Schwarzenegger urges U.S. to appeal ruling on pesticide permitting
Posted on April 10th, 2009.jpg)
By: Colin Sullivan
GreenWire: California’s governor pressed U.S. EPA yesterday to help overturn a recent court decision that could limit the use of some pesticides and possibly lead to an outbreak of the West Nile virus.
In a letter to the agency administrator, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) took issue with a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision handed down in January that subjects some previously exempt pesticides to permit reviews under the Clean Water Act.
Schwarzenegger said the ruling, which routes some pesticides through the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System for permitting, amounts to “unnecessary and duplicative” bureaucracy, as the chemicals are already regulated under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act.
The ruling could also hurt the state’s effort to control mosquito populations that have been linked to the West Nile virus by diverting resources from key agencies, Schwarzenegger said. He urged EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to request a rehearing of the case.
“It is imperative that the Sixth Circuit decision be overturned to allow effective mosquito control to continue to protect the public health of Californians,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “Failure to defend the rule will almost certainly lead to severe unintended consequences for public health programs.”
The governor went on to cite the “dire” economic situation among farmers in the Central Valley and said the permits would add enormous costs. Moreover, Schwarzenegger said the court decision would impair the state’s ability to control invasive species such as the gypsy moth, the medfly and the Asian citrus psyllid.
“The Asian citrus psyllid has nearly destroyed Florida’s citrus industry, and the gypsy moth has stripped large swaths of forests in several states,” the letter says. “The application of various pesticides to eradicate invasive species on a timely basis is a critical tool.”
A recent post on the court’s decision by the “Environmental Law & Climate Change Law Blog” seems to downplay the significance of the decision, saying one solution that may satisfy California is for EPA to issue a general permit for application of pesticides, rather than twin permits under the competing federal statutes.
The blog post added that the court may have ruled in favor of environmental groups that pushed the matter, but it also noted the proposed fix.
“The court, despite ruling in the environmentalists’ favor, showed the EPA the way out of the wilderness,” the blog says.
The 6th Circuit in January, in National Cotton Council of America v. U.S. EPA, overturned a 2007 decision at EPA to exempt some pesticides from the Clean Water Act’s permitting requirements. The court rejected EPA’s claim that the rule was a “reasonable construction” of the act.
Even so, a spokeswoman for the governor insisted the best action is to take the matter back to court.
“The recent Sixth Circuit Court decision, if not overturned, would impose a series of unnecessary, redundant, costly and burdensome requirements, delaying action to irradiate adult mosquitoes that carry the deadly West Nile virus,” Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Lisa Page wrote in an e-mail.