Ending 14 years of regulatory and court battles, the EPA announced on Wednesday that it would ban agricultural use of the insecticide chlorpyrifos, which has been linked to learning disorders and can cause nausea, dizziness, and confusion. Regulators ended residential use of the pesticide, which works by attacking the nervous systems of insects, two decades ago.
Developed by Dow, chlorpyrifos was approved by the EPA in 1965 and has since been used on a wide variety of crops, including corn, soybeans, cotton, vegetables, and fruit and nut trees. Corteva, created out of the merger of Dow and DuPont, said last year it would end production of the organophosphate pesticide, sold under the brand names Lorsban and Dursban, due to declining sales. Other companies continue to make it.
“Today EPA is taking an overdue step to protect public health,” said EPA administrator Michael Regan. “Ending the use of chlorpyrifos on food will help to ensure children, farmworkers, and all people are protected from the potentially dangerous consequences of this pesticide.”
In a news release, the agency said that chlorpyrifos, by inhibiting an enzyme, can disrupt the nervous system and has been associated with potential neurological effects in children. The EPA said it will revoke its so-called tolerances for residues of chlorpyrifos on food and revoke registered food uses of chlorpyrifos associated with them.
Two environmental groups petitioned for an agricultural ban in 2007, setting off years of regulatory and judicial tussles. The EPA was moving toward eliminating the pesticide’s agricultural uses a few years ago, but the Trump administration reversed course. Earlier this year, the U.S. appeals court in San Francisco scolded the EPA for “13 years of interminable delay” and told it to promptly ban chlorpyrifos or set newer and safer exposure limits for it. “The court is itself being more than tolerant,” said the 2-1 decision. “But the EPA’s time is up.”
California, Hawaii, New York, Maryland, and Oregon phased out use of the pesticide while the EPA was deciding what to do.
“Science has clearly shown that chlorpyrifos is too dangerous to be used to grow our food,” said senior scientist Miriam Rotkin-Ellman of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the groups that filed the 2007 petition. “The Trump EPA had allowed the continued use of this toxic pesticide, even though they knew it is damaging to human health — especially the developing brains of children.”
The EPA is conducting a registration review, required periodically by law, for chlorpyrifos, which has non-food uses. Some pesticides are available as alternatives to chlorpyrifos in agriculture, it said.