Rebuffing the Department of Agriculture (DOA), the Justice Department yesterday announced that it will not seek rehearing of a recent significant environmental decision.
In January, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a Bush EPA decision that the spraying of pesticides into the nation’s waters should no longer be regulated by the Clean Water Act. The Court held that pesticide residuals and biological pesticides constitute pollutants under federal law and therefore must be regulated under the Clean Water Act in order to minimize the impact to human health and the environment.
However, the issues reveals a split in the Obama administration.
In a letter dated March 6, 2009, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack had asked EPA Administrator Jackson to request reversal of the 6th Circuit’s decision in January that invalidated a Bush EPA rule exempting pesticide spraying around waterways from the Clean Water Act regulations.
The EPA did not grant the request, but said it will seek to continue the Bush rule for two years, despite the court ruling it illegal.
"This part of the EPA’s decision is troubling" said Tebbutt, but he added "I expect that the 6th Circuit will deny the request to keep an illegal rule in place."
The court decision simply reinstates the law as it was before Bush’s intervention in 2006 and numerous states had permits in place prior to the rule change. "It will not be the great hardship that the pesticide industry has concocted. It is time to reinstate the full protections to our nation’s rivers, lakes and streams envisioned by the Clean Water when it was passed in 1972" Tebbutt concluded.
In Related News…
The EPA is reconsidering whether to compel dry cleaners to phase out perchloroethylene, a cancer-causing chemical used in tens of thousands of operations nationwide.
The hazardous air pollutant linked to cancer and neurological damage, has been the source of a long-running fight between environmental groups and the federal government.
Read the full Washington Post report at the link below.
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