic-health-kidney- disease-injuries-before-car-accident/.
46 P22 Mange Headshot, NAT’L PARK SERV., https://www.nps.gov/samo/learn/news/images/P22_Mange_HeadShot_ Medium_2.jpg (last visited Apr. 6, 2025).
47 Artists sought for future P-22 sculpture at Griffith Park, NBC LOS ANGELES (Oct. 22, 2024),
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/artists-sought-for- future-p-22-sculpture-at-griffith-park/3541311/.
48 Paul Müller Facts, THE NOBEL PRIZE, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1948/muller/facts/ (last visited Mar. 10, 2025).
49 The Story of Silent Spring, NRDC (Aug. 13, 2015), https://www.nrdc.org/stories/story-silent-spring.
50 Id.
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science establishing various human-health effects of pesticide exposure. For example, according to the EPA’s Human Health Risk Assessment for Diazinon, an organophosphate (“OPs”) insecticide, “[T]here is evidence of delays in mental development in infants (24–36 months), attention problems and autism spectrum disorder in early childhood, and intelligence decrements in school-age children who were exposed to OPs during gestation.”51 The EPA allows forty-four agricultural commodities to contain diazinon residue, comprising much of our produce sections.52 In the European Union (“EU”), however, diazinon has been banned since 2006.53
Other pesticides are carcinogenic. There is a significant exposure-response relation between another organophosphate— terbufos—and aggressive prostate cancer.54 The EU banned terbufos in 2009, but the EPA allows terbufos application on important crops like corn and sorghum in nineteen U.S. states while allowing terbufos residue in all fifty states on commonly imported products like coffee and bananas.55 Similarly, the IARC noted that phosmet, another organophosphate, is associated with childhood leukemia in the United States.56
51 U.S. ENV’T PROT. AGENCY, DRAFT HUMAN HEALTH RISK ASSESSMENT FOR REGISTRATION REVIEW (June 10, 2016),
https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA-HQ-OPP-2008-0351- 0093.
https://earthjustice.org/feature/organophosphate-pesticides-united- states/diazinon (last visited Apr. 3, 2025).
53 What Substances are Banned and Authorised in the EU Market?, PAN EUROPE, https://www.pan- europe.info/old/Archive/About%20pesticides/Banned%20and%20autho rised.htm (last visited Mar. 10, 2025).
54 Stella Koutros et al., Risk of Total and Aggressive Prostate Cancer and Pesticide Use in the Agricultural Health Study, 177 AM. J. OF EPIDEMIOLOGY 59 (2012).
55 Steven Brennan, European Commission Prohibits Future Imports of Terbufos, FORESIGHT (July 2, 2024), https://www.useforesight.io/news/european-commission-prohibits- future-imports-of-terbufos; Terbufos, EARTHJUSTICE, https://earthjustice.org/feature/organophosphate-pesticides-united- states/terbufos (last visited Mar. 10, 2025).
56 Andrew S. Park et al., Prenatal Pesticide Exposure and Childhood Leukemia – A California Statewide Case-Control Study, 226
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Phosmet was banned in the EU in 2022 but is used in forty U.S. states on dozens of products.57
Pesticides are not just widespread in our supermarkets, but also in humans. According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly half of the U.S. population aged three years and older was recently exposed to neonicotinoids.58 A study in Iowa found that three neonicotinoids were present in 100 percent of local tap water samples.59 This is concerning for humans because studies have found that neonicotinoids have a statistically significant link to birth defects of the heart,60 a doubled rate of autism in prenatally, consistently exposed children,61 and a 2.9 times risk of anencephaly—a fatal birth defect that occurs when a baby is born without a major portion of their brain, skull, and scalp—based on residential proximity to neonicotinoid application.62 Studies revealing these human and environmental health effects are quickly being released. In other words, science is still catching up to the mid-1990s registration of neonicotinoids in the same way that it took
INT’L J. OF HYGIENE & ENV’T HEALTH 113486 (2020).
57 EU bans Phosmet, Active Ingredient Used As Insecticide, LAB (Mar. 2, 2022), https://www.lab-sl.com/en/eu-bans-fosmet-active- ingredient-used-as-insecticide/; Phosmet, EARTHJUSTICE, https://earthjustice.org/feature/organophosphate-pesticides-united- states/phosmet (last visited Mar. 10, 2025).
58 Maria Ospina et al., Exposure to Neonicotinoid Insecticides in the U.S. General Population: Data from the 2015–2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 176 ENV’T RSCH 108555 (2019).
59 Kathryn L. Klarich et al., Occurrence of Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Finished Drinking Water and Fate during Drinking Water Treatment, 4 ENV’T SCI. & TECH. 169 (2017).
60 Suzan L. Carmichael et al., Residential Agricultural Pesticide Exposures and Risk of Selected Congenital Heart Defects Among Offspring in the San Joaquin Valley of California, 135 ENV’T RSCH. 133 (2014).
61 Alexander P. Keil et al., Autism Spectrum Disorder, Flea and Tick Medication, and Adjustments for Exposure Misclassification: the CHARGE (Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and Environment) Case-Control Study, 13 ENV’T HEALTH 3 (2014).
62 Wei Yang et al., Residential Agricultural Pesticide Exposures and Risk of Neural Tube Defects and Orofacial Clefts Among Offspring in the San Joaquin Valley of California, 179 AM. J. OF EPIDEMIOLOGY 740 (2014).
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decades to recognize the dangers of DDT.63 Again being more receptive to damning science than the United States, the EU partially banned neonicotinoids in 2013 and fully banned them in 2018, especially due to their effects on pollinators.64
More generally, scientists recently learned that thirty percent of active pesticide ingredients approved in the last ten years contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (“PFAS”).65 PFAS has gained recognition in recent years for increasing the rates of various cancers, reproductive and developmental defects in children, hormone imbalances, and more.66 The frequency at which the scientific community is discovering new dangers of pesticides begs the question: what remains to be discovered?
Economic Implications of Pesticide Use
The global pesticides market was worth over $85 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow to more than $105 billion by 2026.67 A study published in the National Library of Medicine estimated that, without the use of pesticides, there would be a thirty-two percent loss of cereal production, seventy-eight percent loss of fruit production, and a fifty-four percent loss of vegetable production. However, these numbers are based on unrealistic premises. Importantly, these findings presumed that pesticides were not replaced with natural pest-management techniques.68
64 Erik Stokstad, European Union Expands Ban of Three Neonicotinoid Pesticides, SCIENCEINSIDER (Apr. 27, 2018), https://www.science.org/content/article/european-union-expands-ban- three-neonicotinoid-pesticides.
65 Nathan Donley et al., Forever Pesticides: A Growing Source of PFAS Contamination in the Environment, 132 ENV’T HEALTH PERSPECTIVES 0075003-1 (2024).
66 Our Current Understanding of the Human Health and Environmental Risks of PFAS, U.S. ENV’T PROT. AGENCY,
https://www.epa.gov/pfas/our-current-understanding-human- health-and-environmental-risks-pfas (last updated Nov. 26, 2024).
67 Description of Pesticides Global Market Report 2022, THE BUS. RSCH. CO.,
https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/pesticides- global-market-report (last visited Mar. 10, 2025).
68 Muyesaier Tudi et al., Agriculture Development, Pesticide Application and Its Impact on the Environment, 18 INT’L J. RSCH. PUB.
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Further, this study assumed categorical non-use of pesticides rather than more responsible use.69
More realistically, responsive action to pesticide use within the United States would not take the form of a categorical ban on all pesticides, but targeted bans of the more dangerous compounds like in the EU. Further, this sort of action may not fiscally harm farmers as much as one might think; a 2017 study of 1,000 French farms found that a majority could reduce herbicide, fungicide, and insecticide use by thirty-seven, forty- seven, and sixty percent, respectively, without any negative effects on productivity and profitability.70 Indeed, eighty-six percent of farms could actually increase production by cutting insecticide use to some extent.71 This is intuitive when considering that pesticides damage soil health and can harm long-term yields.72
The pesticide industry is a significant source of revenue and jobs. In the United States, nearly 149,000 people were employed in the pest control industry in 2023.73 Farmers rely on pesticides to maintain their typically thin profit margins, which get tighter the smaller a farm is.74
That being said, negative externalities from pesticide drift and runoff cost society at large in ways that are now being studied more intensely. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (“USDA”), pollinators provide an estimated $200 billion each year to American ecosystems—more than double the value of the global pesticide industry.75 This value largely comes
HEALTH 1112 (2021).
70 Martin Lechenet et al., Reducing Pesticide Use While Preserving Crop Productivity and Profitability On Arable Farms, 3 NATURE PLANTS 1 (2017).
72 Tari Gunstone et al., Pesticides and Soil Invertebrates: A Hazard Assessment, 9 FRONTIERS IN ENV’T SCI. (2021).
73 Pest Control in the US – Employment (2005–2030), IBISWORLD, https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/employment/pest- control/1495/ (last visited Apr. 6, 2025).
74 Robert A. Hoppe, Profit Margin Increases with Farm Size, U.S. DEP’T OF AGRIC. (Feb. 2, 2015), https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber- waves/2015/january-february/profit-margin-increases-with-farm-size.
75 Brianna Randall, The Value of Birds and Bees, U.S. DEP’T OF
AGRIC. (June 22, 2020), https://www.farmers.gov/blog/value-birds-and-
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from the pollination and stabilization of crops as well as the increased biodiversity from wild pollination that provides its own ecosystem services.76 However, the ninety-five percent decline in western monarch populations or the fifty percent decline in North American bumblebee populations threatens these vital services.77 If these declines are not reversed, the United States might be left with more dystopian solutions, such as Walmart’s 2018 filing to patent autonomous robot bees.78
The healthcare costs associated with pesticides are also significant externalities. A 2016 study estimated $340 billion in
U.S. healthcare costs associated with exposure to toxic chemicals, with organophosphate pesticides alone responsible for $44.7 billion.79
Further, imbalances in allowable pesticide residue between the United States and its trade partners lessen trade revenue. For example, Thailand rescinded its maximum residue limit (“MRL”) for chlorpyrifos and paraquat meaning there is now a zero-tolerance policy for either chemical’s residue on food imports.80 The USDA estimates that this will cost the U.S. economy through lost exports around $1 billion each year and
bees.
76 Adam J. Vanbergen & the Insect Pollinators Initiative, Threats
to an Ecosystem Service: Pressures On Pollinators, 11 Frontiers in
ECOLOGY & THE ENV’T 251 (2013).
77 Threats to Pollinators, U.S. FISH & WILDLIFE SERV., https://www.fws.gov/initiative/pollinators/threats (last visited Apr. 6, 2025); Press Release, Monarch Butterfly Proposed for Endangered Species Act Protection, supra note 25.
78 Walmart Has Patented Autonomous Robot Bees, WORLD ECON.
F. (Mar. 19, 2018),
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2018/03/autonomous-robot-bees-are- being-patented-by-walmart/.
79 Lisa Rapaport, Toxic Chemicals Tied to $340 Billion in U.S. Health Costs and Lost Wages, REUTERS (Oct. 17, 2016, 4:45 PM), https://www.reuters.com/article/business/healthcare- pharmaceuticals/toxic-chemicals-tied-to-340-billion-in-us-health- costs-and-lost-wages-idUSKBN12H2KA/.
80 Thai FDA Announced Ban of Paraquat and Chlorpyrifos on Imported Food Products, U.S. DEP’T OF AGRIC. FOREIGN AGRIC. SERV.,
https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/thailand-thai-fda-announced-ban- paraquat-and-chlorpyrifos-imported-food-products (last visited Apr. 6, 2025).
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roughly 7,550 American jobs.81 This also reduces the competitiveness of the United States in the global agricultural market, particularly to the benefit of countries leading the effort to reduce pesticide usage as import restrictions continue to arise throughout the world.82
The economic considerations underlying pesticides in the United States are not only difficult to project but also weigh in opposing directions. While it is true that pesticides generally help farmers maintain thin margins and the industry provides many jobs, those same workers and the public at large are exposed to neurotoxic pesticides that drive up healthcare costs, harm valuable ecosystem services of pollinators and other species, and reduce export potential with other nations.
The Basics of Pesticide Law
Federal pesticide law is shaped by a number of environmental statutes that both directly and indirectly regulate pesticides. These include the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (“FIFRA”), the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (“FFDCA”), the Food Quality Protection Act (“FQPA”), the Clean Water Act (“CWA”), the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), and the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”). This section discusses the capacity for each
81 Economic Impact of the Ban on Paraquat and Chlorpyrifos on Thai Industries, U.S. DEP’T OF AGRIC. FOREIGN AGRIC. SERV.,
https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/Report/DownloadReportByF ileName?fileName=Economic%20Impact%20of%20the%20Ban%20on
%20Paraquat%20and%20Chlorpyrifos%20on%20Thai%20Industries% 20_Bangkok_Thailand_05-27-2020 (last visited Apr. 6, 2025); Wendy Zang, U.S. Agricultural Exports Supported More Than 1 Million Jobs Throughout the Economy in 2020, U.S. DEP’T OF AGRIC. (May 4, 2022), https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart- detail?chartId=103827.
82 For example, Brazil could earn much of the U.S. export loss due to Thailand’s new restriction because Brazil is a major producer of soybean and wheat—the biggest crops the U.S. can no longer export to Thailand—and Brazil has already banned paraquat. Nathan Donley, How the EPA’s Lax Regulation of Dangerous Pesticides is Hurting Public Health and the US Economy, BROOKINGS (Sept. 29, 2022), https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-epas-lax-regulation-of- dangerous-pesticides-is-hurting-public-health-and-the-us-economy/.
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of these statutes to safely regulate pesticides—leading into the following section discussing targeted reforms that ought to occur.
Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act
FIFRA—implemented by the EPA—is the country’s primary pesticide law.83 Any pesticide sold in the United States must be registered under FIFRA beforehand.84 Further, as a condition for approval in addition to other administrative requirements, the EPA must determine that the pesticide will not cause unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.85 Despite the wording, consideration of these effects extends beyond just the environment to contemplate: (1) “any unreasonable risk to man or the environment, taking into account the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of the use of any pesticide;” and “(2) a human dietary risk from residues that result from a use of a pesticide in or on any food inconsistent with the standard under section 346a of title 21.”86 In other words, the EPA considers many factors affecting humans and the environment. But the breadth of these considerations does not make the process more protective. For example, considering economic effects and applying a cost-benefit analysis when deciding whether risks are “unreasonable” certainly pulls the tug of rope toward maximizing crop yields and away from protecting humans and the environment.
To facilitate the determination of whether the risks of a pesticide are unreasonable, FIFRA requires a manufacturer to submit various information along with its registration application. This information includes the pesticide’s intended use, active ingredients, claimed benefits, and results of tests and studies concerning its safety.87
87 7 U.S.C. § 136a(c)(2).
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Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act
MRLs are the maximum allowable residues for pesticides on food products, set pursuant to the FFDCA.88 EPA sets MRLs to the extent that exposure will not present unsafe human dietary risks. However, the EPA does not consider environmental risks.89 Further, MRLs are set only with respect to risks posed to Americans, as FIFRA expressly permits the export of pesticides that are not registered for use in the United States.90
Food Quality Protection Act
Another important piece of legislation is the FQPA, which amended FIFRA and FFDCA to clarify that MRLs must be set such that there is “reasonable certainty” of no human harm from exposure.91 While this strengthened protections for exposure through food, the FQPA also specifically exempted occupational exposures from this standard of safety.92 This exemption presents another environmental injustice, as seventy-eight percent of agricultural workers self-identify as Hispanic.93 Therefore, the EPA’s estimate that 10,000—20,000 agricultural workers are annually diagnosed with acute illnesses due to pesticide exposure is disproportionately borne by Hispanic workers.94 Even worse, if including non-hospitalized workers, the EPA estimates that the number of acute illnesses due to pesticide exposure could be 300,000.95 This corroborates a study from the Office of Inspector General estimating that up to ninety-five percent of occupational injuries from pesticides go uncounted.96
91 21 U.S.C. § 346a(b)(2)(A)(ii).
92 21 U.S.C. § 346a(b)(2)(D)(vi).
93 NAT’L CTR. FOR FARMWORKER HEALTH, FACTS ABOUT
FARMWORKERS, at 1 (2021).
94 OFF. OF PESTICIDE PROGRAMS & U.S. ENV’T PROT. AGENCY, REGULATORY IMPACT ANALYSIS OF WORKER PROTECTION STANDARD FOR AGRICULTURAL PESTICIDES, at V-11 (1992).
95 U.S. GOV. ACCOUNTABILITY OFF., HIRED FARMWORKERS HEALTH AND WELL-BEING AT RISK 13 (1992).
96 OFF. OF INSPECTOR GEN., U.S. ENV’T PROT. AGENCY, EPA NEEDS TO EVALUATE THE IMPACT OF THE REVISED AGRICULTURAL WORKER
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The EPA cites “fear of retaliation as the main reason for unreported pesticide exposure incidents,” but the problem is more structural than this.97 The Office of Pesticide Programs, within the EPA, does not receive funding to collect pesticide exposure data nor is it statutorily required to do so. State inspectors under the Agriculture Worker Protection Standards are not trained to verify a pesticide exposure incident.98 There is no national requirement that healthcare practitioners report documented pesticide exposures to their state departments of health. Even when required to do so at the state level like in California, the EPA may not capture this data because its pesticide cooperative agreements are usually with state departments of agriculture—not health.99
Clean Water Act
Substantive guardrails for pesticide law exist in other environmental statutes but are not properly equipped to guard against the negative effects of pesticides. CWA, which generally requires a permit for the discharge of any pollutant into federal waters, expressly exempts agricultural return flows and drainage from needing a permit.100 This ignores the reality that agricultural runoff and return flows containing harmful pesticides routinely discharge into federal waters but was likely designed to ease the regulatory burden on farmers.101 Even direct applications of pesticides to bodies of water, for example to kill mosquitoes, silently avoided any CWA permitting requirements for over thirty years. It wasn’t until 2005 that the EPA issued guidance clarifying that pesticides certified under FIFRA do not fall under the definition of “pollutant” in the
Protection Standard on Pesticide Exposure Incidents 8 (2018)
[hereinafter 2018 INSPECTOR GENERAL’S REPORT]; J. Paul Leigh et al., An Estimate of the U.S. Government’s Undercount of Nonfatal Occupational Injuries and Illnesses in Agriculture, 24 ANNALS OF EPIDEMIOLOGY 254 (2014).
97 2018 INSPECTOR GENERAL’S REPORT, supra note 96, at 9.
100 33 U.S.C. § 1342(l)(1); 33 U.S.C. § 1344(f)(1)(A).
101 Nonpoint Source: Agriculture, U.S. ENV’T PROT. AGENCY, https://www.epa.gov/nps/nonpoint-source-agriculture (last updated Feb. 27, 2025).
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CWA.102 This determination was not made because pesticides are safe but simply because the definition of “pollutant” specifies “chemical waste” as a subcategory, and the EPA did not consider pesticides to be waste at the time of discharge (emphasis added).103 This dangerously preserved an analysis of pesticides that turned on whether pesticides conformed procedurally with FIFRA rather than on the actual water quality impact of the pesticide. Indeed, FIFRA does not mandate the protection of the chemical, biological, or physical integrity of federal waters like the CWA.104
In 2011, responding to years of litigation about this interpretation of pesticides as non-waste and non-pollutants, the EPA issued a general permit with limited requirements under the CWA for pesticides. But the general permit applied only to pesticides applied directly to waterbodies for purposes such as controlling aquatic weeds and mosquitoes.105 In other words, pesticides in agricultural runoff and irrigation return flows are still not regulated under the CWA so long as they are registered under FIFRA, and even direct application to waterways is governed by a much less stringent general permit.106
National Environmental Policy Act
NEPA, often referred to as the Magna Carta of American environmental law, ensures agencies publicly consider the environmental consequences of federal actions to promote informed decision-making.107 To facilitate this, NEPA requires agencies to prepare environmental impact statements for major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the environment and propose alternatives to the action.108
But because of a Ninth Circuit holding, the EPA does not conduct a NEPA review during pesticide registration decisions despite the significant environmental and human-health
102 Laura Gatz, CONG. RSCH. SERV., PESTICIDE USE AND WATER QUALITY: ARE THE LAWS COMPLEMENTARY OR IN CONFLICT? 7 (2016).
107 National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA.GOV, https://ceq.doe.gov/ (last visited Apr. 6, 2025).
108 42 U.S.C. 4332(2)(C).
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impacts discussed above.109 There, the Ninth Circuit “infer[red] that Congress believes that analyses in support of [FIFRA] registration currently are an adequate substitute for an [environmental impact statement].”110 This Congressional intent was found despite significant differences between FIFRA and NEPA reviews. For example, while FIFRA explicitly forbids an alternatives analysis in determining whether a pesticide registration is necessary, one of NEPA’s central mechanisms is a robust alternatives analysis. In any case, the United States’ Magna Carta of environmental law is entirely powerless as applied to pesticide registrations, which lessens the data available to agencies and the public during registration decisions and consultation under the ESA.
Endangered Species Act
Perhaps the greatest check from other environmental statutes on the impacts of pesticides comes from the ESA.111 The ESA requires agencies to ensure that their actions are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any threatened or endangered species.112 This includes when the EPA acts to approve a pesticide’s registration under FIFRA. The ESA’s central mechanism for avoiding jeopardy is the Section 7
consultation process, which is required when a federal agency determines that a proposed action with some federal involvement may affect listed species or critical habitat.113 If so, the agency must informally consult with the FWS to determine whether the action is likely to adversely affect a listed species.114 If it will, a more thorough formal consultation ensues.115 These analyses are comprehensive, meaning the ESA’s consultation process can capture the impacts of pesticide-polluted irrigation return flows despite the CWA being hamstrung. Indeed, it is
109 Merrell v. Thomas, 807 F.2d 776, 781 (9th Cir. 1986).
113 50 C.F.R. § 402.14(a) (1986).
114 50 C.F.R. 402.13(c) (1986).
115 50 C.F.R. 402.14(b)(1) (1986).
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through this process that EPA determined that glyphosate alone is harming 1,676 ESA-listed species.116
Even so, the ESA is weakened to a nearly unprecedented extent in the context of pesticides compared to other threats to listed species.117 For example, EPA guidance states that the goal of its Endangered Species Protection Program is to comply with the ESA, but only “without placing unnecessary burden on agriculture and other pesticide users.”118 This policy necessarily violates the ESA. Costs may only be considered in narrow exercises of ESA authority that are explicitly provided for, such as when the FWS designates critical habitat for a species.119 Costs may not be considered during Section 7’s jeopardy determinations, like when the FWS is consulting with the EPA during a pesticide registration determination.120 Therefore, even “unnecessary burdens,” however the EPA might define them, are required if necessary to avoid jeopardizing the continued existence of a listed species.
Further, because NEPA is not required for FIFRA registrations, a significant source of data that can inform various proceedings under the ESA is eliminated. Biological Opinions, which are scientific analyses of whether an action is likely to jeopardize a listed species, often use NEPA documents to facilitate drafting.121
116 See Press Release from the Ctr. for Biological Diversity, U.S. Env’t Prot. Agency, EPA: Two Most Widely Used Pesticides Likely Harm Majority of Endangered Species (Nov. 15, 2021) (on file with author).
117 Perhaps the only threat that the ESA is less equipped to address is climate change, as greenhouse gas emissions are not considered ‘effects’ of any actions for section 7 consultations. See Memorandum from the Off. Of the Solicitor, U.S. Dep’t of the Interior on Guidance on the Applicability of the Endangered Species Act’s Consultation Requirements to Proposed Actions Involving the Emission of Greenhouse Gases (Oct. 3, 2008) (on file with the author). 118 Memorandum from Kaitlin Picone and Elizabeth Vizard, U.S. Env’t Prot. Agency on JOINT OPP/OECA FY2022-2025 FIFRA COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT GUIDANCE and FURTURE
PRIORITY DISCUSSIONS (Feb. 17, 2021).
121 50 C.F.R. § 402.14(c)(2) (1986).
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Targeted Reforms
The controlling laws for pesticides combine to provide lax protection for humans and the environment. The standard for determining whether to register a pesticide uses malleable terms like “unreasonable risk” that allows the EPA to apply cost- benefit analyses. Because of this loose standard, agency actions blow with the political winds, making it difficult to push changes that will get tied up in litigation for many years. This section describes an example of this administrative difficulty before proposing targeted reforms to the testing and environmental justice inadequacies of the controlling laws. These changes would reconcile the law with scientific integrity, ensuring the EPA is not given blinders to the full range of dangers from pesticides when making registration decisions.
The Administrative Difficulty Justifying Targeted Reforms
Chlorpyrifos presents a good, though exasperating, example of how the EPA can bend the FIFRA registration standard to fit its agenda. Despite the EPA proposing to revoke all chlorpyrifos tolerances on food because they could not find any safe level in 2015,122 the agency reversed course in 2019 by announcing they would not revoke chlorpyrifos tolerances.123 2019 was the same year that California and the European Union voted to ban chlorpyrifos.124 Because of this arbitrary change in stance, which could be explained by the change in administration between 2015 and 2017, the 9th Circuit in 2021 ordered the EPA to either ban all food uses of chlorpyrifos or modify the chlorpyrifos
122 League of United Latin Am. Citizens v. Regan, 996 F.3d 673, 685 (9th Cir. 2021).
123 Chlorpyrifos; Final Order Denying Objections to March 2017 Petition Denial Order, 84 Fed. Reg. 35555 (July 24, 2019).
124 Notice of Use and Sale Conditions for Chlorpyrifos Products, CAL. DEP’T OF PESTICIDE REGUL. (Oct. 9, 2019) Chlorpyrifos &
Chlorpyrifos-methyl, EUR. COMM’N FOOD SAFETY, https://food.ec.europa.eu/plants/pesticides/approval-active-substances- safeners-and-synergists/renewal-approval/chlorpyrifos-chlorpyrifos- methyl_en (last visited Apr. 6, 2025).
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tolerances to levels that the EPA can demonstrate are safe.125 Thereafter, for the first time since DDT was banned in 1972, the EPA issued what would have been a ban on all uses of chlorpyrifos in 2021.126
However, nearly two dozen agricultural groups challenged the EPA’s ban, and in 2023 the 8th Circuit held that the ban was arbitrary and capricious. As a result, the EPA’s ban on chlorpyrifos was vacated.127 This was because the EPA failed to consider a partial ban when opting for a complete ban—perhaps due to President Biden’s concern for chlorpyrifos on his first day in office.128 The EPA did exactly that following the 2023 order from the 8th Circuit, revoking the ban to allow eleven agricultural uses: alfalfa, apples, asparagus, cherries, citrus, cotton, peaches, soybeans, sugar beets, strawberries, and wheat.129 While one lesson to draw from this may be to shop organically for the above eleven categories,130 the more systemic lesson is that it is extremely difficult and time-consuming to ban a pesticide even when the EPA finds it to be a danger to human health. Administrative processes are lengthy and can be toppled by political winds, especially with the EPA being afforded great discretion in determining what constitutes an “unreasonable” adverse effect. As such, the following reforms are necessary to better react to evolving science.
126 Chlorpyrifos; Tolerance Revocations, 86 Fed. Reg. 48315 (Aug.
30, 2021).
127 Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Ass’n v. Regan, 85 F.4th
881, 887 (8th Cir. 2023).
128 Dan Charles, Toxic Pesticide Faces New Scrutiny from Biden Administration, NPR (Jan. 20, 2021, at 6:32 ET), https://www.npr.org/sections/inauguration-day-live- updates/2021/01/20/958925222/toxic-pesticide-faces-new-scrutiny- from-biden-administration.
129 EPA Proposes Rule to Revoke Most Food Uses of the Insecticide Chlorpyrifos, U.S. ENV’T PROT. AGENCY (Dec. 2, 2024),
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-proposes-rule-revoke-most- food-uses-insecticide-chlorpyrifos.
130 After all, chlorpyrifos is from the class of pesticides, organophosphates, that were first developed as toxic nerve agents for chemical warfare during World War II. See Regan, 996 F.3d at 680.
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Reforming the FIFRA Registration Process
Apart from the carveouts from FIFRA compliance within many of our most important environmental statutes, like the CWA and NEPA, there are many ways in which FIFRA must change to achieve scientific integrity.
During FIFRA registration analyses, ingredients in pesticides are categorized as either “active” or “inert.” These categories are misnomers. This categorization depends only on whether an ingredient harms the target pest, irrespective of its impacts on non-target species, ecosystems, and humans.131 Therefore, despite the innocuous name, inert ingredients are often biologically or chemically active and capable of significant harm. Yet they are considered inert simply because they serve a different purpose within the mixture.132
This is significant because thirteen of the twenty toxicologic tests required for FIFRA registration are performed solely on the active ingredient.133 Only seven tests use the pesticide formulation as a whole, inclusive of inert ingredients. Indeed, the important medium- and long-term toxicity tests for cancer, reproductive problems, and genetic damage test the active ingredient alone.134 Similarly, just a quarter of the tests for wildlife and non-target plant effects use the pesticide formulation as a whole.135 To add to the arbitrariness of it all, at least 394 inert ingredients have been registered as active ingredients in other formulations. This makes the distinction meaningless as it relates to whether a pesticide poses an unreasonable risk to humans or the environment.136 These registration decisions and toxicity testing results are necessarily unfaithful to science when relying on such an arbitrary distinction between active and so-called inert ingredients.
132 Caroline Cox & Michael Surgan, Unidentified Inert Ingredients in Pesticides: Implications for Human and Environmental Health, 114 ENV’T HEALTH PERSP. 1803 (2006).
136 Worst Kept Secrets: Toxic Inert Ingredients in Pesticides, NW. COAL. FOR ALT. TO PESTICIDES (Jan. 1998).
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Indeed, more robust testing of inert ingredients is warranted given that 209 inert ingredients are considered hazardous air or water pollutants, twenty-one have been classified as carcinogens, and 127 as occupational hazards by various agencies as of 1998.137 This information is known despite inert ingredients being concealed as trade secrets.138 And because the relative weights of inert ingredients within the formulation may be concealed just like their identities, a significant asterisk must be placed on the EPA’s reporting of pesticide applications, which are based solely on active ingredient application. Studies have estimated that inert ingredients comprise eighty-six percent of household pesticide formulations by weight.139 This means that the 1.1 billion pounds of active ingredients applied yearly, as reported by the EPA, is just a fraction of the roughly 7.9 billion pounds of pesticide formulations applied per year. Much of the difference is made up of potentially toxic or carcinogenic “inert” ingredients.140
Not only is this testing regime scientifically misguided because the inert ingredients themselves may cause harm, but inert ingredients can also amplify the effects of active ingredients.141 For example, Roundup, the pesticide formulation, is more toxic to human mononuclear cells than glyphosate, the active ingredient, on its own.142 Other studies have explained that this is likely due to inert ingredients altering the permeability of human cells and inducing cell death.143
139 Cox & Surgan, supra note 132.
140 ATWOOD & PAISLEY-JONES, supra note 12 at 9. To explain the math here, I simply divided the weight of applied active ingredient, 1.1 billion pounds, by its relative proportion in the pesticide formulation (fourteen percent, since inert ingredients comprise eighty-six percent of the formulation). This yields an approximate weight of 7.9 billion pounds of pesticide formulation applied each year.
141 Adriano Martínez et al., Cytotoxicity of the herbicide glyphosate in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells, 27 BIOMEDICA 594 (2007).
143 Nora Benachour & Gilles-Eric Séralini, Glyphosate formulations induce apoptosis and necrosis in human umbilical, embryonic, and placental cells, 22 CHEM. RSCH. IN TOXICOLOGY 97 (2009).
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Considering the toxicity of active ingredients in isolation cannot capture these synergistic drug interactions and, therefore, creates an ill-premised determination under FIFRA of whether a pesticide causes an unreasonable risk to humans or the environment. As such, in order to more realistically determine whether unreasonable risks to humans or the environment exist, FIFRA must be amended to test pesticide formulations as a whole—just as they are applied in the field—rather than conduct most of the testing on active ingredients alone.
Further, FIFRA registration testing should examine reasonably foreseeable drug interactions. Because applications of various pesticides in the field will often overlap, testing a single active ingredient or even a single formulation in isolation is unrealistic. Indeed, fungicides can amplify the toxicity of neonicotinoids by 1,000 times by precluding detoxification mechanisms in insects.144 Though these synergistic effects do not need to prejudice a given pesticide during registration determinations, these drug interactions can inform pesticide labeling pursuant to FIFRA that directs users not to apply certain pesticides with others. This would proceed in the same sense that your doctor hopefully tells you not to drink alcohol while prescribing opioids.
Another testing deficiency is that registration for aquatic pesticide use involves its own set of tests. But there is little functional difference between aquatic applications and terrestrial applications if it rains or is irrigated soon after. In such cases, testing based on where the pesticide is applied becomes arbitrary because water bodies can be polluted either way through runoff or agricultural return flows. Instead, the testing standard should function more practically to require testing wherever the pesticide has a reasonable likelihood of drifting or seeping to. This standard would reorient the testing to focus on environmental and human-health effects, as FIFRA instructs to guard against when unreasonable, and end the scientific misinformation of testing and registration processes. Rather, a testing standard based on where a pesticide has a reasonable likelihood of drifting could preclude pesticides
144 Julian Haas & Ralph Nauen, Pesticide risk assessment at the molecular level using honey bee cytochrome P450 enzymes: A complementary approach, 147 ENV’T INT. 106372 (2021).
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deemed unsafe for aquatic use from being applied on golf courses, farms, and stream banks that are immediately adjacent to waterbodies, in recognition of the likelihood of seepage and consequent environmental risks.
In similar disregard of precaution, FIFRA allows pesticides to be “conditionally registered.” This means a new active ingredient may be sold for an indeterminate time period as the applicant compiles toxicity and other data typical to the registration process—data that could reveal the conditionally registered pesticide was unsafe for use all along.145 And while there are some guardrails in FIFRA for when a pesticide may be conditionally registered, an NRDC investigation found that roughly 11,000 of the 16,000 registered active ingredients had been conditionally registered.146 The EPA has since verified these numbers.
Moreover, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the EPA is so disorganized that it cannot “track key information related to conditional registrations, including whether companies have submitted additional data within required time frames.” 147 And “[a]s a result, pesticides with conditional registrations could be marketed for years without [the] EPA’s receipt and review of these data.”148 Of course, this lack of informed decision-making is in part enabled by Merrell v. Thomas, which relieved the EPA of the need to conduct a NEPA analysis for pesticide registrations and has enabled the “leap before you look” approach of FIFRA’s conditional registrations.149 The process for conditional registrations must be scaled back significantly by amending FIFRA to mandate the clearance of the conditional registration backlog as well as creating stricter standards prospectively. Such a reform could use the Toxic Substances Control Act as a model, which was amended in 2016 to require the EPA to clear its lengthy backlog
146 JENNIFER SASS & MAE WU, SUPERFICIAL SAFEGUARDS: MOST PESTICIDES ARE APPROVED BY FLAWED EPA PROCESS (2013).
147 U.S. GOV. ACCOUNTABILITY OFF., PESTICIDES: EPA SHOULD TAKE STEPS TO IMPROVE ITS OVERSIGHT OF CONDITIONAL REGISTRATIONS (2013).
149 Merrell v. Thomas, 807 F.2d 776 (9th Cir. 1986).
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of existing chemicals by prioritizing those with the highest risk.150
All of these scientific deficiencies in FIFRA testing sit in the context of an already imbalanced scale. For example, it is much more difficult to revoke the registration of a pesticide than to approve it. In order to remove registration, the EPA is required to explore alternatives to revocation and prepare an impact report on the agricultural economy.151 This stands in stark contrast to there being no alternatives analysis for pesticide approval during FIFRA registrations, partly due to the inapplicability of NEPA.152 And local governments are largely preempted by states from governing to rebalance these scales.153
Similarly imbalanced, the EPA largely ignores the FQPA’s clear mandate that a tenfold margin of safety shall be applied when determining whether pesticide residue limits are safe for children and infants.154 The EPA may only reduce this margin of safety if reliable data shows that a lower margin of safety is reasonably certain to not harm children and infants.155 Despite this strong language, the EPA only implements any margin of safety whatsoever in rare cases, pushing the limits of its discretion; the GAO reports that twenty-two percent of pesticides used a tenfold safety factor, and sixty-one percent used no special safety factor whatsoever.156 In other words, the majority of pesticides have no additional safety factor to protect
150 Richard Denison, A Primer on the New Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and What Led to It, ENV’T DEF. FUND (Apr. 3, 2017), https://blogs.edf.org/health/2017/04/03/a-primer-on-the-new-toxic- substances-control-act-tsca-and-what-led-to-it/.
153 While the Supreme Court has held that FIFRA does not preempt state or local law, except under some narrow provisions, states are free to preempt local governments however they’d like. Wis. Pub. Intervenor v. Mortier, 501 U.S. 597 (1991). Indeed, forty-three states preempt local governments from regulating pesticides in any way that conflicts with state law. Matthew Porter, State Preemption Law: The Battle for Local Control of Democracy, BEYOND PESTICIDES (2013).
154 21 U.S.C. § 346a (b)(2)(C)(ii).
156 U.S. GOV. ACCOUNTABILITY OFF., EPA HAS MADE SUBSTANTIAL PROGRESS BUT COULD IMPROVE PROCESSES FOR CONSIDERING CHILDREN’S HEALTH, GAO-13-254 (2013).
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young humans, despite many studies finding that the developing brain, organs, and nervous system of kids are inherently more susceptible to toxic chemicals.157 Because the statutory language governing this safety factor seems quite clear, reform here may look like petitioning the EPA to implement more safety factors on the basis of scientific evidence establishing risks to children. The EPA may disagree. But a refusal to do so in the face of strong scientific evidence would build a record for a lawsuit under the Administrative Procedure Act alleging the EPA has acted arbitrarily and capriciously in so rarely applying this safety factor.
These fundamental issues with FIFRA testing could explain the contrary conclusions between the EPA and the IARC as to the level of carcinogenicity of glyphosate. The IARC reports “strong evidence” that glyphosate is characteristically carcinogenic to humans,158 while the EPA found “no evidence” that glyphosate causes cancer in humans.159 The EPA asserts that this difference is due to the EPA “consider[ing] a significantly more extensive and relevant dataset than the [IARC],” such as “studies submitted to support registration of glyphosate.”160 But this assertion does not stand up to scrutiny.
The tests relied upon by the IARC were predominantly peer- reviewed by independent experts, whereas the EPA relied more heavily on non-peer-reviewed studies commissioned by Monsanto (then the manufacturer of glyphosate).161 This doesn’t just smell like a conflict of interest: it is one. The EPA report on glyphosate included 104 studies on genotoxicity, fifty-two of which were taken from peer-reviewed studies and fifty-two of
157 Pesticides and Children, NAT’L PESTICIDE INFO. CTR., https://npic.orst.edu/health/child.html (last updated Nov. 8, 2024).
158 IARC, IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, 112 IARC MONOGRAPHS 398 (2017),
https://www.iarc.who.int/wp- content/uploads/2018/07/MonographVolume112-1.pdf.
159 Glyphosate, U.S. ENV’T PROT. AGENCY,
https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/glyphosate (last updated Jan. 14, 2025).
161 Charles M. Benbrook, How did the US EPA and IARC Reach Diametrically Opposed Conclusions on the Genotoxicity of Glyphosate- based Herbicides?, 31 ENV’T SCI. EUR. 2 (2019).
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which were commissioned by Monsanto.162 Of the fifty-two Monsanto studies, just one found genotoxicity, whereas thirty- five of the fifty-two peer-reviewed studies reported genotoxicity. These peer-reviewed studies were much closer to the IARC’s seventy-seven percent positive rate for genotoxicity.163 A thirty- fivefold difference in finding toxicity is no coincidence, and the EPA should not have glossed over these wildly discrepant testing outcomes. Similarly, when testing the entire herbicide formulation rather than just the active ingredient, zero Monsanto-supplied studies reported genotoxicity whereas seventy-five percent of peer-reviewed studies did.164 Another important difference is the IARC’s consideration of aminomethylphosphonic acid, a toxic chemical that is the primary derivative of glyphosate breaking down, whereas the EPA did not consider it. EPA reliance on industry-conducted toxicity tests could increase if President Trump is serious about cutting EPA spending by sixty-five percent.165
And of course, this begs the question: if glyphosate is as noncarcinogenic as the EPA purports—by relying on outlying, non-peer-reviewed, Monsanto-funded studies—why are American courts awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to plaintiffs who have developed cancer from handling glyphosate?166 These outcomes are not reconcilable. Either glyphosate is or is not carcinogenic. The weight of evidence, namely from the IARC, court trials, and peer-reviewed studies, points clearly toward carcinogenicity, while industry-funded studies stand alone in counterweight. Yet FIFRA does not capture this as the EPA considers whether glyphosate presents an unreasonable risk to the environment or humans. Testing procedures under FIFRA must be revised to avoid such
165 Alex Guillén, White House Says Trump Meant EPA Will Cut 65 Percent of Spending, Not Staff, ENV’T PROT. NETWORK (Feb. 26, 2025), https://www.environmentalprotectionnetwork.org/news/white-house- says-trump-meant-epa-will-cut-65-percent-of-spending-not-staff/.
166 Holly Yan, Jurors Give $289 Million to a Man They say got Cancer from Monsanto’s Roundup Weedkiller, CNN https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/10/health/monsanto-johnson-trial- verdict/index.html (last updated Aug. 11, 2018, 9:28 PM).
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discrepant testing outcomes between industry-funded studies, which are necessary to rely on given the EPA’s current budget, and other studies. In doing so, a reformed FIFRA should reflect the reality that inert ingredients can be just as harmful as active ingredients, that inert ingredients can amplify the toxicity of active ingredients, that pesticide formulation drug interactions occur to amplify toxicity in the field, and that pesticides are highly transient and can seep into ecosystems in which they are not registered for use. The same inadequacies exist in the reregistration process.167
Environmental Justice Reform
Of the forty-two different nations to which the United States exported pesticides deemed too unsafe for domestic registration between 2015 and 2019, eighty-one percent are considered low- middle-income countries.168 Further, seventy-eight percent of these countries have more than thirty percent of their agricultural workforces poisoned by pesticides each year.169 This obvious disregard for environmental justice has led some environmental organizations to petition the EPA to require prior informed consent from countries the United States wishes to export to—a petition that is still pending.170 Moreover, these exports can lead to a “circle of poison,” meaning banned pesticides get exported and used on crops that are imported back into the United States containing pesticide residue.171 Although FIFRA explicitly allows for the export of such pesticides, this is not incompatible with the precondition of obtaining prior, informed consent from export destinations.
The protections for occupational exposures to pesticides are also dangerously out-of-step with science—not just in the EPA’s testing, but also in statutory and regulatory contexts. EPA policy
168 Nathan Donley & Robert Bullard, US pesticide regulation is failing the hardest-hit communities. It’s time to fix it., BROOKINGS (Jan. 18, 2024), https://www.brookings.edu/articles/us-pesticide-regulation- is-failing-the-hardest-hit-communities-its-time-to-fix-it/.
170 Press Release, Ctr. For Biological Diversity, EPA Petitioned to Halt Export of U.S.-Banned Pesticides to Developing Countries Unless Approved by their Governments (Mar. 8, 2023) (on file with author).
171 Donley & Bullard, supra note 168.
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is to ignore occupational exposures when setting MRLs under the FQPA.172 The EPA has even admitted that “[n]o scientific justification exists for distinguishing between otherwise identical exposures based on whether they occurred on-the-job or not,” adding that this “can have significant environmental justice consequences.”173 However, the draft document containing this admission of scientific misguidedness was scrapped—perhaps due to the weight of opposition from the pesticide industry and the American Chemistry Council.174 The FQPA must be amended to explicitly guard against occupational exposures of pesticides, particularly by considering occupational exposures when setting MRLs. This would remove the discretion the EPA exercises to arbitrarily ignore occupational exposures. In the absence of such an amendment, it may make sense to once again petition the EPA to consider occupational exposures when setting MRLs and ask them to explain how they reversed course back to something that, according to the EPA, has no scientific justification.
There are other regulatory provisions within the EPA’s discretion to protect from occupational exposure to pesticides. For example, the EPA allows the reentry of workers into areas that have been applied with pesticides as quickly as two hours
172 See About Pesticide Tolerances, U.S. ENV’T PROT. AGENCY, https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-tolerances/about-pesticide-tolerances (last updated Sep. 9, 2024).
173 U.S. ENV’T PROT. AGENCY, OFF. OF PESTICIDE PROGRAMS, REVISED RISK ASSESSMENT METHODS FOR WORKERS, CHILDREN OF WORKERS IN AGRICULTURAL FIELDS AND PESTICIDES WITH NO FOOD
USES at 2, (Dec. 9, 2009), https://www.regulations.gov/document/EPA- HQ-OPP-2009-0889-0002.
174 CropLife Am., Comment Letter on Policy Paper on Revised Risk Assessment Methods for Workers, Children of Workers in Agricultural Fields, and Pesticides with No Food Uses (Apr. 13, 2010), https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OPP-2009-0889-0030; Dow AgroSciences, Comment Letter on Policy Paper on Revised Risk Assessment Methods for Workers, Children of Workers in Agricultural Fields, and Pesticides with No Food Uses (Apr. 16, 2010), https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OPP-2009-0889-0032; Am. Chemistry Council, Comment Letter on Policy Paper on Revised Risk Assessment Methods for Workers, Children of Workers in Agricultural Fields, and Pesticides with No Food Uses (Apr. 13, 2010), https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OPP-2009-0889-0029.
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after application.175 This waiting period must be significantly lengthened because it ignores the reality that pesticides can continue to volatilize—meaning to continuously evaporate into the breathable air from wherever applied—for days or weeks after application.176 EPA regulations, therefore, only protect workers from the inhalation of volatilized pesticides for a tiny fraction of the time that volatilization is occurring. This again speaks to the imbalanced scale favoring industry at the expense of human health and the environment. If the EPA were to prohibit reentry into application areas for multiple days, farms would have to significantly reduce pesticide application to minimize long waits for volatilization to occur. And this is also exactly what must happen to avoid continuing to injure hundreds of thousands of farm workers.
This presents another important environmental justice issue along with FIFRA expressly allowing exports of highly dangerous pesticides to primarily developing countries. After all, seventy-eight percent of all farmworkers identify as Hispanic and ten percent as Indigenous, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Survey.177 Further, roughly sixty-eight percent of farmworkers are immigrants, mostly from Mexico, and approximately forty-four percent are undocumented (which may be undercounted because of a fear of self-reporting undocumented status).178 Only about 12.5 percent have employer-provided health insurance, with less than half of all farmworkers having any health insurance whatsoever.179
175 40 C.F.R. § 170.405(b)(3).
176 Thirasant Boonupara et al., Airborne Pesticides from Agricultural Practices: A Critical Review of Pathways, Influencing Factors, and Human Health Implications, 11 TOXICS 858 (2023); Kim Doan Ngoc et al., Volatilisation of Pesticides After Application in Vegetable Greenhouses, 505 SCI. OF THE TOTAL ENV’T 670 (2015).
177 National Agricultural Workers Survey 2019-2020 Selected Statistics, FARMWORKER JUSTICE (June 2022), https://www.farmworkerjustice.org/wp- content/uploads/2022/06/NAWS-data-fact-sheet-FINAL.docx-3.pdf.
179 Id. Indeed, with just forty-eight percent of these workers insured whatsoever, and twenty-six percent of this insured subset receiving employer-provided insurance, just 12.5 percent of these workers have employer-provided insurance despite the health risks posed by occupational pesticide exposure.
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And despite the well-documented dangers of pesticide exposure, enabled by regulations that the EPA admits there is no scientific justification for, farmworkers make just $13.59 per hour on average.180
Without these reforms, many of the most vulnerable farm workers both domestically and abroad will continue to be disproportionately poisoned by pesticide exposure.
Policy Solutions and Lessons from
Other Countries
Apart from the reforms discussed above which target our environmental laws to reconcile their scientific integrity for pesticide law, there are many potential policy solutions that aim to reduce pesticide reliance while preserving the financial well- being of farmers. Many of these exist in other, more progressive countries but are feasible in the United States.
For example, Congress could subsidize farmers in an amount corresponding to their reduction of pesticide use. Importantly, this cannot be calculated simply by weight because technological innovations that reduce the necessary weights of pesticide application while increasing toxicity loading should not serve as the basis for subsidies. Some function of weight and toxicity could inform the calculation, which would incentivize farmers to not only use less pesticides but also select less toxic alternatives.
Importantly, because farmers are running on thin profit margins, they are likely to be understandably apprehensive about shifting away from pesticides—even if tempted by federal subsidies. As such, a necessary parallel action is to run a program that allows farmers who want to reduce pesticide usage to consult with the USDA or EPA. Having experts in non- pesticidal farming practices would provide an element of comfort to farmers. This is not unprecedented in the United States; in 2022, the EPA awarded $780,000 under the Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program to six universities to explore integrated pest management (“IPM”) farming, two of
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which actively guided farmers.181 IPM is an ecosystem-based strategy for pest prevention through a combination of techniques such as biological pest control with natural predators, physical prevention such as barriers and mulches, and other common- sense measures.182 Pesticides are used only when necessary, usually when pest monitoring reveals a pre-planned threshold is exceeded, and are specifically selected to minimize harm and toxicity.183
Conversely to subsidies, the Federal Government could place a tax on pesticides. While countries have implemented pesticide taxes in different ways, Denmark’s model is the most effective case study. The Danish method uses a flat tax based on the amount of active ingredient in the formulation plus a differentiated tax based on the expected load the pesticide places on human health, environmental fate, and environmental toxicity.184 By creating a tax that increases rapidly as environmental and human-health impacts worsen, Denmark is creating an incentive for farmers to select less toxic pesticides and use them more sparingly. Indeed, this tax has been effective; the Danish Environmental Protection Agency reported a forty percent decrease in pesticide loading between two years before and after the tax, and independent studies attribute sixteen percent of this reduction to the tax.185
The success of the Danish tax stands in contrast to countries that tax pesticides as a mere percentage of retail sales and fails to account for the varying toxicities of different pesticides.186
181 Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program Grants, U.S. ENV’T PROT. AGENCY, https://www.epa.gov/pesp/pesticide- environmental-stewardship-program-grants (last updated Apr. 24, 2024).
182 What is Integrated Pest Management (IPM)?, https://ipm.ucanr.edu/what-is-ipm/#gsc.tab=0 (last visited Apr. 6, 2025).
184 DANISH ENV’T PROT. AGENCY, Load Tax Related to Plant Protection Products, , https://eng.mst.dk/chemicals/pesticides/pesticide-tax (last visited Apr. 6, 2025).
185 Helle Ørsted Nielsen et al., Ex-post Evaluation of the Danish Pesticide Tax: A Novel and Effective Tax Design, 126 LAND USE POL’Y 106549 (2023).
186 Id.
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Such a method could even incentivize farmers to choose more toxic pesticides to minimize the weight they purchase, lessening their tax burden without a concrete environmental or human- health benefit.
In addition to more direct policies to reduce pesticide loads, like the subsidies and taxes discussed above, there are indirect ways to reduce pesticide reliance. For example, the Federal Government could strengthen grant programs—potentially even funded by the pesticide tax—for local governments to create and maintain pesticide-free community gardens. Community gardens reduce consumer reliance on corporate farms that heavily use pesticides. To USDA’s credit, it has awarded $46.8 million since 2020 to support urban agriculture (Denmark collects twice this much each year in revenue from its pesticide tax187).188 Community gardens also create important habitats for pollinators and other organisms to mitigate the population declines caused in part by pesticides,189 not to mention the reduced climate footprint of sourcing locally.
To ensure competitiveness in the global agricultural market as pesticides continue to be banned or restricted by many of our trade partners, the United States must reassess its standard for setting MRLs. For example, Captan—a fungicide deemed a “probable human carcinogen” by the EPA190—has an MRL of 25 parts per million on grapes in the United States. But the MRL in the EU for table grapes is just 0.03 milligrams per kilogram (equivalent to 0.03 parts per million).191 In other words, the
187 Anders B. Pedersen, Pesticide Tax in Denmark, INST. FOR EUR. ENV’T POL’Y, https://ieep.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/DK-Pesticide- Tax-final.pdf (last visited Apr. 6, 2025).
188 Applications for USDA Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production Grants Due April 9, U.S. DEP’T OF AGRIC. NAT. RES. CONSERVATION SERV. (Mar. 19, 2024),
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/news/applications-for-usda-urban- agriculture-and-innovative-production-grants-due-april-9.
189 Zackary Litalien, Creating Urban Pollinator Hot Spots, POLLINATOR P’SHIP (Apr. 12, 2019),
https://www.pollinator.org/creating-urban-pollinator-hot-spots.
190 U.S. ENV’T PROT. AGENCY, Captan,
https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-09/documents/captan.pdf (last visited Apr. 6, 2025).
191 40 C.F.R. § 180.103(a); Commission Regulation (EU) 2019/1015, EUR-LEX (June 21, 2019), https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
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United States permits 833 times as much potentially carcinogenic Captan residue on its grapes than does the EU. This is not an outlier, as there are many such cases of U.S. MRLs being consistently much higher than in the EU.192 Because of this, the EU has restricted or banned imports of various U.S. products.193
Finally, countries around the world should create a global trade partnership to exclusively import from countries that endeavor to meet the goals of the partnership. These could include setting goals to proportionally reduce pesticide toxicity loads, restricting the trade of foods containing certain pesticide residues, or at the very least creating a system of prior and informed consent, and reaching IPM milestones. This could exist alongside other global partnerships to strengthen diplomatic relations, such as the Minerals Security Partnership, in which partnering countries agree to responsibly source critical minerals that are free from unethical employment practices and environmental degradation.194 In this way, global exports of humankind’s most toxic pesticides into developing countries would lessen—a critical measure for ensuring environmental justice.
Conclusion
Especially in the 21st century, the United States has become dangerously out of step compared to its allies in pesticide regulation. And while a global partnership for pesticides as described above could increase accountability and reduce
content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32019R1015.
192 For general comparison, find the U.S. MRLs at 40 C.F.R. §§ 180.101–727 and EU MRLs within its more ergonomic database: Pesticide Residues, EUR. COMM’N, https://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/eu-pesticides- database/start/screen/mrls (last visited Apr. 6, 2025).
193 Pesticides: No Residues of EU-banned Products in Imported Food, EUR. PARLIAMENT (Sept. 18, 2024, 12:21 PM),
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press- room/20240917IPR24036/pesticides-no-residues-of-eu-banned- products-in-imported-food.
194 Minerals Security Partnership, U.S. DEP’T OF STATE, https://www.state.gov/minerals-security-partnership (last visited Apr. 6, 2025).
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environmental injustice, much more fundamental reform is needed. This begins with the very first provision in FIFRA, which defines “active ingredients” in a scientifically nonsensical way to exclude many carcinogens and hazardous pollutants, and extends deep into the regulatory trenches.195 These issues infest the testing process, which fails to capture the full breadth of danger that a particular pesticide formulation presents in realistic scenarios. And these dangers combine with insufficient occupational protections—some of which the EPA has admitted there are no scientific justifications for—as well as the ability to export unregistered pesticides to developing countries to form serious environmental injustices to farmworkers and foreign countries.
On top of this, to alleviate the increased regulatory burden that would result from reconciling these laws with science and allies in the EU, the United States should explore additional programs to reduce our society’s reliance on pesticides. These could include subsidies for farmers willing to transition to IPM instead of defaulting to harmful pesticides, taxing pesticides according to their threat to environmental and human-health, and funding community gardens to provide pesticide-free food to humans and habitat to pollinators.
Without these changes, the United States will continue to lag behind other nations in regulating pesticides, to the detriment of human health and wildlife populations from pollinators to birds to mountain lions—all while Rachel Carson’s famous warning in “A Fable for Tomorrow” walks ever-closer to becoming a Fable for Today.196
196 CARSON, supra note 1.